The University of North Carolina, which is currently considering giving illegal immigrants in-state tuition benefits, denied an Army sergeant the same break even though she owns a home in the Tar Heel state and only moved away briefly because the military stationed her husband in Texas.
Hayleigh Perez, 26, hoped to use her G.I. Bill to attend the UNC’s Pembroke campus near Fort Bragg, but the young veteran — who served a 14-month tour in Iraq — was told she did not qualify as a state resident because she had been gone for about three years.
“I got frustrated. When I tried to inquire, they kept putting up roadblocks,” Perez told FoxNews.com. “It’s just disgraceful that life in Iraq, where you could die, is easier than trying to go to school here.”
Perez enlisted in 2005, and was stationed in Fort Bragg before shipping out to Camp Bucca in Iraq. That’s where she met her husband and fellow soldier, Jose Perez-Rodriguez. The pair married and, when their tours ended in 2006, bought their home in Raeford, N.C. They lived there until 2009, when Jose Perez-Rodriguez was assigned to a base in Texas. But they continued paying the mortgage and taxes on the North Carolina property while she accompanied him on his deployment for six months, and Perez has been in North Carolina for the past two years, she said.
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Wade Hampton Hargrove(Wade)
Chair
Elected 2009; term ends 2013
Brooks, Pierce, McLendon, Humphrey & Leonard, LLP
1600 Wells Fargo Capitol Building
Raleigh, NC 27601
(919) 834-9216; FAX (919) 839-0304
whargrove@brookspierce.com
Barbara Rosser Hyde (Barbara)
Vice Chair
Hyde Family Foundations
Elected 2005; term ends 2013
Hyde Family Foundations
17 West Pontotoc, Suite 200
Memphis, TN 38103
(901) 685-3411; FAX (901) 683-3147
bhyde@pittcomanagement.com
Phillip L. Clay (Phil)
Secretary
Elected 2007; term ends 2015
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Room 9-515
Cambridge, MA 02139
(617) 253-6164; FAX: (617) 258-6261
plclay@mit.edu
W. Lowry Caudill (Lowry)
Elected 2011; term ends 2015
104 Tennwood Court
Durham, NC 27712
(919) 471-6721; FAX: (919) 471-4541
wlcaud@email.unc.edu
Donald Williams Curtis (Don)
Elected 2009; term ends 2013
Curtis Media Group
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dcurtis@curtismedia.com
Alston Gardner (Alston)
Elected 2007; term ends 2015
623 E. Franklin Street
Chapel Hill, NC 27514
(970) 927-4206; FAX: (561) 828-2323
alstongardner@unc.edu
Peter T. Grauer (Peter)
Elected 2011; term ends 2015
731 Lexington Avenue
New York, NY 10022
(212) 617-1956; FAX (917) 369-4500
pgrauer@bloomberg.net
H. Kel Landis III (Kel)
Elected 2012; term ends 2013
2710 Rosedale Avenue
Raleigh, NC 27607
(919) 256-6343; FAX (919) 256-6350
KLandis@plexuscap.com
Landis is a partner with Plexus Capital
Steven Lerner (Steve)
Elected 2011; term ends 2015
Blue Hill Group
431 Meadowmont Village Circle
Chapel Hill, NC 27517
(919) 932-8818; FAX: (919) 932-8829
slerner@bluehillgroup.com
Sallie Shuping-Russell (Sallie)
Elected 2007; term ends 2015
BlackRock
2200 West Main Street, Suite 500
Durham, NC 27705
(919) 416-6860; FAX: (919) 416-6861
sallie.shuping.russell@blackrock.com
John L. Townsend III (John)
Elected 2009; term ends 2013
101 Park Avenue
48th Floor
New York, NY 10178
(212) 984-2460; FAX (212) 984-2501
John.townsend@tigerfund.com
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Felicia A. Washington (Felicia)
Elected 2009; term ends 2013
K&L Gates LLP
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Charlotte, NC 28202
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Felicia.washington@klgates.com