Nate Golden noticed something peculiar a few years ago: Some of his brightest students weren’t going to college.

The math teacher at Forest Park High School in Baltimore said these were kids who graduated at the top of their class and filled their hours with extracurriculars. All they lacked was U.S. citizenship.

“For a lot of the students, it really is just the end of the road,” Golden said. “It means they can’t afford to go to college.”

Undocumented immigrants don’t qualify for federal financial aid, limiting how they can get help paying for college. And in Maryland, where about 2,000 undocumented students graduate from high schools each year, many are staring down the steep price tag of out-of-state tuition. In-state rates are only available to those who submit three years of their family’s tax returns, which can contain information about their immigration status.

Now that the Internal Revenue Service and immigration authorities have a data sharing agreement, some undocumented immigrants fear paying taxes will put them at risk of being detained and deported.

For three years, Golden has been lobbying lawmakers in Annapolis to eliminate the tax submission requirement. He said even some valedictorians weren’t going to a four-year college because of their immigration status. The teacher has long had roots in advocacy; he founded and serves as president of the Maryland Child Alliance, where he and his staff lobby for the Baltimore Baby Bonus.

“This would be an immediate, actionable change,” Golden said of the in-state tuition policy. “Your citizenship status should not be what determines if you can go to college. It should be your grades and your work ethic and your SAT scores.”

So far, lawmakers in the General Assembly have introduced a bill that would reduce the requirement to two years of tax returns.

Even if the bill passes, it may not matter. The U.S. Department of Justice has challenged states that grant in-state tuition to undocumented students, including Minnesota, California, Kentucky and Oklahoma, arguing that the policy unconstitutionally discriminates against U.S. citizens and creates incentives for illegal immigration.

In-state tuition for undocumented students wasn’t always political. It was pioneered by Rick Perry, the Republican governor of Texas, in 2001 and replicated in 22 states. But Texas ended the practice last year, in part because of pressure from the Trump administration.

Elizabeth Keyes, an immigration law professor at the University of Baltimore, said that if Maryland were to grant in-state tuition to undocumented students without requiring their family’s tax returns, the state should be able to weather federal challenges.

“States control education, so they have a right to enact these policies,” she said.

While Maryland’s requirement that undocumented students submit their parents’ tax returns is understandable, Keyes said, it’s a heavier burden in this political landscape.

“The IRS and ICE working together is unusual,” she said. “In this climate, it may be really hard for students who previously could submit the returns to do so now, for safety reasons.”

The “data sharing agreement” was unprecedented and caused top IRS leaders, including those appointed by Trump, to resign in protest. The agreement states that ICE can request information from the IRS, including addresses of undocumented immigrants. Taxpayer information is confidential, and IRS privacy laws only permit sharing information with law enforcement authorities like ICE in special cases.

There are about 11,675 undocumented students in Maryland colleges, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, a nonprofit initiative by the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.

A Baltimore high school student, who does not wish to be identified because he and his parents are undocumented, said his family will be submitting their tax returns so he can qualify for in-state aid. But he knows not all of his classmates are that fortunate. He’s among the students who have met with lawmakers to advocate for in-state tuition for undocumented students.

“I want to get the opportunity to show our potential as immigrants and what we can bring, but we can’t if we don’t get the education at a college level and don’t get to build a future here,” the student said.

The high schooler came to the U.S. from Mexico with his family when he was just 6 years old. He wants to go to college to study electrical engineering like his older brother, a student at Morgan State University, and to one day start his own engineering firm.

The three-sport varsity athlete is one of the top-ranked students at his high school and plans to apply to the University of Maryland, College Park and Morgan State, as well as Johns Hopkins University, in hopes of earning enough institutional aid to afford the hefty price tag.

It can be hard to balance homework, sports and his newfound advocacy work, but the student said sometimes making calls to lawmakers at the end of the day can help take his mind off of the school stresses.

“It isn’t a chore,” he said. “It’s something I really care about. People of color like me deserve a chance to be in an equal platform to succeed in this world, and that includes college.”

Correction: This story has been updated to eliminate the use of a pseudonym and instead clarify that the undocumented student did not wish to be identified by name due to fears of deportation.

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.