With the long-awaited Wisconsin state budget finally signed by Gov. Jim Doyle Friday, UW System officials expressed their approval of the budget — with the exception of Regent Jesus Salas, who announced his resignation that same day.

In Salas’ resignation letter, he said the lack of support for tuition remission for qualified students who were children of undocumented workers was "intolerable."

In addition, Salas said he disapproves of Real I.D. legislation, which requires proof of legal residency to obtain a state driver’s license and the signing of legislation that terminated a program that assisted undocumented workers with their home mortgages.

Salas said Latinos "share the same fundamental values" as European immigrants who moved to Wisconsin generations ago, yet it is the Latinos "who are illegal."

"Every day there are those individuals as well as representatives of communities as a whole, including state entities, who are contriving ways to further deprive us of our U.S. Constitutional rights to life and liberty," Salas said in his resignation letter. "There is a daily deterioration in the quality of life for the Latino, both for the undocumented as well as those of us who were born here."

As a demonstration of his disapproval, Salas refused to attend the signing of the 2007-09 state budget Friday at Memorial Union, citing it as a "day of mourning for the future of our children who through no fault of their own continue to be denied access to the UW System."

Salas was appointed to the Board of Regents by Gov. Doyle in 2003 and was most recently chair of the Physical Planning and Funding Committee.

The position will be filled by another Doyle appointee, UW System spokesperson David Giroux said, although he was unable to provide a time frame for the replacement.

Despite Salas’ resignation in protest of the legislation affecting the Latino community, Giroux said the Board of Regents has supported tuition remission for children of undocumented workers.

"We’ve supported it in the past,” Giroux said. “We have every reason to believe that if another legislator brings that kind of measure forward that we will support it again."

In Salas’ four years on the Board of Regents, he was a strong supporter of student rights, Giroux said.

"He’s been very outspoken in support of students, very strongly supportive of financial aid… He’s raised a lot of good questions about tuition," Giroux said.