Ten immigrants who have received a reprieve from deportation filed another suit in Fulton County Superior Court Tuesday, seeking once again to force the Georgia Board of Regents to allow them to pay substantially lower in-state college tuition.
The lawsuit focuses on students who have been admitted into the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, DACA. The program grants deportation deferrals and work permits to immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children, who don't have felony convictions and who are enrolled in school here.
Georgia’s in-state tuition policy requires “lawful presence.” So the plaintiffs are pointing to federal records that say DACA recipients are “lawfully present” in the U.S.
Currently, these students can attend most of Georgia’s public colleges, but must pay the higher out-of-state tuition rate.
“Georgia’s policies against DACA students is unjust and inhumane. I don’t understand how individuals can deny higher education to students who have contributed to the state,” said Maria Carrillo, one of the plaintiffs. “The state is losing money by letting those students study elsewhere. The correct thing to do is to let us achieve our goals. Education is a human right!”
In February, the Georgia Supreme Court unanimously rejected a similar appeal from many of the same plaintiffs. They also started that legal battle in the Fulton Superior Court. Their new lawsuit is the second such legal challenge in two months. A pair of Perimeter College students and a local immigrant rights group filed suit in federal court last month, alleging the Georgia Board of Regents' policy violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution and is pre-empted by federal law. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and local law firm Horsley Begnaud are also involved in that case.
The Georgia Board of Regents, through a spokesman, declined to comment on the pending litigation Tuesday. Previously the Board said its policy was adopted several years ago to mirror a new state law.
“That law required public higher education — including the University System — to ensure that only students who could demonstrate lawful presence were eligible for certain benefits, including in-state tuition,” the board said in a prepared statement in February. “That law remains in effect, and, therefore, so will our policy.”
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