Overview
- The Department of Justice filed lawsuits against 21 states this week, saying those states unlawfully give in‑state tuition to people not lawfully present under a 1996 federal statute.
- The federal cases rest on 8 U.S.C. §1623, which the DOJ interprets to bar states from offering residency‑based postsecondary benefits to those not lawfully present unless identical benefits are available to U.S. citizens in every state.
- States and advocates counter that many laws grant reduced rates based on where students attended and graduated high school rather than on immigration status or simple residence, and several governors and attorneys general have vowed to defend voter‑approved measures like Arizona’s Prop. 308.
- The litigation has immediate effects for students: courts and settlements already removed in‑state rates in Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Kentucky and Illinois, leaving more than 120,000 students without those rates and putting roughly 218,000 more at risk according to higher‑education data.
- Mixed lower‑court rulings, ongoing appeals and the differing legal claims across states make a circuit split likely and raise the prospect that the issue will reach the Supreme Court to set a nationwide rule on college access for undocumented students.