Sylvia, who came to the Tennessee Legislature from Knoxville on Tuesday, cries as lawmakers on the House K-12 Subcommittee vote in favor of a bill to exclude children without legal immigration status from public schools. She asked that her name not be used out of fear of reprisal. (Photo: John Partipilo)
A bill allowing Tennessee public schools to exclude children without legal immigration status cleared a House subcommittee Tuesday as protestors gathered outside the hearing room chanting “stop hurting kids” and “shame on you.”
The bill by Republican House Majority Leader William Lamberth would give public K-12 and charter schools the option of enrolling or refusing to enroll a child who cannot offer proof of legal immigration status.
It differs substantially from its companion bill in the Senate, carried by Sen. Bo Watson, a Hixson Republican. Amended last week, the Senate version would require public schools to verify student immigration status. Schools could then opt to charge tuition for children unable to prove they lawfully reside in the United States.
As chanting protestors clogged the hallway outside the House K-12 Subcommittee meeting, inside Giselle Huerta pleaded with lawmakers to vote against the bill.
“Is this the Tennessee we want to be, a state that turns its back on children who pledge allegiance to our flag every morning?” said Huerta, co-founder of the child advocacy group, Hijos de Inmigrantes.
Tennessee GOP bills target public school education for immigrant children without legal status
“Think about the message we are sending to young children who have known no other home but Tennessee — that they don’t deserve an education, that they don’t belong in a classroom alongside their friends and neighbors,” she said in her testimony before lawmakers.
Knoxville sixth grader Damien Felipe Jimenez told lawmakers he dreamed of one day owning his own restaurant or perhaps becoming a scientist.
“I am the son of immigrant parents who have shown me to respect and value everyone,” he said. “Just like me and all the kids in this country, we have the right to dream and make those dreams come true. The right to an education should not be taken away from us because of our immigration status,” he said.
Lamberth called it “false hope” to provide an education to children who would go on to face barriers to their professional dreams as adults as a result of their immigration status.
“It is false hope to give children the best education available in the world and then tell them they can be licensed professionals, they can be licensed doctors, they can be lawyers, they can be accountants, they can run for office, because it is not true,” Lamberth said.
“If they are illegally present, their dreams at some point will have a ceiling and that is inappropriate,” Lamberth said.
The bill’s sponsors have said they intend for the measure to serve as a test case of whether the Supreme Court will revisit its 1982 Plyler v. Doe decision establishing the right to a public education regardless of a child’s immigration status. If enacted, the measure faces a certain legal challenge.
Tennessee public schools could exclude immigrant children without legal status in GOP-backed bill
Lamberth noted the bill was discretionary and stressed it was about local control.
“With this bill there is nobody that will force any school district to disenroll even one child,” he said. “It is entirely their decision.”
Some counties grappling with education budget shortfalls or overcrowded classrooms may decide that there’s “just no more” children they want to admit and begin excluding children without legal status, while others may opt out of the law — and likely make their communities a “magnet” for immigrant families, he said.
“With this bill there is nobody that will force any school district to disenroll even one child,” he said. “It is entirely their decision.”
Opponents of the measure have countered the argument that educating immigrant children is a burden to Tennessee taxpayers, noting that immigrants without legal status pay the same taxes on gas, groceries and retail purchases that help fund public schools as every state resident.
The bill was approved 5-3 Tuesday, with the committee’s two Democrats — Rep. Yusuf Hakeem of Chattanooga and Rep. Sam Mackenzie of Knoxville joined by Republican Rep. Mark White dissenting.
In a previous vote on the Senate version of the bill last week, three Republicans also joined the lone Democrat on the presiding committee in voting against the bill.
“Sometimes I think we don’t look at human beings as human beings but as numbers or not like us,” Hakeem said Tuesday.
“I look at the parents, the road they’ve taken to try to improve the lives of their children and, here we are, talking about taking that away,” he said.
The bill will be heard next in the House Education and the Senate Finance, Means and Ways Committees. Those hearings have not yet been scheduled.
Tears roll down Rep. Yusuf Hakem’s face after the House K-12 Education Subcommittee meeting on March 11, 2025. Hakeem, a Chattanooga Democrat, was one of three lawmakers to vote against bill that could strip the right to public education from children not in the U.S. legally. (Photo: John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout)
Photographs by John Partipilo/Tennessee Lookout ©2025
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