The bill that would allow Tennessee public schools to eliminate children without legal immigration status cleared the House subcommittee on Tuesday as they gathered outside the hearing room chanting “stop hurting children” and “shaming.”

The bill by Republican House Majority Leader William Lambers offers public K-12s and charter schools the option to refuse to register or register children who cannot provide proof of legal immigration status.

That’s very different from the Senate companion bill that Sen. Bo Watson, a Republican, was brought to the scene. The Senate version, revised last week, requires public schools to check the status of student immigration. Schools may choose to charge tuition fees to children who cannot prove that they are legally resident in the United States.

As chanting protesters clogged the hallways outside the House, outside the K-12 subcommittee meeting, Gisele Fuerta accused lawmakers of voting against the bill.

“Is this the state of Tennessee we want to be, and we turn our backs on children who pledge their loyalty to our flag every morning?” said Hijos de Inmigrantes, co-founder of the children’s advocacy group.

Tennessee’s GOP bill targets public school education for immigrant children without legal status

“Think about the messages you send to young children who don’t know their home outside of Tennessee: they don’t deserve education, they don’t belong to the classroom with friends and neighbors,” she testified before lawmakers.

Knoxville sixth grader Damien Felipe Jimenez told lawmakers he either owns his own restaurant or perhaps dreams of becoming a scientist.

“I am the son of immigrant parents and have shown me to respect and cherish everyone,” he said. “Like me and all the children in this country, we have the right to dream and make those dreams come true. We should not take away our right to education from us because of our immigrant status,” he said.

Lamberth called it “false hope” to provide education to children who face barriers to professional dreams as adults as a result of their immigration status.

“It’s a false hope to give them the best education in the world to their kids and become licensed professionals, they can get licensed, they can become lawyers, they can become accountants, they can be in office because they’re not true, they can be in office, they’re going to tell them that they’re going to tell them,” Lamberth said.

“If they exist illegally, then at some point their dreams have ceilings and that’s inappropriate,” Lambers said.

The bill was sponsored by the Supreme Court in 1982 by Plylerv. He states that the DOE decision is intended to serve as a test case for whether to establish public education rights regardless of child immigration status. If enacted, this measure faces certain legal challenges.

Tennessee public schools can eliminate immigrant children without legal status in the GOP-backed bill

Lamberth said the bill was discretionary, emphasizing that it was about local control.

“No one in this bill forces a school district to seduce even one child,” he said. “It’s entirely their decision.”

Some counties that are working on shortages in educational budgets or overcrowded classrooms may determine that they have “never” children who want to recognize and exclude children without legal status, and other counties may opt out of the law and become “magnets” for immigrant families.

“No one in this bill forces a school district to seduce even one child,” he said. “It’s entirely their decision.”

Opponents of the measure have rebutted the argument that educating immigrant children is a burden on Tennessee taxpayers.

The bill was approved 5-3 on Tuesday, with two Democrats on the committee — Rep. Yusuf Haiquam of Chattanooga and Sam Mackenzie of Knoxville, joining Republican Rep. Mark White, opposing.

In the previous vote on the Senate version of the bill last week, three Republicans also joined the only Democrats on the committee opposing the bill.

“Sometimes we think we see humans as numbers, not as humans, or we think we’re not like us,” Hakeem said Tuesday.

“I’m looking at the path they took to try to improve the lives of our children, and we’re talking about taking it away,” he said.

The bill will next be heard in the House Education and Senate’s Finance, Means and Methods Committee. These hearings are not scheduled yet.