Former Mecklenburg Sheriff Jim Pendergraph, now a federal official with the Department of Homeland Security, has advised the state of North Carolina that federal law does not prohibit illegal immigrants from attending N.C. community colleges or public universities. Writing on behalf of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the former sheriff said that admission to those facilities is not a forbidden "benefit" to undocumented immigrants if no public grants or other monetary assistance is provided, and that states may decide whether to admit them or bar them. In the absence of state policy, individual campuses may make their own rules -- but campuses that do admit students must identify "which students are illegal aliens."
Here's a link to the letter from Pendergraph, head of the Homeland Security office of state and federal relations, to the state Justice Department.
And here's a link to a letter from the Justice Department's J.B. Kelly to the N.C. Department of Community Colleges reversing an earlier advisory from the department.
