Republican leaders of Virginia’s General Assembly announced this week that they planned to press for legislation next year that would prevent the state’s public colleges from enrolling illegal immigrants, even if they had attended high school in Virginia, according to today’s Washington Post.

The legislators, whose party now controls both the Virginia Senate and the House of Delegates, said they feared that some U.S. citizens living in Virginia were being shut out of some state institutions because illegal immigrants were taking their spots, the newspaper reported. The proposed bill would require public colleges to prove that an applicant was a legal resident or held a valid student visa.

Northern Virginia Community College and some other two-year institutions allow illegal immigrants to enroll. But many of the state’s four-year institutions, including the University of Virginia, say they already reject those individuals. In 2004 a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit that challenged the admissions policies of seven colleges in the state, ruling that they have the right to deny admission to applicants who are living in the United States illegally.

Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat, was quoted in the newspaper as saying that he was eager to work with Republicans to curtail illegal immigration. But he said he was waiting to read the findings of a state commission, expected to be released in October, that is studying immigration issues before taking a position on the Republicans’ college-admissions plan. —Sara Hebel