A Georgia legislator has filed a bill that would provide that students — other than nonimmigrant aliens — are classified as in-state for tuition purposes.
State Rep. Kasey Carpenter (R-Dalton), sponsored the bill.
Carpenter’s bill also, if enacted into law, would authorize the state Board of Regents and the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia to consider classifying non-citizen students as in-state for tuition purposes.
The Georgia Star News contacted Carpenter and his staff by phone and email Thursday to discuss the bill, but no one in Carpenter’s office returned our requests for comment.
According to a press release from the Atlanta chapter of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the language in Carpenter’s bill “makes DACA recipients and other deferred action recipients the only non-citizens eligible for in-state tuition.
“This excludes the vast majority of noncitizens in Georgia, including Lawful Permanent Residents (LPRs), asylees, immigrants with TPS (Temporary Protected Status), and immigrants issued U-visas and T-visas, among others,” the press release said.
According to the language of the bill, in order to qualify for in-state tuition a student must meet the following conditions:
• The student is not seeking admission to any institution of the University System of Georgia that the Board of Regents identify as a research university
• The student has graduated from a Georgia high school or obtained a valid Georgia General Educational Development (GED) diploma
• The student has independently established and maintained domicile in Georgia since January 1, 2013 or is the dependent child of a parent who has established and maintained domicile in Georgia since January 1, 2013
• The student has not reached the age of 30 at the time of initial application for admission to a postsecondary educational institution
• The student is not a nonimmigrant alien
This is not the only bill legislators have filed this session that addresses non-citizens.
As The Star News reported Wednesday, Georgia State Rep. Charlice Byrd (R-Woodstock) has defended voter integrity legislation she’s filed that would require non-U.S. citizens to have “BEARER NOT A U.S. CITIZEN — NOT VOTER ID” printed on their driver’s licenses, permits.
This, even though Georgia officials said at an Election Integrity Committee hearing late last week that they already have a system in place to stop non-citizens from voting. But Byrd said Georgia has “an obligation to do everything possible to create a high level of confidence” among voters.
State officials, however, said Georgia has a citizens’ check requirement to confirm that people are who they say they are.
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star. Follow Chris on Facebook. Email tips to [email protected].
