Professional Documents
Culture Documents
2015-2016
IN THE
_______________
v.
__________________
(2) Whether the Fair Education Act violates A.R.H.s right to equal protection of the law
as applied to the Congress of the United States through the Fifth Amendment of the
Constitution?
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. Due process does protect everyone under the law, but that does not mean that
citizens and undocumented individuals have to be treated the same exact
way........................................................................................................................ 1
1. A.R.H. is not being discriminated against unfairly............................. 2
2. Not having the proper documentation does not completely bar
someone from obtaining any sort of education................................... 3
B. Strict scrutiny is not the appropriate standard of review; the proper standard of
review is rational basis, which the government meets.......................................... 4
1. Even if the court does not recognize strict scrutiny and goes to the
heightened scrutiny in Pyler v. Doe, heightened scrutiny is not
applicable either.................................................................................. 4
2. If undocumented individuals are not willing to try to become citizens
of the United States there is no way of knowing where their loyalty
with this country stands...................................................................... 5
C. The Federal Government has plenary power in the area of regulating immigration
and their interest is enacting laws to regulate immigration and disincentivize
illegal immigration............................................................................................... 6
Conclusion........................................................................................................................ 9
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES
Statutes
Constitutional Provisions
Cases on Record
Cf. Buckman Co. v. Plaintiffs Legal Comm. 531 U. S. 341 348 (2001) ........................ 7
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CONSTITUTIONAL AND STATUTORY PROVISIONS
A) DACA applies to persons both in removal proceedings and not currently in removal
proceedings.
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(3)Is currently in school, has graduated from high school, has obtained a general
education development certificate (GED), or is an honorably discharged
veteran of the United States Armed Forces or Coast Guard;
(4)Has not been convicted of a felony offense, a significant misdemeanor
offense, multiple misdemeanor offenses, or otherwise poses a threat to
national security or public safety; and
(5)Was under the age of 31 as of June 15, 2012.
C) No individual should receive deferred action unless they first pass a background
check.
Section5:EverypostsecondaryschoolshallsubmitprooftotheUnitedStates
DepartmentofHomelandSecuritythatitsstudentsarelegallyentitledtopursuea
postsecondaryeducationintheUnitedStatesanditsterritories.
Section6:Nothinginthislawshallbeconstruedtoauthorizeapostsecondaryschool
toviolateanystate,local,orfederallaw.
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Section7:TheActshalltakeeffectonJanuary1,2015
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STATEMENT OF THE CASE
The parties have stipulated to the following facts. A.R.H. came to the United
States at six months old. The Record 7. It was when A.R.H. began applying to colleges
that AR.H. and her mother discovered that she was not an American Citizen. A.R.H.s
mother believed that because she was married to an American Citizen that her and A.R.H.
automatically became citizens as well, their family would travel to Canada for vacation,
sometimes staying months there and the whole time they did not realize that they were
undocumented. Id., at 7.
In 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Fair Education Act (the Act) into
law. The purpose of the Act was to forbid private colleges or universities from accepting
undocumented people into their institutions; the Act took effect on January 1, 2015. The
Act is aimed to disincentivize illegal immigration for the purposes of education, but
allows for students coming legally into the United States to obtain degrees. The Act
requires each college and university to submit proof that the students enrolled in their
institutions are citizens of the United States. Id., at 2. In light of the Act, President Obama
enacted a policy that would let undocumented individuals enroll in higher education
without necessarily being documented. The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
(DACA), DACA allowed for certain individuals meeting the criteria who came to the
United States to enroll into higher education without the threat of deportation. Id., at 3.
When A.R.H. discovered she was undocumented she applied for DACA, but did
not meet the requirements. She was ineligible for DACA because she left the country for
more than 90 days at a time on multiple occasions, failing the requirement of continuous
residency and she failed the requirement of having a clean record because she was
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convicted of multiple misdemeanor offenses, including underage drinking and cow-
tipping. She applied to Kedesh College because they accepted undocumented students.
Kedesh accepted A.R.H. and offered her the scholarship they reserve for undocumented
students, but because of the Fair Education Act and the fact that she was ineligible for
DACA, Kedesh had to rescind their acceptance of A.R.H. to comply with the law. Id., at
7. The issues in this case are all legal and reviewed de novo. Id., at 8.
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SUMMARY OF ARGUMENTS
The Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment is similar to the Equal
Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, in that both clauses allow for anyone
regardless of their citizenship status to be protected under the laws in the United States.
Bolling v. Sharpe established that although the Due Process Clause is a safeguard for
people from being violated by state laws, it is not mutually exclusive to the Equal
Protection Clause, which is a more explicit safeguard, but even so the Federal
Government would not be imposed to a lesser duty; therefore the two clauses are
synonymous because the Fifth Amendment does not have an Equal Protection Clause.
Even though those who are undocumented are guaranteed protection under the law, it
does not mean that citizens do not have some sort of advantages over those who are not
citizens, because if that were the case then there would be no need to differentiate
The case Matthews v. Diaz is controlling in this case because the court established
that those who are undocumented are not guaranteed the advantages that citizens have.
The court also established that undocumented citizens are not receiving invidious
treatment simply because they are not getting all the advantages of citizenship. In order
someone to has to fall within a suspect class. A.R.H. met neither requirement because as
this court held in Plyler v. Doe: education is not a fundamental right, she also failed to fall
within the bounds of a suspect class because one is categorized into a suspect class over
something they cannot change, for example race. A.R.H. was never discriminated
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upon race, the problem was that she does not have the proper documentation to enroll in
higher education, but her race was never an issue because there are many people that live
The Fair Education Act does not infringe upon any rights because as previously
noted education is not a right. Strict scrutiny is not the proper standard of review; the
related to the Governments role in controlling the amount of illegal immigrants entering
the United States. In Plyler v. Doe, the court recognized that undocumented aliens cannot
be treated as a suspect class because their presence in this country in violation of federal
law is not a constitutional irrelevancy, meaning that they are coming here against the
law and strict scrutiny would not be an appropriate test. In Plyler the court offered a
heightened scrutiny for minor children, but the distinction is that A.R.H. is no longer a
minor seeking to enroll in primary and secondary education. A.R.H. is trying to obtain a
post-secondary degree and therefore she would not be protected under the heightened
scrutiny either.
The Federal Government has plenary power in the area of regulating immigration.
The restrictions on education are just an incidental effect of the governments goal to
disincentivize illegal immigration. The court in Arizona v. United States says that The
Supremacy Clause provides a clear rule that federal law shall be the supreme Law of the
Land, therefore Congress has the power to preempt state law. In this case the colleges
and universities need to abide by the Fair Education Act even if it is inconsistent with
their standards as a university because conflicting with the federal framework would
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