Tennessee governor signs new school voucher program that will exclude some immigrant families

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Gov. Bill Lee on Wednesday signed legislation designed to drastically expand school voucher access throughout the Volunteer State that will allow families to use taxpayer dollars on private school expenses regardless of income.

However, while the $447 million initiative has been touted as a “universal” program for anyone interested, Republican leaders included a key provision: Students living in the country illegally will be prohibited from participating.

According to the new law — which goes into effect July 1 — Tennessee’s Department of Education “shall deny” any school voucher application where the family “cannot establish the eligible student’s lawful presence in the United States.” It’s unclear how the state plans on confirming legal residency. The school voucher proposal doesn’t contain instructions on checking immigration status. A spokesperson for the department did not immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press.

“What’s most important to know is that this language doesn’t change anything about the state’s obligation as it currently stands to educate children,” Lee told reporters on Wednesday after signing the bill into law during a ceremony. “But for this scholarship, it’s only available to Tennessee citizens.”

The language comes as Tennessee and other GOP-dominant states are increasingly embracing President Donald Trump’s administration’s aggressive immigration agenda. Much of the focus has been on Trump’s plans for mass deportations of migrants. But some Republican-led states have been open to helping in other areas, such as schools, now that the Trump administration has said it allows federal immigration agencies to make arrests at schools, churches and hospitals.

Tennessee’s new voucher program allows 20,000 education vouchers of around $7,000 each to become available in the 2025-26 school year. Half of those would go to students who are lower income, disabled or otherwise able to participate in the new voucher program, but any student entitled to attend a public school could access the remaining 10,000.

Along with banning anyone who can’t prove their legal residency status in the U.S. from participating in the latest school voucher program, Tennessee Republicans have also introduced a separate proposal that would allow local school districts and charter schools to opt out of enrolling a child who is “unlawfully present” in the country.

Sponsors of the bill say they are specifically hoping to challenge a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that said states can’t deny students a free public education because of immigration status.

“Tennessee communities should not have to suffer or pay when the federal government fails to secure our borders,” said Rep. William Lamberth, a Republican backing the bill, in a statement. “Our obligation is to ensure a high-quality education for legal residents first.”

A separate backer of the bill, Sen. Bo Watson, told reporters Wednesday that no school district or charter school had specifically asked for authority to remove undocumented children but said he believed it was necessary to help schools regardless.

When pressed Wednesday, Gov. Lee said he had not reviewed the proposed legislation and would not speak on whether he agreed with it.

It’s a proposal that was previously voted down inside the Tennessee Legislature in 2022. At the time, Tennessee’s Department of Education opposed the bill, testifying that the proposal violated Supreme Court precedent and conflicted with federal law that bans districts and charter schools from requesting citizenship status.

During the initial hearing three years ago, an aide with the education agency told lawmakers that the bill was “legally fraught” and said offering free public education to undocumented students was a “settled matter of law and a settled matter by the Supreme Court.”

The agency has not weighed in on this year’s proposal. And so far, the legislation has not advanced.

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Associated Press writer Jonathan Mattise contributed to this report.