Georgia’s racist policy targets immigrant students

The level of anti-immigrant bias in the state of Georgia went up another notch with the passage on Oct.13 of a measure banning undocumented students from attending certain public universities.

The Board of Regents governs the University system which includes research-level schools like the University of Georgia in Athens, other 4-year colleges such as Savannah State, two-year community colleges and technical schools.

Admitting that there was no factual basis for right-wing charges that undocumented students were unfairly “displacing” other applicants, the Board members with one exception voted to disallow the admission of any undocumented student — no matter how highly qualified — at any of the top five universities if anyone who had met the requirements had been denied entrance in the past two years. The result of this new rule is that immigrant students who do not have legal status will not be admitted to UGA, Georgia Tech, and Georgia State, for example, regardless of how high their test scores are because these universities never have space for all of their qualified applicants.

In addition, the Board is requiring that each school verify the legal status of each student who is accepted. While there are several possible options, all of them will cost tens of thousands of dollars, a most unnecessary expense when the education budgets of these same schools have been cut by millions of dollars.

Prior to the meeting, a press conference with student, immigrant, legal, community and educational organizations urged the Board members to reject any and all attempts to deny education to Georgia high school graduates. The statewide student coalition formed to fight back against the tuition and fee hikes, teacher furloughs and other cuts in public education has expanded their demands to include the repeal of any anti-immigrant measures.