Ten immigrants who have received a special reprieve from deportation filed suit in the 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 here.
The lawsuit focuses on students who have been admitted into the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or 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.
“We are bringing this action against the individual members of the Board of Regents for their failure to correctly implement their own rules on in-state tuition,” Charles Kuck, an attorney for the plaintiffs, said in a prepared statement. “Justice, commonsense, and Georgia’s own economic self-interest all demand in-state tuition for DACA recipients. We will fight for this until we win. The hope of Georgia’s children is at stake.”
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 as many 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 preempted by federal law.
The Georgia Board of Regents did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday afternoon. But it has previously 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 issued in February. “That law remains in effect, and, therefore, so will our policy.”
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