Georgia halts college waivers to illegal aliens

Walter Jones
Morris News Service
Wednesday, June 9, 2010

ATLANTA — The Board of Regents voted unanimously Wednesday to instruct the presidents of the state’s public colleges to not grant any waivers to illegal aliens and nearly unanimously to review all applications for fall admission.

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The motions back up a May directive by the University System of Georgia Chancellor Erroll Davis.

The regents acknowledged they were responding to public reaction. News in March of an illegal alien at Kennesaw State University getting in-student tuition discounts stirred passions already inflamed by Arizona’s law empowering police to arrest anyone without proof of citizenship. Plus, candidates latching onto a volatile issue have fanned the controversy.

“If we don’t do something, the public will think, just like every bureaucratic agency, that we’re going to study it to death,” said Regent Ken Bernard, author of the motions.

Before the vote, Regent Larry Walker, a former long-time member of the legislature and State Transportation Board, drew on his political instincts to offer his colleagues a warning.

“If we pass this thing, it’s going to be controversial,” he said. “If we don’t pass it, it’s going to be really controversial.”

Only Regent Felton Jenkins voted against the motion requiring a review of the fall applications because he wanted to let a committee the board appointed Wednesday to have time to act.

That committee, which includes five regents and five college presidents, is to report by October on ways to strengthen procedures to catch illegal aliens from getting in-state tuition. Proposals it will consider include verification through a federal database or requiring every applicant bring proof of citizenship. It will also consider whether to deny admission outright to illegal aliens and the appropriate discipline for anyone found lying about citizenship on an application.

One of Bernard’s motions targets a rule that allows each college president to waive admissions requirements or set lower tuition for up to 2 percent of applicants each year. Before Davis arrived, there was an informal understanding that a waiver for aliens was permissible, but he sent instructions in 2006 to clarify that the regents’ policy and the law prohibit it, according to the regents’ legal counsel Burns Newsome.

The bigger problem, Davis said, is how to affordably verify that applicants are telling the truth, including students who are legal residents of other states or whose parents have moved out of Georgia, ending the qualification for in-state discounts.

“We are comfortable that our policies are within the law,” Davis said. “We have significant problems with verification.”

He told reporters during last month’s meeting that he figured it would cost $25 per student to verify their citizenship with the federal database, or roughly the cost of 20 professors. Opponents of admitting illegal aliens said the figure is closer to 50 cents.

Bernard told his colleagues that verification is cheaper than granting taxpayer-subsidized tuition to people who don’t deserve it.

A 2007 analysis by the Georgia Department of Audits and Reports found that nearly one-third of the students in its sample at the time should not have been granted in-state tuition, though it didn’t mention whether they were illegal aliens or residents of other states. It estimated the total lost tuition at $2 million per semester then.

Both state and federal law prohibits illegal aliens from getting any government benefits. The University System lawyers interpret “benefits” to mean in-state tuition or scholarships like the HOPE. Only South Carolina has concluded that also means they can’t be admitted at all.

Sitting in the audience during the meeting was D.A. King, head of the Dustin Inman Society, a Marietta group that lobbies for greater enforcement of prohibitions against illegal aliens. King has filed criminal complaints with the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and federal agencies alleging the University System is guilty of breaking state and federal law by admitting illegal aliens. However, he didn’t speak during the meeting.

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Marietta Daily Journal editorial

Immigration

June 09, 2010

Should Georgia allow those in this country illegally to enroll in its public colleges, universities and technical colleges? We would submit that Georgians would overwhelmingly answer that question with a loud “No.” The state Board of Regents, which oversees the University System of Georgia, is to take up that question today, and we hope it ultimately decides to abide by those sentiments and, more importantly, to adhere to federal law, which clearly states that such an education is a “benefit” that cannot be granted to those here illegally.

That question became a front-burner issue thanks to the recent controversy surrounding Kennesaw State University student Jessica Colotl, whose status as an illegal was discovered after she was stopped for a minor traffic violation on the KSU campus and gave false information to police and eventually was taken to an immigration holding detention center in Alabama. With the help of KSU President Dr. Dan Papp and others, she was released by ICE and given a one-year reprieve to finish her degree – although without a change in her legal status, she will ultimately be unable to legally work in this state, degree or no degree. She also now must pay the more expensive out-of-state tuition rate, rather than the in-state rate she had been charged.

Ms. Colotl, who came to this country as a child with her parents, graduated from a Georgia high school and was admitted to KSU on that basis, where she has acquitted herself well academically.

Georgia law prohibits the state’s institutions of higher learning from providing benefits to illegal aliens that are denied to them under federal law. Hence, the Regents’ practice until now of charging illegals the higher out-of-state tuition, rather than the in-state rate. And it is not illegal for illegals to apply to college. Yet under federal law, a college education an institution of higher learning clearly is a “benefit” when it is coming courtesy of a tax-supported school.

But frankly, the Regents have taken a blase approach until now about whether those they allow to enroll are legals or illegals, even though it would be a simple, inexpensive matter for admissions offices to determine. They already ask for all kinds of other personal information, transcripts, etc.

As we have noted before in this space, the cost of verifying applicants’ citizenship status via the SAVE system would be but 50 cents per person and would only apply to those who list themselves as legal non-citizens on the application form. Non-citizens who are in this country legally could be asked to complete an affidavit swearing to their lawful status and eligibility for the public benefit in question (the college education). And keep in mind that false swearing on such affidavits is a felony punishable by deportation in the case of non-citizens.

The Regents are expected to receive a briefing on the law and perhaps appoint a committee today to look into the matter. If that’s the case, we hope the committee is not just window-dressing designed to give the appearance of action until the story blows over – because we don’t think it is likely to be going away any time soon.

Most Georgians were probably unaware until Ms. Colotl came along that their tax dollars were going to pay for the education of illegals at state-supported colleges and universities and trade schools. And now that they’ve heard about it, they don’t think much of it. Tax-supported schools should not be admitting such students. Those slots should go to those in this country legally. And the Regents should change their policies to reflect that.

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Cobb sheriff asks GBI to investigate Board of Regents
by Kathryn Dobies

June 09, 2010 MARIETTA – Sheriff Neil Warren is calling for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation to probe the University System of Georgia’s governing body, the Board of Regents, for possibly violating the law by admitting illegal immigrants into the state’s universities.

Anti-illegal immigration activist D.A. King filed a complaint on May 19 with the GBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, then asked Warren to assist in the matter.

In a letter dated June 4, Warren referred to King’s complaint, stating that the Board of Regents is in violation of state and federal laws, which prohibit state universities from admitting illegal immigrants.

“O.C.G.A. 50-3601(c)(7) requires compliance with 8 U.S.C. 1621 which provides that aliens not legally in the United States are ineligible for certain State or local benefits, including postsecondary education,” Warren writes in his letter to GBI Director Vernon Keenan.

King said he contacted Warren on May 27, after he heard no response from GBI or ICE and read comments from a GBI spokesman in the Journal. In the May 26 article, the spokesman said GBI is not legally allowed to respond to a request from a citizen to open an investigation. Instead, an investigation request must come from an elected official or law enforcement official.

King’s actions to contact the GBI were prompted by the case of Kennesaw State University student Jessica Colotl, who was stopped on campus for a traffic violation and arrested March 30 for failure to provide a valid driver’s license. It was later discovered that she entered the country illegally at a young age with her parents and had been paying in-state tuition since she enrolled at KSU as a freshman in fall 2006. Nonetheless, she was released from a detention center in Alabama on May 5 and ICE deferred any action against her for one year so she could return to her studies at KSU.

On May 12, the Cobb Sheriff’s Office obtained a warrant for Colotl on a felony charge of lying to law-enforcement officials, based on a reportedly false address she provided upon her book-in at the Cobb County Jail in March. Some immigration activists criticized Warren for the second arrest, claiming it was selective law enforcement. On May 14, Colotl turned herself into Cobb authorities and was released on a $2,500 bond.

Warren said he filed the request with GBI because, in his opinion, the law is being violated.

“The way I read the law, I think someone is in violation of the law and I think someone independently should look into it,” Warren said.

In light of the criticism Warren has received regarding the Colotl case, he said he felt it was appropriate for an independent agency to do the investigation.

“I definitely didn’t ask D.A. King or any other citizens to make that request to me,” Warren said. “I felt obligated once it was brought to my attention to forward it to someone to look into it.”

Warren has not yet received a response from GBI.

King said he is pleased that the sheriff responded to his request, and hopes that the GBI will investigate the Board of Regents and prove that they are in violation of the law.

“I am as always very grateful for the sheriff’s grave attention to duty,” King said.

In his letter to the GBI, Warren also copied Gov. Sonny Perdue and Attorney General Thurbert Baker.

King went on to say: “My hope is that the GBI will investigate and confirm what is evident to anybody that can read and is a smarter than a fifth grader … This is not only a violation of a state law, but a violation of two separate federal laws.”

The Board of Regents is holding its monthly meeting today and tomorrow, and has an item on its agenda slated as a residency verification presentation by legal chief James Burns Newsome. In response to King’s request to the GBI, Regents spokesman John Millsaps denied that the board is breaking the law.

King, the founder of the Dustin Inman Society, said he plans to go to the Regents’ meeting to hand out copies of the federal and state laws.

“I hope they ask themselves the question, how many real immigrants and American citizens have been put out of a classroom seat because of their violation of the law?” he said.

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – Cobb sheriff asks GBI to investigate Board of Regents

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“Cobb and Gwinnett are the only counties in metro Atlanta that participate in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program known as 287(g). Hall and Whitfield counties and the Georgia Department of Public Safety also participate. The program trains deputies to perform some of the functions of an immigration officer and enables them to screen jail inmates to determine their immigration status. Inmates who are in the country illegally are handed over to ICE to start deportation proceedings.

Motorists who face a misdemeanor charge for driving without a license on a first offense in Georgia risk being deported if they are caught in a county that participates in 287(g). Illegal immigrants can’t qualify for a driver’s license in Georgia.

Gwinnett County Sheriff Butch Conway said that since his county joined the program in November 2009, only about 1,498 people have been jailed for driving without a license (through May 21). During the same time frame the previous year, about 3,530 people were jailed for unlicensed driving.

“I would have to credit 287(g) with that drop,” Conway said on Friday, adding that he believes the roads are now safer. “There are increased repercussions to being arrested.”

Unlicensed driving arrests down in Cobb, Gwinnett

Atlanta Journal Constitution

Cobb and Gwinnett are the only counties in metro Atlanta that participate in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement program known as 287(g). …

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WABE — Atlanta

Immigration could be a major campaign issue

…But DA King, of the Dustan Inman Society, says immigration reform in Georgia should mirror the recent law passed in Arizona. There, law enforcement officials can stop anyone they “reasonably suspect” of being in the country illegally. — “I am very hopeful that the next legislature and the next governor will pass a law similar to Arizona, and will enforce the laws we have already put on the books.”

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HERE and HERE and from the radical, open borders, seperatist GALEO site…HERE

Houston Chronicle

Pair guilty of felony murder in death of officer

Jurors this morning found two people guilty of felony murder in the June 2009 shooting death of undercover Houston police officer Henry Canales. — Xiomara Mendez-Rosales, 37, and Andres Nava-Maldonado, 42, both illegal [aliens…. criminals], could face life sentences as jurors begin hearing testimony before deciding punishment…

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Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Cherokee deputies bust major counterfeit document lab

Three people have been arrested in Cherokee County after a tip led deputies to a major counterfeit operation that likely provided fake identification to hundreds of illegal [aliens], police said. — The trio was apparently making illegal drivers licenses, green cards, birth certificates and social security cards and selling them for big cash…

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