South Carolina Statehouse Blog

Illegal immigration, along with the many problems associated with it, is a major topic being debated in almost every state’s legislature and South Carolina’s statehouse is no exception. A recent bill proposed by Representative Nathan Ballentine tries to tackle the issue of illegal immigrants receiving state aid to public educational institutions. The bill he is proposing, House Bill 4451, would specifically state that those who are not in the country legally are not eligible for state aid for education. I was able to interview Representative Ballentine about his bill and the following is based off that interview.

Rep. Ballentine told me that he first got the idea for this bill after listening to one of the many presidential debates in the fall of last year. During this particular debate, he heard one candidate talk about how illegal immigrants in his state could receive state aid for education.

After hearing that this was occurring in other states, Ballentine decided to do some research and find out if the same thing could happen in South Carolina.

“When I asked the legislative council to look into the statutes they had on file,” Representative Ballentine explained, “They said, ‘Nathan there is a loophole. It doesn’t specifically say you can’t be an illegal immigrant [to receive state aid for education].’”

Upon hearing this, Ballentine decided to close that loophole, no matter how small it might be.

As you may be aware, there is currently a bill (S. 392) which is considered a “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Package” that probably would address this problem. However, since this bill has stalled in the conference committee, Ballentine felt that something else was needed.

“When you have a comprehensive anything (referring to S.392), someone is going to find fault with it,” Ballentine explained. Therefore, he felt it was necessary to create a bill that had a “laser” like focus on this one particular issue.

“I thought it was important that we had a stand alone bill that just addressed this one item, which I noted we can and should address, and that was to be sure that our tax dollars do not go to fund educational scholarships for illegal immigrants.”

It seems that most Representatives up at the statehouse agree with Ballentine since the bill received the customary second and third readings this past week without any major problems. Following its easy passage through the House, it was introduced on the Senate floor on Thursday. Now, it is currently residing in the Senate’s Committee on Education where Ballentine believes it won’t encounter any problems either.

To sum up how he feels about the the immigration issue, Representative Ballentine had this to say:

“Immigration is a federal issue but there are certain things that we can do locally.”

With the federal government seemingly stalled on immigration, many other state legislators are holding Ballentine’s view that things must be done at the state level to deal with this issue. However, with South Carolina’s legislature scheduled to be in session only until the beginning of June, time is quickly running out for them to resolve some of the many immigration problems South Carolina faces.