NASHVILLE - State Sen. Todd Gardenhire is worried his effort to provide in-state college tuition rates to qualified Tennesseans who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children may get "Trumped" in the House this year.
Republican presidential hopeful Donald Trump's fiery rhetoric charging many undocumented Mexican immigrants are drug dealers and rapists and vows to erect a wall on the U.S.'s southern border have helped make him the front-runner in the GOP primary campaign.
"I have to say this," said Gardenhire, a conservative Chattanooga Republican who passed his "tuition equity" bill last year in the Senate only to see it fail by a single vote in the House. "I hope we don't get Trumped on this. There's a risk."
The lawmaker's comments came earlier this week as he and other legislators from Hamilton County met with Times Free Press reporters and editors before next Tuesday's start of the Tennessee General Assembly's annual session.
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