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03/29/2024 03:02 AM
Pennsylvania State Senate
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdocs/Legis/CSM/showMemoPublic.cfm?chamber=S&SPick=20170&cosponId=21300
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Senate Co-Sponsorship Memoranda

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Senate of Pennsylvania
Session of 2017 - 2018 Regular Session

MEMORANDUM

Posted: December 12, 2016 12:25 PM
From: Senator John C. Rafferty, Jr.
To: All Senate members
Subject: Prohibition of state funds for "Sanctuary Campuses"
 
In the very near future, I will be introducing legislation that prohibits any form of state funding to any public or private institution of higher education that designates itself as a “sanctuary campus”, refuses to share information about undocumented students, or in any way impedes the federal government's ability to enforce federal immigration laws.

The recent efforts being made by certain Pennsylvania colleges and universities to declare themselves sanctuary campuses invites the circumvention of the rule of law, particularly federal immigration law.

Legal immigration in our country is an orderly process that hundreds of thousands of individuals have navigated in order to become U.S. citizens. Promoting the defiance of this process discredits those who have complied with federal immigration laws and have become legal citizens through the immigration system. Providing taxpayer funding to institutions of higher learning who harbor undocumented aliens is not fair to those tax paying citizens who have adhered to our laws and sends a terrible message to the citizens of Pennsylvania that breaking the law is subjective and will be overtly overlooked in certain situations to advance political agendas.

President John Adams described our nation as, “A government of laws, and not of men”. In Pennsylvania our institutions of higher education should not have the option to choose which laws they intend to follow. If they voluntarily chose to defy federal laws and refuse to assist in enforcing them, then we will refuse to assist them with Commonwealth funding. Please join me in co-sponsoring this legislation.



Introduced as SB273