In the meantime, the Virginia General Assembly passed legislation that would grant illegal aliens access to state financial aid and school-based aid, despite already paying in-state tuition at the moment.
According to the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigration Responsibility Act, any individual “not lawfully present” in the United States will not be eligible for “any postsecondary education benefit,” unless citizens are eligible for the same benefits.
Currently, the U.S. Citizen and Immigration Services, deems DACA students to be legally present in the U.S. However, DACA only applies to individuals who are eligible and were brought to the U.S. before June 15, 2012. Per the National Council of State Legislatures, backers of these kinds of pro-illegal alien bills will try to circumvent the IIRIRA by having in-state tuition be based on residency, not citizenship.
Georgia Republican State Representative Kasey Carpenter put forward a bill, HB 120, that would permit the Board of Regents to grant illegal alien students in-state tuition, provided that they are not attempting to attend a research university. In an interview Campus Reform, Carpenter explained that “any US citizen can move to Georgia for a year and pay our taxpayer rate for education. This bill would allow DACA students who are or will be tax payer [sic] pay that same rate.”
In essence, the bill does not mandate DACA status for an illegal alien student to potentially gain access to in-state tuition. Morabito outlined what this program would like in Georgia:
Tuition and fees at Kennesaw State University, Georgia’s largest non-research university, areroughly three times as expensive for out-of-state students than in-state students, and soon, possibly DACA students and illegal immigrant students.
