Ga. Board of Regents To Meet With ‘Dreamers’ On In-State Tuition

That’s after a group of students turned in their tax forms in protest to the Board Tuesday morning.

The students weren’t on the board’s agenda, but about 40 of them rallied outside the building the meeting was held in downtown Atlanta. The board allowed one of the student representatives to speak.

Jaime Rangel, 24, was brought to the U.S. when he was 3 months old, and has been living in Georgia since he was in the second grade.

“I’m a Latino that grew up eating tortillas and grits,” he told the board Tuesday.

Rangel falls under the president’ deferred action program for childhood arrivals (DACA), which was announced in 2012. He attends Dalton State University, but says he can only afford one class a semester because of the board’s policy that DACA students like him can’t get in-state tuition.

“We’re not asking to give us a free ride. We’re just asking for a decent fighting chance,” Rangel said.

A Board of Regents spokesman said the board’s policy on in-state tuition follows state law, but will have discussions with the students in a more formal meeting. He didn’t indicate when that meeting will take place.

Earlier this month, a Superior Court Judge in Arizona ruled a similar policy there unlawful, saying that “federal law, not state law, determines who is lawfully present in the U.S.”

In 2013, a group of 39 students in Georgia filed a lawsuit against the Board of Regents, but the courts ruled the state was protected under such lawsuits under sovereign immunity. The appeal is now with the Georgia Supreme Court, but the court has not yet decided whether to hear the case.