InsiderAdvantage has been reporting on House Bill 131 pushed by Rep. Kasey Carpenter, R-Dalton, that creates a new tier of college tuition for illegal aliens designated with former President Barack Obama’s illegal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status. It is dubbed “Opportunity Tuition” and it would grant the generous in-state tuition price plus 10 percent.
The illegal alien students who benefit would be known as “Opportunity Students” — yet critics point out that citizens and legal residents attending public colleges from outside Georgia would not have the opportunity to access the new tuition tier and are required to pay the far-more-expensive out-of-state rate.
Consider just this one scenario: If this bill passed into law by the General Assembly and was signed by the governor, illegal aliens would pay about $7,000 per semester less than Americans and legal immigrants who come from other states to attend full time classes at Kennesaw State University. Similar gaps would apply in all other public colleges where illegal aliens are admitted.
Furthermore, critics of HB 131 underscore quite a contrast between Karpenter’s clique of GOP lawmakers and GOP Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis when it comes to addressing the illegal immigration problem. Last week news broke that DeSantis is pushing to scrap state law that grants in-state tuition to illegal aliens. He says the law is a magnet to attract illegals and its repeal would make Florida less attractive to illegal immigration and would restore fairness.
Florida Gov. DeSantis told the Washington Examiner: “If we want to hold the line on tuition, then you have got to say, ‘You need to be a U.S. citizen living in Florida.’ Why would we subsidize a non-U.S. citizen when we want to make sure we can keep it affordable for our own people?”
