Republican State Senator Randy Fine filed a bill Tuesday that would not only stop undocumented students from getting in-state tuition, but attending some public universities in Florida.
The Brevard lawmaker filled a similar bill, SB 90 in December.
But under the new bill filed Tuesday, SB 244, Fine said undocumented students would also be barred from the state’s most competitive universities. According to the bill, that’s any Florida College System institution or a state university with an acceptance rate less than 85%.
“At Florida's highly competitive colleges and universities, aka those that cannot serve everyone who wishes to go to them, they no longer can accept illegal immigrants to attend at all, and must exclusively be for Americans, Floridians or people from other countries who apply and are able to go legally,” said Fine.
He said several in Central Florida could be affected including the University of Central Florida.
“It's not all. But you can imagine the University of Florida, Florida State, UCF, we will be sharing that list so it does not affect all 12 state universities,” said Fine.
UCF is not only the state’s largest public university, but has been identified as a Hispanic Serving Institution by the U.S. Department of Education.
Governor Ron DeSantis called a special session to address immigration on Monday. It’s slated to begin the week of January 27. But the Republican-controlled legislature is pushing back against DeSantis’ call for a special session.
In a letter to fellow legislators, Florida House Speaker Daniel Perez and Senate President Ben Albritton, both Republicans, said the regularly scheduled session in March will already address immigration, and the ill-timed special session could "impair or impede the success" of Trump's immigration reform.
DeSantis ultimately has the final say in whether a special session will be held, but Florida legislators could refuse to file any legislation during that time.
State Representative Anna Eskamani, an Orlando Democrat, called the session political theater, meant to detract from bigger issues like the state’s affordable housing crisis and unaffordability in general.
However, not everyone is opposed to the special session idea in Florida.
On Truth Social, President-elect Trump commended DeSantis for calling a special session and called on other Republican governors to do the same saying simply: “Thank you Ron, hopefully other Governors will follow!”
Here's a list of universities that could be impacted by the proposed legislation:
- Florida A&M University (Tallahassee)
- Florida Atlantic University (Boca Raton)
- Florida Gulf Coast University (Fort Myers)
- Florida International University (Miami)
- Florida Polytechnic University (Lakeland)
- Florida State University (Tallahassee)
- New College of Florida (Sarasota)
- University of Central Florida (Orlando)
- University of Florida (Gainesville)
- University of North Florida (Jacksonville)
- University of South Florida (Tampa)
- University of West Florida (Pensacola)
- Chipola College (Marianna)
- College of Central Florida (Ocala)
- Seminole State College of Florida (Sanford)
Read the full language of the bill here:
