REP. AYALA: (128th)
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I've heard a lot of arguments today, passionate arguments and ideological arguments. I'd like to provide maybe a different face, a different piece to this, a piece that you probably are not aware of yet. I'm an educator. I've been teaching in the Bridgeport School System for 13 years.
And I've seen the faces of the kids we're talking about today. I've seen these very same kids work diligently, supersede the expectations of many of their classmates, graduate, often in the top ten percent, in many cases, valedictorians of their classes. These kids are not looking for a handout. They're not looking for a leg up.
They're not asking for quotas to be set. That's not what they're asking for. What they're asking for is what they deserve. Based on merit, like I've heard earlier this evening someone mention. These kids work hard. We sit here and say, how could it be that they don't know what their status is.
Well, when you have a young lady or a young man who worked the four years in high school and when he or she walks the line the graduate on what should be their proudest moment, and they come and hug you and cry and say that this is the last of their education, that's got to tug at your heart. It just has to.
It tugs at mine. And it's amazing that we can sit here and not grant the opportunity to a person, a young man or a young woman who works so hard to do what is right, to exceed, to do everything that the State of Connecticut asks this student to do to graduate. They fulfill their requirements to the State of Connecticut.
And yet, when they want to go forward to higher education, there's a roadblock. It's mind-boggling. I don't understand it. I heard earlier the argument about a July 1st deadline, and that may be true.
But in high percentages, the students we're talking about today, are students that are probably more likely to be going the route of the community college route.
Not because they couldn't exceed at a UConn or a Southern or a Western, but because the fact of life is that the community college route is probably the most economical way for them to get higher education, to go to college.
They can't apply for scholarships, well, scholarships they could apply for. But they can't apply for financial aid because it's not granted to them.
And all we're saying is, let's have a level playing field for these kids. They deserve it. They worked hard. And in many instances, like I said before, they've superseded those kids who we would deem as legal, which I take some exception to, because I don't think that anyone is legal or illegal.
People are here without documents. They're undocumented. They're undocumented. No one is illegal. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.