Demise of Tuition Bill Questioned
By Conor Reilly, The News & Advance, Lynchburg, Va.
Feb. 16–RICHMOND — A local lawmaker who helped craft a bill to deny in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants questioned a Senate panel’s decision Thursday to kill the proposed law.
“I can’t even guess as to why they would defend illegal immigrants,” said Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge. “But for some reason, they do.”
Cline’s bill was rolled into a similar measure sponsored by Del. Jack Reid, R-Henrico, earlier this session.
The legislation cleared the House of Delegates on a 74-23 vote, but failed by a slim 8-7 margin in the Senate Education and Health Committee on Thursday morning.
That bill would have denied in-state tuition at any of Virginia’s publicly funded higher education institutions, including Central Virginia Community College.
The Senate committee’s action effectively killed the issue this year.
While there is a similar bill still alive, it would allow in-state tuition to illegal immigrants who are “actively pursuing” permanent residency in the U.S. Cline and Reid both said that version is unacceptable and stands little chance in the House of Delegates.
Reid called Thursday’s decision “ludicrous.”
Lawmakers on the committee said the bill would place an undue hardship on children who may have come to the United States at a very young age.
Though they may not technically be legal citizens because their parents failed to document them properly, they said, many students in this situation have graduated from public high schools and come from families that pay taxes to the commonwealth.
Some also said that federal immigration laws are already on the books, and should be enforced by the federal government.
“We see these bills every year, and they increase in number and intensity,” Sen. Richard Saslaw, the Democratic minority leader, said at the meeting. “We are going to throw every hurdle we can at them, and make their life as miserable and as unwelcome as possible in the state of Virginia.”
Reid said the bill would help put state law more in line with language currently in federal statutes, which state that illegal aliens aren’t entitled to “any post-secondary education benefit.”
Kris Kobach, a University of Missouri law professor who has filed a federal lawsuit in Kansas challenging illegal immigrants’ rights to in-state tuition, was on Capitol Square Thursday to testify before the committee.
If Virginia continues to allow undocumented students to receive in-state tuition, he said, it could leave the educational system vulnerable to lawsuits from students outside the state who might argue that they’re entitled to the same benefit.
But Saslaw, who represents the district that includes Northern Virginia Community College, said he’s heard no complaints from any person upset that illegal aliens may be receiving the benefit.
“I don’t see where it’s caused any great disruption,” he said. “Where are these people?”
The Washington Post reported in December 2002 that Northern Virginia Community College, one of the largest community colleges in the country, enrolled 66 undocumented students who paid in-state tuition.
Nine states, including Texas and New York, currently have laws that explicitly allow illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition.
Cline said the bill wasn’t aimed at blocking illegal aliens’ right to attend college. But it was aimed at making sure they paid what an out-of-state student would pay.
And Reid said that Virginia has every right to do that.
The U.S. Supreme Court in the 1980s ruled that states had to educate every young person that wants to attend public school, regardless of their legal status in the country. But they specifically said that was only true for schooling from kindergarten through 12th grade, he said.
“They did not say K through 14 or K through 16,” he said.
George Mason University board of visitors board member William Soza said at the hearing that he was concerned that qualified and talented young people would not be able to afford a college degree.
“This is a great concern,” he said. “In-state tuition is often the difference between a four-year degree and not getting a four- year degree.”
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