In February, GOP state Sen. Bo Watson of North Chattanooga introduced a bill that would allow school districts across Tennessee to charge tuition to undocumented students and deny them enrollment if they can’t pay. In defense of the legislation, the senator has relentlessly insisted it has nothing to do with targeting immigrants.
Instead, he argued during a Senate hearing on the bill in March, he’s focusing on the financial strain he claims undocumented students pose on school systems.
“I understand why people choose not to discuss this sensitive issue of how we deal with the undocumented students that are in many of our schools, but it is a fiscal reality that we need to address,” Watson said.
“What I’m trying to discuss here is the financial burden that exists with what appears to be an increasing number of folks who are educated in our system who are not lawfully here or cannot document that they are lawfully here,” the senator continued.
As we’ve noted on this page multiple times, all available evidence shows that this motivation is absurd. Among the more than 970,000 students enrolled in public schools statewide, roughly 10,000, per the Migration Policy Institute, are unauthorized immigrants.