Look, I want to walk you through something that's been playing out in Sacramento and directly affects a lot of families we work with in the Bay Area. According to CalMatters Housing, Governor Newsom just vetoed a bill for the second time that would have allowed undocumented college students to work on campus at California's public universities and community colleges.
Here's what was actually on the table. The bill, introduced by an assemblymember from Southern California, rested on a particular legal argument. It claimed that a decades-old federal law against hiring workers without authorization doesn't technically apply to state governments because the law was written in a way that doesn't specifically name states as employers. The idea was straightforward enough: letting an estimated 60,000 undocumented students at California's public colleges earn wages on campus in a legitimate way, rather than working under the table for cash.
The governor wasn't buying it, though. In his veto message, according to the reporting, Newsom expressed concern that adopting this legal theory would open California's higher education system to federal retaliation. He worried about potential criminal and civil liability for state employees. He also said the matter needs to be resolved by federal courts first before California moves forward.
This is actually part of a longer story. The University of California itself had explored whether it could hire these students, but backed away from that in 2024 out of similar concerns about federal punishment. That decision frustrated students who had been pushing for it. After the governor's first veto in 2024, a student and former lecturer sued the UC system. A state appeals court actually sided with the students, saying the UC's fear of federal action wasn't sufficient legal grounds to refuse hiring undocumented workers. The UC appealed that, but California's Supreme Court didn't overturn the lower court's ruling. Still, that court decision didn't actually weigh in on whether the underlying legal theory itself is sound.
What I'm seeing locally among families and students in the Bay Area is real financial strain. These undocumented students can get in-state tuition waivers and attend public universities without paying tuition, which is great. But without access to federal financial aid like Pell grants, campus employment becomes critical for making college actually affordable. This keeps dragging on while thousands of students work in the shadows instead of having legitimate campus positions that could align with their studies. Until a federal court weighs in on this legal theory or something changes legislatively, we're going to keep seeing this cycle repeat.
