Judge pauses Dreamers’ suit for in-state college tuition

• Maggie Lee
• Raymond Partolan says Georgia Dreamers should be charged in-state college tuition, not the pricey sums charged to out-of-state students.

A DeKalb County judge is set to decide in 60 days if his courtroom is the right place to decide if young Georgians who have gone to school here, but until very recently lacked any legal status, could be eligible for in-state college tuition fees.

Right now, so-called “Dreamers” like Yovany Diaz must pay out-of-state tuition, according to the policy of the Georgia Board of Regents, which runs the state’s public universities. It denies in-state tuition to anyone who is not a U.S. citizen or legal resident. And for that matter, bans the undocumented from Georgia’s most selective public universities.

“Dreamers” are undocumented immigrants who were brought to the United States as children and have qualified for a temporary work permit and a pause in any deportation hearings as provided by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals federal policy.

Several dozen of them have banded together to sue Regents.

“It’s not benefiting Georgia” to hand large tuition invoices to longtime residents said Diaz, who was brought to the U.S. as a pre-teen.

Diaz and some two dozen other young people packed the courtroom of DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Mark Anthony Scott on Thursday morning for the first day of court. But the judge put off opening arguments until he’s decided the venue question.

Raymond Partolan, a junior scholarship student at Mercer University in Macon and a co-plaintiff, said there’s a “discrepancy” between Regents policy and federal Department of Homeland Security policy.

The board considers Dreamers undocumented residents. Dreamers argue that those with the deferred action status announced by President Barack Obama in 2012 should earn them in-state tuition.

“I hope people are willing to have thoughtful and conscious discussion on this,” said Partolan.

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The case came to DeKalb through county resident and main plaintiff Miguel Martinez. He graduated high school last year and wants to study to be a paramedic or a nurse.

If he can’t get in-state tuition, he said he probably won’t be able to go to school for a while. “I keep on saving up money, but it’s pretty hard saving up that kind of money,” said Martinez.

The plaintiffs’ attorney, Charles Kuck, argued that in this case it’s proper to sue where the plaintiff lives.

Russ Willard with the Georgia Attorney General’s office argued that Regents has to be sued where it is situated, and that is in Fulton County.

The two attorneys brought up several points of precedent and state law to Scott on the venue question in a relatively short session.

“As brilliant as I am, I can’t ferret through” the arguments immediately, said Scott, announcing the 60-day stay.

Regents has previously explained that in-state tuition is a taxpayer-subsidized public benefit, so undocumented residents are not eligible for it.

The delay is a little “bittersweet,” said Diaz. On the one hand, he’s glad the judge is going to carefully study the arguments. But on the other hand, “school starts in January and some people want to attend school ASAP.”