Rep. Ballentine on State Educational Aid for Illegal Immigrants
April 28th, 2008 · Jonathan Williams

Illegal immigration, along with the many problems associated with it, is a major topic being debated in almost every state’s legislature and South Carolina’s statehouse is no exception. A recent bill proposed by Representative Nathan Ballentine tries to tackle the issue of illegal immigrants receiving state aid to public educational institutions. The bill he is proposing, House Bill 4451, would specifically state that those who are not in the country legally are not eligible for state aid for education. I was able to interview Representative Ballentine about his bill and the following is based off that interview.

Rep. Ballentine told me that he first got the idea for this bill after listening to one of the many presidential debates in the fall of last year. During this particular debate, he heard one candidate talk about how illegal immigrants in his state could receive state aid for education.

After hearing that this was occurring in other states, Ballentine decided to do some research and find out if the same thing could happen in South Carolina.

“When I asked the legislative council to look into the statutes they had on file,â€