Immigrants lacking legal status lose appeal seeking in-state tuition

The Georgia Court of Appeals on Thursday rejected an appeal aimed at making immigrants who were illegally brought here as children eligible for in-state college tuition.

In rejecting the appeal, the court upheld a Fulton County Superior Court’s ruling from June that says state law bars such lawsuits through sovereign immunity.

“We agree with the trial court that sovereign immunity bars this action,” the court said in its six-page ruling. “Our state constitution provides that, with certain exceptions not relevant to this case, sovereign immunity ‘extends to the state and all of its departments and agencies.’”

The attorney for the 39 plaintiffs in the case, Charles Kuck, said he would appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court in the next two weeks.

“The day that residents of Georgia cannot seek redress in court for the state’s action against them is a sad day for all Georgians,” he said in a prepared statement. “We will appeal this decision and continue our fight for tuition equity on all available fronts.”

The case focuses on immigrants who have been accepted into the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. The program applies to immigrants who were illegally brought here as children and attended school here and haven’t been convicted of felonies. The federal government says people granted this relief are legally present in the U.S. Georgia’s in-state tuition policy requires “lawful presence.”

State attorneys fought to dismiss the lawsuit, saying sovereign immunity shields the Board of Regents from the lawsuit. They also said DACA doesn’t affect Georgia’s tuition policies or give the plaintiffs any rights to in-state tuition, which is several thousand dollars below the out-of-state rate.