State Representative Wes Cantrell (R-Woodstock) on Monday denied that a new bill he’s sponsoring would grant in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants.
This, even though the website Immigration Politics Georgia has warned about the bill, HB 932.
Cantrell filed the bill this month, according to the Georgia General Assembly’s website.
“The bill does not apply to illegal immigrants. The bill does not give tuition to anyone,” Cantrell told The Georgia Star News.
“The bill applies to refugees, SIVs and Afghanis who are here under humanitarian parole, evacuated after July 31, 2021. They would qualify for in-state tuition in a year. The bill allows them to qualify for in-state tuition immediately when they are assigned to live in Georgia by the government.”
As stated on the Georgia General Assembly’s website, the bill would “provide that noncitizen students with certain refugee, special immigrant, or humanitarian parole status under federal law are classified as in-state for tuition purposes.”
Immigration Politics Georgia has reported on the bill extensively.
“For those who are scratching their heads trying to noodle this out: This is a Georgia Chamber of Commerce-ordered measure to speed up and increase the supply of college-educated workers,” the website reported.
“That reduces wages and produces higher profits. Then they howl for even more unskilled labor through higher immigration numbers.”
Other bill sponsors include Representative Spencer Frye (D-Athens), Representative Angelika Kausche (D-Johns Creek), Representative Kasey Karpenter (R-Dalton), and Representative Mike Cheokas (R- Americus).
Carpenter filed a bill last year that would provide that students — other than nonimmigrant aliens — are classified as in-state for tuition purposes. Carpenter’s bill also, if enacted into law, would authorize the state Board of Regents and the State Board of the Technical College System of Georgia to consider classifying non-citizen students as in-state for tuition purposes.
According to a press release from the Atlanta chapter of Asian Americans Advancing Justice, the language in Carpenter’s bill “makes DACA recipients and other deferred action recipients the only non-citizens eligible for in-state tuition.”
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Chris Butler is an investigative journalist at The Tennessee Star and The Georgia Star News. Follow Chris on Facebook, Twitter, Parler, and GETTR. Email tips to [email protected].
