The Demands from Illegal Immigrants Grow

A federal lawsuit against Georgia public colleges could let slip a string of new entitlements for illegal immigrants if the federal courts rule the Constitution’s Equal Protection clause protects some or all illegal immigrants.

A lawsuit that could trigger a precedent began to snake its way through the U.S. courts Friday.

Providing benefits and reduced tuition for illegal immigrants is a growing staple of the left’s agenda, and is growing more and more accepted in the Democratic Party.

According to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, three Georgians who have received a federal reprieve from deportation are suing the University System of Georgia over its policy of barring them from attending five public colleges. The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund and an Atlanta law firm filed the case.

One of the illegal immigrants attends college in Massachusetts, and was barred from attending a Georgia state college even though she was brought to the United States as a child.

Georgia is one of only three states that bans undocumented immigrants from attending public colleges, according to the Atlantic. At least 18 states allow undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition at public colleges — quite a tuition reduction compared to what documented citizens from other states pay.

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Nathan Horsley, an attorney for the plaintiffs, told Atlanta’s CBS 46 that immigration policy is clearly laid out as an area of the federal government to regulate.

But David North, a research fellow of the Center for Immigration Studies, told LifeZette Tuesday that federal law on illegal immigration really doesn’t relate to how a public university system handles admission procedures.

In Georgia, the five state colleges and universities cannot enroll illegal immigrants if it has not first enrolled all of its academically qualified applicants for the previous two years.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit have some federal protection, despite not having green cards. The college applicants are covered by President Barack Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals executive program, which applies to children illegally brought into the country by their parents. The DACA program temporarily exempts these children from deportation and allows them work permits.

But in the eyes of Georgia, the students cannot attend public colleges before citizens. The state’s public college system doesn’t recognize DACA as certification similar to a student visa or a green card allowing permanent residency.

The trick could be in the state’s wording of the policy. The policy reads: “A person who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible for admission to any University System institution.”

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Should Georgia recognize DACA certification as enabling the students to be lawfully present?

North says no. Citizens should get “absolute” first priority in admissions, North said.

But a problem is the court system itself. With a 4-to-4 split on the U.S. Supreme Court, any federal court decision that upholds the Equal Protection clause in a case like Georgia’s becomes legal policy if SCOTUS deadlocks.

Providing benefits and reduced tuition for illegal immigrants is a growing staple of the Left’s agenda, and is growing more and more accepted in the Democratic Party. And not just benefits — some states have floated the idea of legal privileges such as driver’s licenses.

In September 2007, then-Gov. Eliot Spitzer of New York proposed allowing illegal aliens to have driver’s licenses.

The resulting controversy made its way into the Democratic presidential primary debates, where Hillary Clinton expressed concern about the idea. Her lack of support for the idea caused Spitzer to drop the proposal two weeks later, according to PolitiFact.

Eight years later, Bernie Sanders used Hillary Clinton’s lack of support for the idea to hammer her at the Democratic primary debates. He used a 2007 statement to The New York Times against her. It read: “As president, I will not support drivers’ licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration — including border security and fixing our broken system.”

Republicans, in contrast, have been more sensitive to how voters feel about giving illegal immigrants the benefits of in-state tuition and cash assistance.

In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney ran to the right of his competitors in the GOP presidential primary on immigration issues. He pounded Gov. Rick Perry of Texas for justifying in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.

Romney said illegal immigrants saved $22,000 a year by being declared in-state residents, and paying in-state tuition. He then noted U.S. citizens from other states had to pay $100,000 more to attend Texas public colleges, such as the University of Texas at Austin, over four years.

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Perry famously took the bait, saying opponents of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants didn’t have a heart. Perry’s campaign soon folded.

Under U.S. law, federal benefits such as food stamps cannot be given to illegal immigrants. But if the households of illegal immigrants have U.S.-born children, they can.

North said the Center for Immigration Studies found last July that, in some cases, illegal immigrants can cause a mixed family of illegal and legal residents to get benefits when an identical family of legal residents (measured by size and income) cannot secure them.

How much an administration of Hillary Clinton would expand benefits to illegal immigrants is unclear.

But she may not have to lift a finger. North said a win in the Georgia case wouldn’t necessarily open the floodgates of other Equal Protection lawsuits. Yet a win on Equal Protection could open other public entitlement programs to some or all illegal immigrants, via further lawsuits or congressional action.