Thread: Tennessee Lawmakers Advance Bill to Give Undocumented Immigrants In-State Tuition

Oh GeorgiaPeach, this is such great news! One vote ... again. Thank God for the Power of One. Thank you Tennessee!! Thank you very very much for defeating in-state tuition in your state. Don't ever give into this scam against Americans. Not ever. Please. Thank you again and lets all get to work to get these people out of here and back to their home countries where they belong.

Wow! What a week. And it's only Wednesday!

Here is our ALIPAC National Press release on our activist win over this terrible bill in TN

Americans Defeat illegal alien backers in Tennessee & Maryland; now move on CA bill
https://www.alipac.us/f8/americans-d...a-bill-346016/

This accomplishment has been added to the ALIPAC 2017 accomplishments list at..
https://www.alipac.us/accomplishments/

Rep. Mark White Says ‘Right Thing to Do’ to Help Illegal Immigrant Student Go to UT Law School; Committee Rejects His In-State Tuition Bill



April 11, 2017 Chris Alto




Rep. Mark White (R-Memphis) applauded the testimony of an illegal immigrant student before the House Education committee moments before his bill to provide in-state tuition to all illegal immigrant students failed to pass the committee on Tuesday.

Karla Mesa Cruz from Knoxville told the committee today that she wants to go to UT Knoxville and get a law degree from UT Knoxville Law School. She told the committee that she had come to Knoxville when she was three but when she began to investigate going to college, learned that she would have to pay out-of-state tuition. She told the committee she just didn’t “understand why.”

Rep. Mark White told the committee that this was the third time he was trying to pass a bill that would allow illegal immigrant students to pay in-state tuition, because “it’s the right thing to do.”

Repeating many of the same talking points as in years past, White’s bill was defeated on a narrow vote of 7 against and 6 in favor on Tuesday. Democrats Raumesh Akbari, Johnnie Turner, John DeBerry and Craig Fitzhugh voted yes, joined by Republicans Mark White and Harry Brooks.

Republicans voting no were Jimmy Matlock, Eddie Smith, Terri Lynn Weaver, Dawn White, Debra Moody, Roger Kane and Ron Lollar.

During discussion of the bill, White noted that the students, whose illegal immigration status he scrupulously avoided mentioning, have no pathway to citizenship. They will not, he added, until Congress addresses the issue. Regardless, his guest Carla told the committee that her dream is to become a lawyer. While White focused on allowing the students to go on to higher education as a means to better employment, he never acknowledged that if their immigration status does not change, they cannot be legally employed in Tennessee.

Democrat members of the committee tried to sway their colleagues by using emotional tactics; Rep. Akbari started crying, Rep. Turner told her story about the racism directed to her when she was a student, and Rep. Fitzhugh said that the students “came in many different ways only to access what this country has to offer.”

In his closing comments, an emotional Rep.White asked his colleagues “what are we doing here?” He challenged his colleagues to vote regardless of re-election consequences and reminded them that he did not run this bill last year, an election year, “out of respect” for them. He also inferred that he may not run again in 2018.

Several committee members acknowledged that this would be a “close vote” and was likely the reason that Rep. White requested a voice vote adding that he didn’t want to “force people to go on the record” with a roll call vote. Chairman Brooks denied that request and a roll call vote was taken.

Governor Haslam, gubernatorial candidate Randy Boyd and the TN Farm Bureau are among the supporters of the failed bill.



http://tennesseestar.com/2017/04/11/...ects-his-bill/

Related:


https://www.alipac.us/f9/open-border...emphis-346091/

Related:

Breaking: Second In State Tuition Bill Fails, but Representative Mark White is bringing it back up on April 18, 2017 according to this report.

https://www.alipac.us/f12/breaking-m...-illeg-346094/

Nativism wins over reason in in-state tuition debate

David Plazas | USA TODAY NETWORK — Tennessee

5:01 p.m. CT April 12, 2017


The debate over letting undocumented immigrants pay in-state college tuition is really about whether they deserve a place in society or should remain perpetual outcasts.


There is bipartisan agreement that lowering higher education costs for motivated young men and women is a sound investment in them and in greater society.



Adam Tamburin / The Tennessean



Regrettably, momentum stalled on Tuesday when the House Education Administration and Planning Committee narrowly killed House Bill 863 by a 7-6 vote despite passage in other committees. A similar measure passed in the Senate in 2015 but failed by one vote in the House that year.
Undocumented immigrants who live in Tennessee must pay out-of-state tuition costs, which can be double or triple what state residents pay. Consider undergraduate tuition at these institutions:

• $6,362 (in-state) versus $15,572 (out-of-state) at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville
• $8,500 (in-state) versus $26,212 (out-of-state) at Middle Tennessee State University
• $4,934.50 (in-state) versus $10,790.50 (out-of-state) at the University of Memphis

That differential creates a tremendous hardship and barrier to entry that lawmakers universally should have supported eliminating.

The House committee’s rejection this week, however, was not based on sound education philosophy, but rather on nativism, bitter national politics and the error of conflating those who commit crimes and the majority who are trying to live and work in peace.

Terms like “illegals” and “aliens” are being used to dehumanize people who are working construction and agriculture, caring for children or going to school. The Trump administration’s rhetoric and actions have been hostile toward undocumented immigrants, although the president said he would focus on deporting criminals.


There are 11.4 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. The Partnership for a New American Economy, a bipartisan group of leaders across the nation, reports that there are 128,620 of them in Tennessee.

The organization’s research shows that 79.9 percent of undocumented immigrants in the state are of working age, 10,612 are entrepreneurs, they have a total spending power of $1.8 billion and annually pay $250.2 million in local, state and federal taxes.

They are making contributions in spite of their legal status and in spite of not receiving benefits like Social Security, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act in return.

Opponents argue that they should not be in the country in the first place, but most came here for economic opportunity and possibly to escape a bad political situation. The children they brought with them — the young people who would benefit from paying in-state tuition — had no choice in the matter.


When the Conservative Majority Caucus held a news conference on Monday, Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, summed up the in-state tuition opponents’ message by saying lawmakers “were elected to come up here and say no to benefits for illegal immigrants.”

That is based on emotion and reckless political posturing, not facts.

In that vein, it is unfortunate that Rep. Eddie Smith, R-Knoxville, who had co-sponsored and voted for similar in-state tuition legislation in the past, opted to be among the slim majority of committee members to reject the bill this year, citing in part the election of Donald Trump as president. Smith could have saved the bill had he stayed consistent.

The reason that Gov. Bill Haslam and a bipartisan group of lawmakers support the measure is because education is not merely a benefit, it is an investment that yields return for the workforce, the tax base and the betterment of all citizens.

This is compassion, and it is not about taking something away from citizens and legal residents, but about expanding opportunity.



That is why it was wrong for critics to smear Republican Rep. Mark White of Memphis, the House sponsor, as a “California liberal.”

He showed courage by advancing an idea that transcended petty politics that flourish on dividing Americans instead of uniting them.

“I’m 67. If I live as long as my parents lived, I won’t be here in 20 years. So what have we done while we’re here? Are we doing anything of substance or am I just worried about getting re-elected? I can’t live like that,”
he said. “If I didn’t believe this was the right thing to do I would not put this committee through this, because it’s hard. We have national politics that makes this very, very hard.”

White’s words prove Tennessee still has statesmen and women. If only there were more of them.



http://www.tennessean.com/story/opin...ate/100382984/

(Video of illegal alien before lawmakers at link)

Knoxville students impacted by failure of Tennessee immigrant tuition bill


Gabriella Pagan April 12, 2017


KNOXVILLE (WATE) – State lawmakers voted down a bill that would have allowed undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at Tennessee colleges. The vote failed in the House Education, Planning and Administration Committee by a vote of 6-7 on Monday.

With dreams of furthering her education at the University of Tennessee to study law, Karla Cruz made the two and a half hour journey to Nashville to share her testimony and watch each representative cast their vote.

“I moved to Knoxville when I was three years old. My earliest memories are driving down Cumberland Avenue and watching the college students walk to class. I’ve always asked my parents ever since I was a kid, is that where I’m going to go to school?” said Cruz.

Republican Rep. Mark White received backlash along the way for sponsoring the bill in the first place.

Previous story: House panel votes down Tennessee immigrant tuition bill

“I’ve gotten emails that say I’m a California liberal, that I’m a scumbag, and I’m a conservative Republican and here’s the reason why. I believe this is the right thing to do for our state,” said White.

“What are they living for? What are they working for? Why are they studying so hard at school every single day to learn English while they’re learning algebra and history? What can we tell them that we as a community? Are [we] helping them succeed if we aren’t creating these opportunities for them?” asked Claudia Caballero with Centro Hispano De East Tennessee.

Those opportunities are unattainable for many currently. Per the University of Tennessee’s website, one semester of undergraduate tuition for 12 credit hours is $6,362 for an in-state student. That number more than doubles to $15,572 for out-of-state students, which is what undocumented students would have to pay to further their education as it stands now.

“The United States Congress has not addressed this issue since I’ve been an adult. For the last 30-plus years they have done nothing. There is no pathway, and people say why don’t they become naturalized citizens? There is no pathway,” said Rep. White.

White says 13,000 undocumented kids are enrolled in local K-12 systems across the state of Tennessee. For each one, $10,000 a year is spent to finance their K-12 education, indirectly posing the question if we’re going to spend that money on educating them, why not allow them to further their education at a cost they can afford?

“We can’t give up. These children have been here since they were a year old or two years old when their families brought them,” said Caballero. “They’re American.”

WATE 6 On Your Side reached out to several East Tennessee lawmakers who voted on the issue.

Rep. Jimmy Matlock, who voted against the measure, said, “I represent the people of the 21st House District and they were overwhelmingly against the bills.”

“They’re in our high schools, they are our neighbors and they pay Tennessee taxes for a significant number of years and that to me has always been the benchmark for in-state tuition,” said Rep. Harry Brooks.

Rep. Eddie Smith, who also voted no on the bill, said, “Immigration policy was a major platform of both parties in 2016 and I think we should give the new administration and Congress [a chance] to fix our broken immigration system before we act as a state on issues related to immigration.”



http://wate.com/2017/04/12/knoxville...-tuition-bill/

Related:

https://www.alipac.us/f12/knox-count...milies-346118/

Tennessee House committee denies in-state tuition to 13,000 immigrant students

BY GRACE TATTER - APRIL 11, 2017


A proposal to ease the pathway to college for about 13,000 Tennessee students died by a single vote in a House education committee on Tuesday, as young people who would have benefited looked on.

For the third year, Rep. Mark White of Memphis had sponsored a bill that would grant in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants, arguing that expanded education access would be a boon for all Tennesseans.


But opponents shot down the measure 7-6 after hearing discussion mostly in favor of it. Rep. Dawn White, a Murfreesboro Republican, was the only lawmaker to speak against the bill. She argued that the policy would make Tennessee a magnet for illegal immigration.

About a dozen immigrant students had crammed into a committee room at the State Capitol in Nashville to witness the vote. Many were moved to tears by the outcome. The panel’s decision means Tennessee students who are in the country illegally must pay two to three times higher than their counterparts who pay in-state tuition to attend a public college.

The scene was reminiscent of 2015, when a similar bill made it all the way to the House floor, only to fail by one vote because a Democratic supporter was absent.


the measure had passed the Senate Education Committee and had the endorsement of Gov. Bill Haslam and the state’s largest college system, which stood to enjoy millions of dollars in increased revenue if it passed.

White wants Tennessee to join 20 states that allow undocumented immigrants to have in-state tuition. He argued that his proposal would help set the life trajectories of thousands of students, as well as their future children who will be citizens of Tennessee and the U.S.

“Most of these young people come from modest means. To pay $28,000 a year is out of the question,” he said. “I believe that it’s a basic conservative argument that if a person is willing to get up every morning, go to work, go to school, and better their life — that is what we have been about as a party all of my life.”



Karla Meza, a recent high school graduate from Knox County, shared her story in hopes of swaying lawmakers on the fence. While most of her classmates at Powell High School could earn an associate’s degree for free through the Tennessee Promise, she pays nearly $10,000 a semester, or $697 per credit hour. Six credits short of an associate’s degree, Meza aspires to attend law school at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

“We’re all here today to better our future, better our state, better our families,” she said.


Rep. Johnnie Turner, a Democrat from Memphis who is black, said Meza’s struggle reminded her of her own experience as a young woman of being barred from attending many Tennessee schools because of her race.


Expanding college access has been a top priority in the legislature in recent years, and Turner said the bill was in the spirit of Drive to 55, a 2014 state initiative to boost the percentage of Tennesseans with college degrees to 55 percent.

“The Drive to 55 didn’t say anywhere that we were going to discriminate against anybody,”she said. “Drive to 55 is for African-Americans, for Caucasians, for Hispanics, for all of the ethnic groups that make our state what it is.”

Arguing against the bill, Dawn White cited Georgia, which not only bars undocumented immigrants from receiving in-state tuition, but forbids them from enrolling in many state universities altogether. “Overcrowding is going happen,” she said. “We’ve thought long and hard about this, but you know, right is right, and wrong is wrong, and I cannot pass the burden onto taxpayers of Tennessee.”

In fact, the 20 states that already grant in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants have not seen noticeable upticks in illegal immigration. And Georgia has one of the highest undocumented populations in the nation.

Mark White acknowledged the current political climate, in which President Donald Trump campaigned to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border to stem immigration. But he said his bill is about education, not immigration.

“If I didn’t believe this was the right thing to do, I would not put our committee through this, because it’s hard. With national politics, it’s hard. But we’ve got these young people who say, ‘I just want to have a chance,’” he said.

Meza said she was “kind of in shock” following Tuesday’s vote but still hopes to attend law school in Tennessee.

“It’s disappointing,” she said. “The fact is, we’ve been here, we graduated from Tennessee high schools, and we do pay money to the state.

http://www.chalkbeat.org/posts/tn/20...rant-students/

And you did the right thing, Tennessee. Don't fall for these whine and sob stories. They're in the wrong country and need to be sent home with the parents who brought them here.

GET THEM ALL OUT OF HERE!!