California Bill Would Let Deported Illegal Immigrant Professors Teach Remotely

A California state lawmaker has introduced a bill that would allow professors who entered the country illegally and face deportation to keep teaching community college students remotely.

Assemblymember Mike Gipson, a Democrat representing Los Angeles, filed the measure recently. It would permit what the bill describes as a "remote teaching arrangement" for such faculty.

The arrangement lets a deported or detained faculty member carry out instruction and professional duties through distance education or other remote methods provided by the community college district, to the extent possible.

The bill would require community college districts to let faculty who leave the United States on or after January 1, 2027, for reasons including Department of Homeland Security immigration enforcement actions continue their work remotely. Those faculty must have been teaching for the district at the time of departure.

A post from the Faculty Association of California Community Colleges, shared by Gipson in April to support the bill, stated the legislation "protects student learning by ensuring instructional continuity when community college faculty are impacted by immigration enforcement."

The post added that the bill "allows affected faculty to continue teaching remotely, preventing sudden course disruptions and keeping students on track."

The Institute for Immigration Research at George Mason University’s College of Humanities and Social Sciences estimates that among the 8.1 million teachers in the country, about 857,200 are immigrants. Nearly half of those are postsecondary teachers, or college professors.

Fox News Digital contacted Gipson for comment, but he declined.