Speaking Out for House Bill 1576

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Eric Garcia

Left to Right: Billy Reeves, Jose Ochoa, Irene Medrano, Eric Garcia, and Sebastian Suarez.

Sophomore Eric Garcia (second from right) with Representative Carrie Lewis Delrosso, Yeny Romero, of PA Immigrant Citizenship Coalition (PICC) and Head of the Tuition Equity Campaign, Billy Reeves, Jose Ochoa, Irene Medrano, and Sebastian Suarez.

I’m a part of a Hispanic organization called Casa San Jose and they recently gave me a chance to volunteer for a trip to Harrisburg on October 25, 2021, to talk to representatives about House Bill 1576.

This house bill is for tuition equity, for any undocumented who comes to the United States and wants to go to college.

It is twice as much as state tuition, and the thing we were trying to do was at least try to lower the price of the cost for undocumented students, so probably $100k+ just to attend college for someone who is undocumented.

Imagine having to pay that much money!!!

A few representatives I talked to were Representatives Mark Longietti (Democrat), Brandon Markosek (Democrat), Jake Wheatley (Democrat), Ed Gainey (Democrat), Patty Kim (Democrat), and Representative Robert Mercuri (Republican).

What we did as soon as we got to the capital was go in and talk to Robert Mercuri. The conversation was interesting because he gave us a lot of information that would help us out.

Representative Mercuri said, “This is very difficult especially because you guys don’t have a lot of support on this from the republicans; I suggest you get this bill to representative Curtis G. Sonney.” He went on to say, “You guys need more people to speak about it, like those who are immigrants and want to go to college, or else it might not get that far.”

In the end, Representative Mercuri said,

“I will give it a deep thought but thank you.” I was also a part of the conversation telling representatives how it can affect a few friends of mine because they would like to go to college. I told Representative Mercuri, “My friends really want to go to college, but they always tell me that it is a lot of money and they can’t afford it.” I thought what I said wasn’t too much but in the end, it still counted because he still gave it thought about helping us out.

We went to every representative we were supposed to meet up with and all the democrats we asked support for said a big yes! They gave us the same suggestions as Representative Mercuri.

After the talks, a few news channels were outside and they wanted to interview us about House Bill 1576.

Two Casa crew members asked me if I wanted to talk. I gave it thought but eventually said yes. I’m glad I was able to talk because I realized not a lot of kids my age would talk about that or even give a speech.

I say this only because only three teenagers on this trip went and I’m glad I was one of them.

Having opportunities like this is great especially because I’m young and those who are young should go and experience things like this, not only are you making a change but you are benefiting others’ lives. I appreciate Casa San Jose for this opportunity.