slideshow Thank you, Jessica Colotl. For years, I have been struggling to make all concerned actually read and comply with the 2006 Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act, which is essentially a state law that says we must obey federal immigration, employment and public benefits laws.

Ms. Colotl, the Kennesaw State University student who, it as turns out, is in the country illegally, has done more to illustrate the near-complete disregard for immigration law in Georgia than any citizen protest rally or 1,000 commentary columns ever could.

The law is not written in some secret code or with ambiguous language. Unless we admit there are groups of people for whom the rule of law does not apply, it must be enforced.

The larger issue is not whether or not illegal aliens are illegally getting in-state tuition rates in our public universities. They are. The issue is that illegal aliens are not supposed to be in our post secondary public education system - at any tuition rate.

Post secondary education is a public benefit and is reserved for eligible applicants only.

Federal law, 8 USC 1611, states: "Aliens who are not qualified aliens ineligible for Federal public benefits" clearly defines these public benefits.

Because it seems that many in power are either clueless about the law or intentionally trying sabotage its intent, let's do something radical. Let's resort to actually reading definitions in the law:

(c) "Federal public benefit" defined

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (2), for purposes of this chapter, the term "Federal public benefit" means -

(A) any grant, contract, loan, professional license, or commercial license provided by an agency of the United States or by appropriated funds of the United States; and

(B) any retirement, welfare, health, disability, public or assisted housing, postsecondary education, food assistance, unemployment benefit, or any other similar benefit for which payments or assistance are provided to an individual, household, or family eligibility unit by an agency of the United States or by appropriated funds of the United States.

The Board of Regents receives federal funding.

Another inconvenient federal law, 8 USC 1621, defines state and local public benefits using identical language.

At the bottom of 1621, the feds allow individual states to undo the prohibition on providing public benefits to illegal aliens by passing into law specific language allowing illegal aliens to access those benefits. Georgia has no such law.

The Board of Regents and all of the universities in the system administer both federal and state and local public benefits. Post-secondary education means anything beyond K-12 education.

The Board of Regents is in violation of the above federal laws because it is admitting illegal aliens to the Georgia University System. That's a fact that J. Burns Newsome, Vice Chancellor for Legal Affairs, Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia acknowledged to me in a Thursday telephone conversation. He told me the Board of Regents "may address the matter in June."

On in-state tuition, federal law 8 USC 1623 "Limitation on eligibility for preferential treatment of aliens not lawfully present on basis of residence for higher education benefits" says that if illegals are allowed into the university system and given in-state tuition rates, then all U.S. citizens - Georgia residents or not - must be given the same rate.

Now for the state law that seems to be so challenging to so many: OCGA 50-36-1 (passed in GSICA). "Public benefit" means a federal benefit as defined in 8 U.S.C. Section 1611, a state or local benefit as defined in 8 U.S.C. Section 1621, a benefit identified as a public benefit by the Attorney General of Georgia, or a public benefit which shall include the following ..."

Georgia law does not give the Board of Regents a free hand in making its own policy. It says that governing body "shall set forth, or cause to be set forth, policies regarding postsecondary benefits that comply with all federal law including but not limited to public benefits as described in 8 U.S.C. Section 1611, 1621, or 1623."

As a compromise in the contentious and internationally reported 2006 GSICA committee process, the Georgia law says that the Board of Regents is not required to use the system set up in the state law for verifying the lawful presence in the United States of any applicant for public benefits.

But it does not say they are prohibited from doing so.

Applicants for other public benefits - like welfare or a commercial license - are required to swear on an affidavit that they are eligible using either citizenship or lawful alien status. The law then requires each agency administering benefits to verify the information provided by non-citizens using the federal Systematic Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. Not every applicant.

It is difficult to pick out the most infuriating and outrageous news quote from the many people who are either intentionally misrepresenting, or clueless on, the laws in place to protect taxpayer funded benefits from illegal aliens. But several from the Board of Regents Chancellor, Errol Davis, stick with me.

"We follow the law," said Davis last week referring to the BOR admissions policy.

No, they do not.

Davis also told reporters at a recent meeting that he opposes universal verification. As reported by Morris News: "With 300,000 students and $25 per verification, the $1.5 million cost could equal the salary and benefits of 20 professors when the system's budget is already tight" said Davis.

Complete balderdash.

The law does not require running every applicant through the SAVE system, but only those who are not citizens, a small percentage of the new applicants for admission each semester. The cost of verifying immigration status for non-citizens using SAVE is not $25 and it is not $50. It is .50 cents per query. Half a buck.

That hardly approaches the preposterous figure Davis is floating. All that needs to be done to protect public university classroom seats for eligible students is to put the existing state affidavit and verification system in place in our state universities, and verify the eligibility of each non-citizen, once, when they initially apply for admission. This is not rocket science, folks.

Let's stop calling this "messed-up" and illegal system the "Jessica Colotl story" and refer to it for what it is: The Board of Regents taxpayer deception scandal.

D.A. King of Marietta is a nationally recognized authority on illegal immigration, an expert on the Georgia immigration law and president of the Georgia-based Dustin Inman Society, which is advocates for enforcement of American immigration laws. He lobbied in favor of the 2006 Georgia Security and Immigration Compliance Act. On the Web: (http://www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org)