Georgia major player in national immigration debate

By Laura Diamond

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The admission of illegal immigrants into Georgia's public colleges needs to be addressed, let alone whether to allow them to pay out-of-state tuition, a state regent said on Monday.

Meeting for the first time, a 13-person committee formed by the State Board of Regents to deal solely with residency and tuition involving undocumented students acknowledged there is a greater issue involved.

"That is the big question somebody needs to answer," Regent Felton Jenkins said.

Larry Walker, another regent, said a solution must be be found to quell public outrage over illegal immigrants, repeatedly referencing anger and frustrations expressed by Georgians after learning Kennesaw State University had awarded in-state tuition to an undocumented student.

Walker suggested including a statement on all applications that said lying on an official document could result in a fine or jail time. Anyone in violation of the rule would be turned over to the authorities, he said.

"In the atmosphere we’re in today, with people as irate as they are about non-residents getting benefits, that’s an added possibility for us to consider to firm our application forms up and to do what we’ve got to do," Walker said.

The State Board of Regents formed the committee after the Kennesaw student was found to be an illegal immigrant during a traffic stop and it was later determined she was paying the cheaper tuition, pushing Georgia into the forefront of an ongoing national debate. Illegal immigrants currently are allowed to attend the state's public colleges but must pay out-of-state tuition, which is at least three times greater than for residents.

The public fallout from the Kennesaw State incident forced the regents to review how colleges verify student residency and determine what to charge them for tuition. Some elected officials have demanded that these students be barred from public colleges. Similar debates have been held or will take place in Arizona, California and Massachusetts.

At the beginning of Monday's meeting, the first of a series of meetings that could extend into the fall, Chancellor Erroll Davis and the regents' attorney said the University System of Georgia is operating within the law.

"We're pretty comfortable our legal position is quite correct," Davis said.

Not everyone agrees with that position. A group of GOP state senators last week wrote to the regents, telling them to deny in-state tuition to illegal immigrants and bar them completely from public universities. Some lawmakers plan to introduce this in a bill.

The committee briefly discussed the letter and suggested getting a legal opinion from the Attorney General's office. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation already has made a similar request.

Most states follow the policy used in Georgia. Eleven states have voted to extend in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants, according to the Institute for Higher Education Law and Governance at the University of Houston. However, South Carolina passed a law to bar these students from its public colleges.

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said federal law does not bar illegal immigrants from attending public colleges. In a 2008 letter, the most recent federal guideline on the issue, the agency wrote that "individual states must decide for themselves whether or not to admit illegal aliens into their public post-secondary institutions." That letter said monetary-assisted benefits, such as work study programs or federally-subsidized Pell Grants, were prohibited.

In 2006, Georgia passed a lawordering the regents to make certain that universities don’t give benefits to illegal immigrants that are prohibited under federal law. Davis and the regents’ attorney concluded that the lower, taxpayer-subsidized in-state tuition is such a benefit. Davis ordered colleges to stop giving undocumented students this benefit.

Davis and the regents reiterated that order last month, instructing all 35 colleges to review the applications of all enrolled students to verify campuses are charging the correct rates.

The state's other public system -- Technical College System of Georgia -- grants admission to undocumented students. Those students pay about four times as much as Georgia residents, spokesman Mike Light said. Similar to the University System of Georgia, the technical colleges ask students questions about their citizenship status on admission applications, and those answers help determine tuition charges.

The technical colleges, which enrolled about 107,000 students this spring, accept all students who pass basic entry exams, Light said.

"We are open enrollment and do not really have situations where a student would displace another," Light said. "No one is being denied a seat in a classroom."

Georgia officials don't track how many undocumented students attend college, but national reports have estimated that colleges enroll about 13,000 illegal immigrants a year.

Among the country's public colleges, 71 percent received applications from undocumented students, according to a survey released last week by the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

The group is among the nearly 30 higher education organizations that have lobbied for Congress to pass the DREAM Act. The bill, which likely won't pass this year, would grant the possibility of legal residency for students who were brought here illegally as minors.

Others have opposed the bill, saying it would encourage more illegal immigration.

The State Board of Regents

The 18-member State Board of Regents oversees the 35 institutions that make up the University System of Georgia. The members were all either appointed or re-appointed by Gov. Sonny Perdue.

Kenneth Bernard, Jr.

James Bishop

Frederick E. Cooper

Larry Ellis*

Robert Hatcher

C. Thomas Hopkins, Jr.

Felton Jenkins*

W. Mansfield Jennings, Jr.

James Jolly*

Donald Leebern, Jr.

William “Dink” H. NeSmith, Jr.*

Doreen Stiles Poitevint

Willis J. Potts, Jr.

Wanda Yancey Rodwell

Kessel Stelling, Jr.

Benjamin J. Tarbutton, III

Richard Tucker

Larry Walker*

Source: State Board of Regents, University System of Georgia.

NOTE: Members with a * next to their name serve on the regents new Special Committee on Residency Verification.