Jose Antonio Vargas speaks at protest

From the steps of South Building Tuesday morning, Jose Antonio Vargas, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and reporter, called for greater access to higher education for immigrant students.

Vargas’ speech focused mainly on those immigrants in the U.S. without documentation — immigrants like him.

“If it wasn’t for a private scholarship, I wouldn’t have been able to attend college for four years,” said Vargas to a small but impassioned crowd of protestors.

In a 2011 New York Times Magazine story, Vargas revealed his identity as an immigrant who came to the country illegally from the Philippines at a young age. Since then, he has worked as an advocate for immigrants without documentation, participating in events such as Tuesday’s protest at UNC for immigrant education rights.

The protest was part of an initiative called “One State, One Rate,” which was spearheaded by UNC’s Students United for Immigrant Equality.

After a press conference, the group presented a petition with 888 signatures to Chancellor Carol Folt’s office calling for in-state tuition rates for students without documentation.

Senior Maria Rodriguez, the co-chairwoman of the group, said she was involved in the event to show support for immigrants without documentation across the state — including her sister.

“I was very afraid for very long to tell my story, but this campaign is an amazing opportunity for me to say that it would be unfair for my sister, who is a junior in high school, to not attend UNC when she is more brilliant than I have ever been,” she said.

Rodriguez said she could not bear the thought of seeing her sister lose the same educational opportunities that she has.

The One State, One Rate campaign, which began Sept. 9, asks the University to grant in-state tuition to students here illegally.

“The biggest barrier is not language for us immigrants; it’s money and the cost of tuition,” said Emilio Vicente, a member of SUIE and a junior at UNC. “That’s the reason there aren’t many undocumented students here.”

Vargas, a major speaker at Tuesday’s event, founded the Define American campaign to change the conversation about immigration in the U.S. Vargas said he attended Tuesday’s protest after hearing about the event on Facebook.

Vargas said his opportunities as an immigrant without documentation were the exception, rather than the rule.

“Given the failure of the federal government to act on this issue, I think it is incumbent upon states and leaders of universities to do the right thing and to make the right decisions,” Vargas said.

Vicente said like Vargas, he wouldn’t have been able to attend college without a full scholarship.

“I came to the U.S. from Guatemala when I was 6,” Vicente said.

“My parents didn’t qualify for visas because they weren’t wealthy.”

He said there are fewer than 20 students without documentation at UNC and most of them are not full-time. Vicente said there was no logical reason not to support the campaign’s efforts.

“The main argument against this campaign is that we don’t pay our taxes,” he said. “I have an independent tax identification number, and a lot of people I know pay taxes.”

Freshman Regan Buchanan, a member of SUIE, said if society wants people to improve themselves, it needs to give them equal access to education.

“If we want people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps, we need to provide them with an education,” Buchanan said. “We can’t control where we’re born, after all.”

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