<p>I was born in Arizona, attended elementary school and half of middle school, but I had to move to mexico with mom due to some family problems. So I graduated form high school over in mexico, and came back to Arizona to finish my studies. However when I applied to ASU I had to pay out of state tuition, and so I decided to go to a community college( where I pay in state tuition) and get my associate's. It has been more than an year now, and next semester will be last. I am worried that I am still gonna be considered as an out of state student. So if I am not a resident of Arizona, does that mean I am not a resident of any state? Don't know if this helps:
Been living in Arizona for 1 year and 5 months
I got my az driver's license
Passport
I am registered to vote in Arizona
Have done 1 year of tax
Another problem is that I am dependent of my dad. He has been leaving in arizona the same amount of time as me, he has his driver's license, 1 year of tax, passport, but he can't vote since he is not a us citizen.
Also, we do not have a permanent domicile.
Am I a resident? If no, is there anything I can do?</p>
<p>You have to ask the university that you are applying to about their specific policy. What is your dad’s immigration status? If he is living and working here legally, and has been doing that for at least a year, in most states you would now be a resident for tuition and fees.</p>
<p>^ I agree with Happymom. You need to check at each university you are considering. Here is the residency info for U of A. [UA</a> Residency Classification | University of Arizona Office of the Registrar](<a href=“http://www.registrar.arizona.edu/residency/default.htm]UA”>http://www.registrar.arizona.edu/residency/default.htm) It looks like you would be considered a resident but you need to verify with them. This is not an uncommon question.</p>
<p>Why would you have to pay out of state tuition for ASU?
You never established residence in any other state. For legal purposes, those US citizens living abroad can file actions at the last state where they had legal residence in the USA.</p>
<p>I was born and raised in Arizona but only left for a short period, can I still be classified as an Arizona resident for tuition purposes?
Absence from Arizona alone will not result in a loss of Arizona residency once established, unless the absence is accompanied by actions which indicate intent to establish a new domicile. </p>
<p>“Domicile” means a person’s true, fixed and permanent home and place of habitation. It is the place where he intends to remain and to which he expects to return when he leaves without intending to establish a new domicile elsewhere.</p>
<p>Also, these are the federal guidelines for voting:
If I do not maintain a legal residence in the U.S., what is my “legal State of residence”?
Your “legal State of residence” for voting purposes is the State or territory where you last resided immediately prior to your departure from the United States. This applies to overseas citizens even though you may not have property or other ties in your last State of residence and your intent to return to that State may be uncertain.</p>
<p>When completing block 7 of the Voter Registration/Absentee Ballot Request form, be sure to enter the entire mailing address of your last residence, including rural route and number. That address determines your proper voting jurisdiction.</p>
<p>Some States allow children of U.S. citizens residing overseas who are U.S. citizens but who have never resided in the U.S., to claim one of their parent’s legal State of residence as their own. Check out our list of States allowing this.</p>
<p>Arizona
A U.S. citizen who has never resided in the U.S. and whose parent is qualified to vote in Arizona is eligible to register to vote and may vote in Arizona.</p>
<p>Clearly you have always been and still are an Arizona resident, even though you moved to Mexico and graduated from a high school there. Did you appeal the decision of your initial classification as an out of state? As long as you went with your mom from AZ to Mexico and you did not live in another state in the USA, you never lost your AZ residency status.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, the rules for voter’s registration, and the individual university of college policy for determining residence for tuition and fees, do not always run in parallel. Life would be easier for students, but more expensive for colleges and universities if they did. Many students whose families are out of the country find out that they are considered OOS by every college and university.</p>
<p>In this particular instance, however, it looks like the student probably will have in-state status based on his father’s residence. The student needs to ask about it at the university he is interested in.</p>
<p>Actually, any US citizen living outside the USA is considered a resident of the last state that he or his family resided. That’s an issue of federal law, not state law and the federal case is Mas v. Perry, 489 F.2d 1396 (5th Cir. 1974). The case holding is:</p>
<p>“Domicile is determined as a matter of federal law, not state law.” </p>
<p>Just because you depart the USA it does not mean that you are stateless, even if you reside in a foreign country. As long as an individual does not establish domicile in another state, he is a resident of that state. If he has never lived in the USA, he can choose the resident of either of the parents. For tuition purposes, as long as the parent and the child lived at the state, the child is considered a resident. The only loophole that some states use is when the child has never lived in the USA.</p>
<p>^ What Ana1 says is true for some purposes, but not for purposes of determining eligibility for in-state tuition. That’s determined either by state statutes, or by regulations drawn up pursuant to state statutes, or in some cases by the university’'s own regulations. Set aside the business about moving out of the country, this question comes up all the time when students from State A try to establish residency for purposes of getting in-state tuition at a public university in State B. As a legal matter (for some purposes), all you need to do to change your state of domicile (and therefore your state of citizenship) is to move to the new state and establish a place of domicile with the intention of making it your permanent home. That can happen in a day. I could fly to San Francisco tomorrow, rent an apartment, and declare that intend to make it my home, and that would make me a California domiciliary and a citizen of California. The State of California would give me a California driver’s license and allow me to register to vote at my new address. If someone here in Minnesota wanted to sue me, they could have the case heard in federal court on diversity jurisdiction; the courts would consider the plaintiff a citizen of Minnesota, and I’d be a citizen of California. But that doesn’t mean my kids could get in-state tuition at the University of California-Berkeley, because the state, the university, or both set up more restrictive rules to make it harder for people simply to cross state lines for purposes of getting cheaper in-state tuition rates.</p>
<p>So while it is true that “domicile is determined as a matter of federal law, not state law,” that’s no answer to the OP’s question about in-state tuition.</p>
<p>OP, as I read ASU’s residency classification guidelines, if your father claims you as a dependent then your residency for tuition purposes is determined by his residency. He doesn’t need to be a U.S. citizen to be a lawful resident of Arizona, but it looks like you may need to show that he is in this country lawfully. But if he has an AZ driver’s license and has been paying AZ state taxes, those things are evidence in favor of residency. Does he have a car registered in AZ? Does he have a job in AZ? Does he keep his principal bank accounts in AZ? Those things would be further evidence of AZ residency. You say you “do not have a permanent domicile.” What do you mean, exactly? You don’t need to own a home, but do you have an apartment or some place where you stay regularly, receive mail, etc?</p>
<p>Another hurdle is that since you applied and were accepted to ASU fairly recently and at that time they classified you as a non-resident, you’re probably still listed that way in their data banks, so you’ll need to petition for re-classification, which should be based, as I said, on your father’s residency status.</p>
<p>I asked someone in the know who told me that the issue is domicile and all states have a statute in their code that one can leave their domicile temporarily but not lose their residency in the state; all decisions are made individually for each student and even if one gets an initial bureaucratic no, then the student should appeal to some kind of residency determination board that each school has. The student should collect any cancelled checks, old rental agreements, bank statements, W-2s, insurance cards. ss notification from ss checks, tanf/food stamps, or others from the state and submit them to the residency appeals board and state that they never intended to abandon the domicile in that state.</p>
<p>It is a federal law because according to the US constitution that supercedes state law, the federal government is responsible for immigration and foreign policy. There is a difference between moving from state A to state B and moving to a different country. For legal purposes you are considered a resident of the last state where you had established residence, before going overseas. That’s the state where you will go to apply to vote/get driver’s license, state benefits, etc.</p>
<p>Voting is one thing. But tuition and fees are another. Every single year here at CC we learn of cases where students who have been living abroad have been unable to “reclaim” in-state status in their last state of residence (or their parents’ last state of residence) for tuition and fees purposes. Evidently there are plenty of residency boards out there that only consider where the parents have been living and paying taxes for the past 12 months, and if it is not within the borders of that particular state, the answer is NO.</p>
<p>^That’s why many schools actually state that each case is decided individually, depending on the facts and circumstances of each case. There are many different stories/issues on these different families and we do not know what exactly they wanted to do. Just looking here at cc, there were families that were in state A before they left and when they returned they wanted to send the child to state B. That’s obviously a no.</p>
<p>Also, for masta2ska, the AZ statute and the AZ board of Regents state that Once established, a domicile is not lost by mere absence unaccompanied by intention to establish a new domicile. If you read the statute, it is really a lot of leway, it says it is not necessary to follow the formal rules of evidence, you can file oral evidence, etc. Even the affidavit of domicile for residency has a line that the student and the parent can state why they believe they are residents, without having clear evidence. Just gather your educational records from the elementary/middle/high school you attended in AZ, any other records, where you register for selective service, etc and apply. If necessary, appeal the original decision.</p>
<p>Masta2ska, when you say that you do not “have a permanent domicile.” do you mean you do not have a permanent house? That’s not a problem as the same laws apply for homeless people. The real issue is whether you had lived initially in AZ for a sufficient time to establish residence and that you did not move in another state afterwards. Did you go to school in AZ, for how long? The more documents you can collect the better. Never accept an initial no for an answer.</p>
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<p>You’re missing the point. Yes, it is true that as a matter of federal law, the OP may legally be a resident of Arizona, i.e., that is where he is legally domiciled. That may also be true of Arizona law, for some purposes; in fact, I assume that would have to be Arizona law, if they allowed the OP to get an Arizona driver’s license and to register to vote there. But that does not determine whether he is eligible for in-state tuition; that is determined by a separate body of state law, and in some cases (as at Arizona State) by policies determined by the University’s Regents. And the laws and regulations on determining “residency” for purposes of in-state tuition are almost always more restrictive than federal definitions of what counts as domicile, or state residency requirements for purposes of getting a driver’s license or registering to vote. Federal law would trump state law and university regulations in the case of actual conflict, but there’s no actual conflict here, because neither federal law nor the federal government concerns itself with the policies state legislatures and state universities use for purposes of determining who gets in-state tuition.</p>
<p>Ana, being eligible for in state tuition is a whole other issue than legally being a state resident. Colleges even in the same state can have different requirements to qualify for in state residency. Some require that your parent pay state taxes and they want to see it. Some require citizenship so an illegal resident’s child cannot qualify. Most of the time, the residency requirement hinges on having a parent who is considered a state resident, not the student, if the student is considered dependent by university standards which is usually by financial aid laws.</p>
<p>Crazy, I know. But where else are you not considered independent until you are 24 but college?</p>
<p>Actually, what I quoted is from the AZ regents and the AZ statutes specifically for tuition residency requirements. The universities appear to have only the most general eligibility requirements on their literature and website, but when you read the actual forms and the statutes the loopholes are enough to drive a truck thru them as there is a lot of discussion about intent and domicile which is very general. Also, do not forget some parents/students are homeless, if you are low income in many states you do not have to pay taxes, etc so taxes can not be used in such cases. That’s why I am asking if they moved to another state after AZ, if the mother or father stayed in AZ and how long ago.</p>
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<p>Well, now you’re backtracking from your original position, which was that this was all controlled by federal law. It’s not.</p>
<p>But the quoted statement is also not accurate. Here are the Arizona State University residency classification guidelines, which are quite specific:</p>
<p><a href=“https://students.asu.edu/residency_classification_guidelines[/url]”>https://students.asu.edu/residency_classification_guidelines</a></p>
<p>Notice that because the OP cannot “[d]emonstrate the ability to meet all living and educational expenses from self-generated funds under the student’s control for the last two tax years and document that the student has not been claimed as a tax dependent by anyone for the last two years,” pretty much the only way s/he can be deemed an Arizona resident for tuition purposes is to show that s/he is a “[d]ependent of an Arizona Resident—the student and his or her parents are domiciled in Arizona and the parents are entitled to claim the student as a dependent for federal and state tax purposes (physical presence for 12 months is not required).” There are some other possibilities: being married to an Arizona resident, or being a transferred employee, or being a teacher in an Arizona school district under contract to teach full-time, or being an active-duty member of the U.S. armed forces (or the spouse or dependent child of one), and a few more. But these are very specific categories, none of which appears to apply to the OP. So basically the OP, who appears to be unmarried, is going to be an Arizona resident for tuition purposes only if the OP’s father, who claims the OP as a dependent, is considered an Arizona resident.</p>
<p>And how will that determination be made? Well, the OP has the misfortune of having been previously classified as ineligible for in-state tuition, which means the OP needs to petition for reclassification. Here’s what the ASU guidelines say about that:</p>
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<p>And how will ASU determine the father’s residency? Well, presumably by looking at such factors as:</p>
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<p>Now it may well be that the OP’s father qualifies as an AZ resident, therefore OP qualifies as an AZ resident for purposes of determining that the OP is entitled to in-state tuition. But it’s far from a slam-dunk, given the little we know about it. And federal law has nothing to do with it.</p>
<p>I do not backtrack from my position because al these requirements continuously address the issue of moving to another state, not country. I actually read the statutes from the Regents where the school sends for more info and then the AZ statutes where the Regents send as their rules derive from there. I wrote that the schools only have the most general guidelines posted on the website “In general, to be classified” and continues, “Per ABOR policy, in determining classification of students for tuition purposes, any relevant evidence may be considered, including, but not limited to, the following:
Objective evidence of intent to be an Arizona resident as demonstrated by the absence of ties to the former state of residence:”</p>
<p>It is not as rigid as the initial reading makes it look.</p>
<p>The federal law dictates that his last state of residency is Arizona. So the next step becomes the issue whether himself, or any of his parents had established the requirements for residency in Arizona and not in another state. As long as his mother had established AZ residency during their stay before they left for Mexico by meeting the AZ requirements, then he is considered an AZ resident since he never intended to abandon the “domicile” in AZ and has not established a residence in another US state.</p>
<p>And physical presence is always a fluid issue as the federal government considers that one is physical present in the USA (this rule includes immigrant visa holders if their contract started after they received the visa) even though they are overseas, if they work in a contract/position for the US government (not just military) or any international organization that the US is a member by treaty including NATO, OSCE, all the UN arms, etc</p>
<p>The OP needs to make an appointment ASAP with a domicile officer at ASU for a review and if that appeal/review is not successful, do the same at the U of A.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>For others searching about the subject, nobody is stateless, the general rules are as follow:</p>
<p>If you are a US citizen, but have never lived in the USA, you are a resident of the last state that either of your parents was a resident, even if you are not a minor. If each parent had established residency in different states, then you can pick either state. If you have lived in the USA and established residence and now have lived overseas, then you remain a resident of the last state you were before you left. IE, you can not have been a resident of Utah and then want to come back as a resident of Texas, or Maryland, or California, etc. While there are specific documents listed by each state to prove residency, do not forget that there are many exceptions on each one-not everyone has a driver’s license, not everyone pays taxes, others are homeless. There are exceptions left and right. One needs to gather as many documents as possible from the time they were residents of the USA and if the initial evaluation is declined, you appeal since that’s when the case goes to the board that is more knowledgeable of the minute details.</p>
<p>^ All well and good, however you can be a US citizen living outside the country and not be considered in-state for any school.</p>