American students from out of state pay full tuition at public universities. American students from neighboring states pay full tuition. A student from Kansas attending the University of Colorado pays the out-of-state rate. An illegal alien from Guatemala attending the same university does not — in Colorado and 20 other states, illegal aliens receive in-state tuition that can mean tens of thousands of dollars in discounts per year. The Trump DOJ just sued all 21 of them.
Arizona State University alone provided approximately $10.5 million in tuition reduction benefits to illegal aliens in a single year. Multiply that across every public university in 21 states — Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia, California, New Jersey, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Colorado, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, and now Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington — and you’re looking at a massive annual transfer of subsidized public education from American taxpayers to people who entered the country illegally.
Associate AG Stanley Woodward put it plainly: “Over 30 years ago, Congress made clear that states cannot put illegal aliens before our nation’s own citizens. By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona are pushing citizens to the side and ignoring federal law. No more.”
The law at issue is 8 U.S.C. § 1623, which explicitly prohibits states from providing illegal aliens any postsecondary educational benefit that isn’t equally available to all American citizens. The statute has been on the books since 1996. States have been violating it for decades. Courts have been inconsistent in their enforcement. The Trump DOJ is now treating it as the clear prohibition Congress intended.
The lawsuits seek to stop states from enforcing in-state tuition laws for illegal aliens, and the DOJ has confirmed the effort will continue until “President Trump’s promise is fulfilled: illegal aliens will not receive benefits denied to American citizens.”
The political math driving this policy is straightforward. America has a finite number of seats at public universities. When illegal aliens fill those seats at subsidized rates, American students — including Americans from lower-income families whose families paid taxes to fund those institutions — compete on unequal terms.
The university that collects tuition from an illegal alien at the in-state rate is collecting less than it would collect from an out-of-state American student, meaning it has less money for American scholarships, American facilities, and American academic programs.
This is not an abstraction. Arizona State alone handed out $10.5 million to illegal aliens. That is $10.5 million that could have funded scholarships for Arizona residents who actually belong there.
The DOJ filed four new lawsuits Friday. The total is now 21 states. Woodward confirmed the effort won’t stop until the law is enforced in all 50. This is leadership, and it took President Trump to get it done. Every taxpayer, regardless of political affiliation, should thank him.
