On a more local note, when I first heard about the attempt here in Washington state to pass the same kind of legislation, I contacted every rep & senator I could find contact info for. It did pass, and now, the university of washington has revoked a long standing policy of allowing students who graduate from community colleges with an A.A and who maintained the requisite GPA from transferring into the UW automatically. Reason? Too many students. All the projections are that more and more Washington kids will not be able to get in. Yet the legislation that was passed only required illegals to have lived here for 3 years. With a minimal requirement like that I think it's pretty much a given lots of Washington kids are going to be the losers in the higher education game.
I knew a woman on Whidbey Island who attended college in California her freshman year. When she transferred back to the University of Washington (even though her parents had continued to live in Washington and continued to pay taxes there) she was suddenly considered an "out of state" student and forced to pay "out of state" tuition until graduation three years later (a considerable increase in cost.) At the culmination of her degree, she missed filing her request for graduation by one day and was told that she had to enroll and pay out-of-state tuition for yet another semester, or she couldn't get her diploma. She opted to leave school without her diploma, as a result.
I could write a book on the stupidity that I saw at the UW system when my son was there. But I won't bore you. Needless to say, I think that the U system rips off the students, the parents, and the taxpayers on a regular basis. And rips off some of the profs too.
My son's PhD advisor picked up his whole graduate group and moved it lock, stock, & barrel to U of Florida where they were all treated better.