Florida state Sen. Erin Grall has introduced Senate Bill 1052. If it becomes law, Grall’s bill would prevent illegal aliens from enrolling in higher ed. and, relatedly, block access to state financial aid.
Ira Mehlman, media director at Federation for American Immigration Reform, told AFN the proposed law immediately reminded him of a 1996 bill in Congress that was signed into law by President Bill Clinton.
“What it said, very simply, was that if a state offers in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens, it would have to offer those same benefits to any U.S. citizen regardless of what state they happen to be residents of,” Mehlman recalled.
In Florida, the largest public university is the University of Central Florida with about 70,000 students. White students make up the largest population, at 41 percent, followed by Hispanics and Latinos at 31 percent.
Among undergraduate students at UCF, 73 percent receive some form of financial aid.
Children who are illegal aliens must be included in a state’s K-12 public school because of a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Plyler v. Doe.
With that ruling in place for K-12 education, Mehlman said, the Florida bill demands that higher education stop giving classroom seats to illegal immigrants and stop using taxpayer funds to help them afford tuition.
In addition, SB 1052 would require students to prove their U.S. citizenship and at least one year of Florida residency in order to get tuition assistance from state financial aid, according to a Campus Reform article.
