Wednesday, lawmakers in Tennessee decided to move forward with a bill that would let public schools check the immigration status of students and charge them tuition if they can’t show proof that they are legally in the country.
The bill tries to challenge a Supreme Court decision from 1982 that says all students, regardless of their immigration status, are entitled to free public education. GOP Rep. William Lamberth of Portland is the main House supporter.
The bill was cleared by the House Education Committee 11–7 after a heated discussion. This brings it one step closer to a vote on the floor. The bill’s language was also changed to make it more like the Senate plan that goes with it.
It is proposed that public schools and public private schools could ask students to show proof that they are U.S. citizens, legal residents, or in the process of becoming citizens if the bill is passed. If a kid can’t show this paperwork, the school district could charge the family tuition to enroll, on top of the taxes the family already pays to support public schools.
In a previous form of the bill, students who are “illegally present” in the United States could not attend public schools.
People in the hearing room who were against the bill started singing, “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world,” as Rep. Lamberth finished his closing comments before the vote. A little kid went up to politicians and yelled, “You’re attacking my friends!”
While people were singing, Rep. Mark White of Memphis, who is in charge of the committee, yelled for them to vote.
Several lawmakers talked about the moral effects of the bill during the discussion.
Democratic Rep. Sam McKenzie of Knoxville said, “We should not put our children, the least of us, those who can’t do for themselves, in the middle of an adult battle.” “This bill is mean.”
Rep. Lamberth said that one goal of the bill is to get the Supreme Court to rethink Plyler v. Doe, the 1982 ruling that said states can’t stop undocumented students from going to public school.
He also said that it costs more to teach kids who are “new to the United States.”
Lamberth said, “It is not fair to the other families in that community who pay for that whole educational structure and system to have to pay the bulk of those extra costs.”
Lawmakers who were against the bill said that parents of illegal children already pay taxes that help pay for schools. The Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy says that illegal aliens in Tennessee pay $314.2 million in federal, state, and local taxes.
It’s also not clear what the bill will do to Tennessee’s finances, since it could mean losing government money for schools.
The bill’s Senate version will next be heard in the Senate Finance, Means, and Ways Committee, where more debate is likely to happen.
