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Connecticut DREAMers Ask Judges To Let Them Take Bar Exam

Claudia Torrens
/
AP

Connecticut law students studying under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA, are asking state superior judges to let them take the bar exam.

Anne Dranginis, chair of the Connecticut Bar Examining Committee, says most states require lawyers to be U.S. citizens or have residency status in order to take the bar, but she wants to change that.

“What we recently did was add language that allowed someone to take the bar exam if they were legally permitted to work in this country.”

Dranginis says her committee unanimously recommended the rule change that would let DACA recipients apply to practice law in Connecticut. Superior judges will have to vote on the rule change next month.

The so-called DREAMers are immigrants who qualify for work permits because they were illegally brought to the country as children. Connecticut would join other states including New York, California, Florida and New Jersey in allowing DREAMers to practice law.

President Donald Trump ordered the DACA program canceled by March, but the order is still tied up in the courts. Congress is debating a DACA bill to legalize the program.

Cassandra Basler, a former senior editor at WSHU, came to the station by way of Columbia Journalism School in New York City. When she's not reporting on wealth and poverty, she's writing about food and family.