Legislation that would make certain immigrants without legal status eligible for in-state tuition in Georgia will get a hearing — but not a vote — in a key Senate committee Tuesday, the panel’s Republican chairman said.
Senate Bill 44 applies to immigrants accepted into the Obama administration’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA. That program grants temporary deportation deferrals and work permits to immigrants who were illegally brought to the U.S. as children.
The bill is scheduled for a hearing Tuesday afternoon in the Senate Higher Education Committee. Sen. Fran Millar of Dunwoody, the committee’s chairman, said SB 44 would not pass his panel as currently written because it does not spell out requirements the immigrant students would have to meet to become eligible for in-state tuition. He also said he is reluctant to bring it up for a vote while a related lawsuit is pending in court.
Georgia’s University System bars DACA recipients from paying in-state college tuition rates, which are several thousand dollars below the out-of-state rates. In June, a Fulton County Superior Court judge dismissed a lawsuit seeking to reverse that policy. The 39 plaintiffs are now appealing to the Georgia Court of Appeals.
SB 44’s sponsor — Democratic Sen. Nan Orrock of Atlanta — joined more than a dozen supporters in speaking in favor of the legislation at a news conference across from the state Capitol Thursday. Orrock said she would work to address Millar’s concerns, noting the Legislature has voted on other bills related to issues before the courts.
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