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Students rally for in-state tuition for students who grew up in New Jersey but do not have legal immigration status.

(Jerry McCrea/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — Karol Ruiz, an immigrant advocate from Dover, said Gov. Chris Christie twice promised her during the election campaign that he would sign a bill to grant in-state tuition rates to immigrants who grew up in New Jersey but are here illegally.

"I asked him directly if he was serious about his support," Ruiz said during a conference call Tuesday with supporters of the bill. "He said yes and it would get passed in the lame duck session."

Tuesday, Ruiz — a Seton Hall law student and intern at the Wind of the Spirit Immigrant Resource Center — said she feared Christie was looking for excuses to break that promise, made not just to her but to Latinos across the state during the final weeks of his re-election campaign.

In a radio interview Monday night, Christie said he would not sign the version of the Dream Act that has passed the state Senate (S2479) and is expected to be taken up soon by the Assembly.

"I want tuition equality for folks, but I don’t want a program that’s richer than the federal program and richer than other states which could make us become a magnet state for people," he said.

Those comments drew outrage and pushback from Democrats and immigrant rights advocates.

"That is not what he said to the Dover Latino community when he was campaigning in our town just a month ago," Ruiz said.

Advocates noted that while the federal bill is also known as the Dream Act, Christie’s criticism made no sense because the two pieces of legislation deal with separate issues related to immigration.

The federal bill creates a pathway to citizenship for immigrants who came here when they were young but don’t have legal status, while the New Jersey bill allows them to pay in-state tuition and become eligible for financial aid.

"I don’t understand what he means by that," said Assemblyman Gordon Johnson (D-Bergen), the prime sponsor of the measure in the lower house, referring to Christie’s comments. Johnson said he plans to amend the Assembly version to include the financial aid component.

To be eligible to pay in-state tuition, immigrants would have had to attend high school in New Jersey for at least three years. The bill would also require them to file an affidavit saying they planned to legalize their status.

In the radio interview, Christie went on to criticize the bill because out-of-state residents would be eligible for in-state tuition if they went to a private high school in New Jersey.

"We asked the Senate to fix it. They didn’t," he said.

But advocates said the bill was purposely written that way so it does not violate a federal law that bans offering immigrants without legal status anything that is not offered to citizens.

"It’s a red herring. There is no flaw in the bill," Ruiz said.

Advocates also said that the bill had been circulating largely in the same form for 10 years, and that it had not changed since Christie first expressed support for it.

"This bill hasn’t changed a lick," said Hetty Rosenstein, state director for the Communications Workers of America.

State Sen. Teresa Ruiz, its sponsor in the Senate, said in a statement that Christie’s proposal would "essentially gut the bill."

Other supporters of the measure questioned just how many out-of-state private school students would enroll at New Jersey’s public colleges.

"This is so ludicrous. How many people can we possibly be talking about?" Rosenstein said.

Colin Reed, a spokesman for Christie, declined to elaborate on the governor’s comments.

But Democrats charged that Christie had expressed support for the bill when he was running for governor so he could win votes from the Latino community. He got it, winning 51 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls. Now that he’s considering a run for president, they said, his calculations have changed.

"The Dream Act will reach the governor’s desk, and after he committed to the families from Vineland to Union City to sign the bill," Senate President Stephen Sweeney said in a statement. "When he was running for governor he supported it. Now that he is running for president he does not."

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