Alonso Chehade left the UW business school with marketing knowledge and a degree to prove it. Yet the best jobs Chehade could find were tutoring gigs and nightclub promoting. That’s because Chehade is an undocumented immigrant.

“You get your degree, then what?” Chehade asked. “Then I have a degree that is worth nothing.”

Facing deportation later this month, Chehade whipped up widespread national support for his cause and is currently courting Washington state’s senators to take up his cause.

“I know I have the skills to get a job,” he said. “I’m proving it with the campaign.”

Chehade represents a subset of undocumented immigrants residing in the United States whom UW professor Roberto Gonzales calls the “1.5 generation.” Parents of this generation brought them to the United States as children, and their primary identification is with the United States.

“Their mannerisms, interests and aspirations are identical to those of their American-born peers,” Gonzales wrote in a policy report for the College Board last spring. “They also tend to be bicultural, and almost all of them are fluent in English.”

Many of these minors attended middle schools and high schools in the United States and pursue higher education, Gonzales wrote.

In the state of Washington, legislation allows illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public institutions of higher education if they meet residency requirements. Forty-nine illegal immigrants entered the UW through that legal provision this past year.

Nine other states offer such a provision, two even offering state financial aid for undocumented immigrants attending state universities. In Washington, however, granting in-state tuition is where the legislation stops.

“They do not get any kind of funding,” said Virjean Edwards, associate registrar at the UW office handling residency issues. “They do not get any Washington-state kind of monies, and, when they get out, they don’t usually get jobs.”

With such bleak post-graduation prospects and with the burden of tuition resting on an individual who cannot legally work in the United States, some might ask why this 1.5 generation seeks higher education.

“That’s the big $64,000 question,” Gonzales said in an interview with The Daily, referring to the cost of his education.

For some, Gonzales said, it’s a matter of positioning: In case U.S. legislators pass the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act and give legal residency to those enrolled in U.S. higher-education institutes, they want to be eligible.

Chehade said he worked odd jobs to pay tuition bills so that he could graduate from the UW rather than end up on the streets.

“You choose: professionals or criminals,” he said. “That’s an easy choice for someone who thinks straight. If you say no to education, you’re screwed.”

For those undocumented immigrants enrolled at state universities, the education choice can amount to something of a quiet waiting game.

“What many of them are trying to do is to buy time while they wait and to keep moving forward,” Gonzales said. “The extent to which they stay in school, they’re staying in a legal activity.”

Even then, degrees in the hands of these students mean little when an employer asks them to file papers necessary to get the kind of job they want. And a misstep, like Chehade’s encounter with customs agents at the Canadian border, might still send them packing.

Reach reporter Andrew Doughman at news@dailyuw.com.