The 2025 General Assembly kicks off in just 50 days.

It's a short 30 day session in which more than a dozen new lawmakers will be sworn in.

One of them is already proposing new rules for undocumented immigrants attending Kentucky's public universities.

Our June Lefler spoke with state Representative elect T.J. Roberts ahead of next year's legislative session.

Students from across the country and globe attend Kentucky's colleges.

But not everyone gets lower cost in-state tuition for young adults.

That's reserved for students who graduated from a Kentucky high school, including undocumented immigrants.

For me, it just seems like an outrageous proposition, given that there are Kentucky universities right across the river from Ohio and Indiana.

We don't extend in-state tuition to those individuals.

We don't extend in-state tuition to every legal immigrant.

The soon to be freshman lawmaker says he'll introduce a bill that takes that in-state tuition away along with some other things.

Second thing is we're going to include provisions that states that the CPI and universities are going to have to get collect their data on the immigration status, and they are going to have to report that to customs, Border Patrol and ICE.

They are going to need to do that.

They're already required to do that under federal law.

So we are going to make sure that that's the case under state law as well.

Further, we've discussed a provision as well where if a university does allow an illegal immigrant that they know to be an illegal immigrant, to be a student at that university and they commit a crime against a Kentuckian, that Kentucky and does have the right to a private cause of action against the university.

A U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer told Kentucky lawmakers this month his agency largely intercepts those who wind up in local jails.

But that approach might widen under President elect Donald Trump.

What ICE does with that data, that's up to them.

We're not turning over the individual student and we're not arresting them and turning them over to federal authorities.

We're simply turning over the data.

There's immigration relief applications that still are on the books under federal law, as far as we know.

ICE might use that, right?

It just simply states that if you're trying to come here for the purposes of collecting benefits that we don't even afford to, every legal immigrant, you've got another thing coming.

Kentucky is not a place for it's not the place for it.

We're not going to be offering special privileges for individuals, especially if they're here illegally.

The incoming lawmaker says he wouldn't pursue any similar legislation regarding K-through-12 education.

Federal law guarantees a free public education to all children, regardless of immigration status.

For Kentucky Edition, I'm Jean Lefler.

Roberts announced this proposed legislation alongside state Senator Lindsay Tickner.

That means the General Assembly would likely see two versions of this bill one in the House and one in the Senate.

The next legislative session starts on January 7th.