Florida Moves to Ban Undocumented Students From Job-Training Programs

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The Florida Department of Education is writing new enrollment standards for postsecondary career and technical education, commonly called CTE. Under the draft, anyone applying to a CTE program run through a district technical college, a Florida College System institution, or a high school would first have to prove they are a U.S. citizen or are lawfully present in the country. The department’s language requires “clear and convincing” documentation that is also “credible, precise, and compelling” — phrasing lifted almost word-for-word from the rule it already applied to the state’s public colleges. A public workshop on the proposal is set for Aug. 18, held online, and the department has not proposed a date for the rule to take effect.

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{snip} According to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal’s current data, Florida has just over 60,000 undocumented students enrolled in higher education statewide.

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The CTE proposal follows almost line-for-line the rule the State Board of Education approved on June 30, which requires citizenship or lawful presence for admission to any of the state’s 28 public colleges, as well as the adult education classes that prepare students for the GED. The board passed it 6-1, with member Daniel Foganholi Sr. casting the lone dissent. Filed with the Department of State, that rule is on track to take effect around July 20. A parallel measure covering Florida’s 12 public universities — overseen separately by the Board of Governors — cleared an earlier procedural hurdle in June and is scheduled for a final vote at the board’s Sept. 2 meeting, with a target start date of the 2027-28 academic year.

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Florida’s posture toward undocumented students has flipped entirely in just over a decade. In 2014, then-Gov. Rick Scott signed legislation letting undocumented students who graduated from Florida high schools pay in-state tuition rates. That protection disappeared last year, when DeSantis signed an immigration package repealing the waiver — a change that, according to WUSF’s reporting, left some affected students paying nearly triple their previous tuition.

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