Advocacy Memo – I’m doing something totally different now

There are about 170,000 undocumented immigrants in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and generally they are ineligible for in-state tuition at publicly-funded colleges.  You can grow up on my street, sit next to me in class all through grade school, walk right after me at commencement–but if you lack an immigration status, you might be paying twice as much as I am to go to the same college.

My advocacy project’s purpose will be to encourage people to contact their state representatives and ask them to bring PA Senate Bill 35 back into the spotlight and vote to approve it, because as a law this bill would effectively provide in-state tuition for all students who spend at least their final two years at a Pennsylvania high school and receive a diploma or equivalency certificate.

The audience for this project will be Pennsylvania voters, because as constituents they can contact their state representatives with a decent chance of being heard.  This is a little messy, because I’m trying to convince you to convince your representative to convince the Pennsylvania Senate to vote on this bill, but in a republic this is kind of the way it has to be.

I intend to produce a video using footage of graduations from real Pennsylvania high schools that ends with an appeal hinting that unauthorized immigrants have always been right there with us in class, and that there is no reason this shouldn’t continue into college,   because all Pennsylvanians should have access to in-state tuition at state schools–therefore, call your state representative and ask them to support PA Senate Bill 35.