DOJ Sues Illinois to End Taxpayer-Funded Tuition for Illegal Aliens
“Illinois has an apparent desire to win a ‘race to the bottom’ as the country’s leading sanctuary state.”
The U.S. Department of Justice is suing to stop in-state tuition breaks for illegals in Illinois—making the state the latest target of its crackdown on these unlawful, taxpayer-funded benefits.
Illinois’ laws allow illegal aliens to qualify for reduced in-state tuition rates and for other benefits such as scholarships. Meanwhile, American citizens from other states are not offered these same reduced tuition rates or benefits.
That’s discrimination against our own citizenry, and it’s illegal. “Federal law prohibits institutions of higher education from providing benefits to aliens that are not offered to U.S. citizens,” the DOJ said in its press release. “The Illinois laws blatantly conflict with federal law and are thus in conflict with the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution.”
In its complaint filed yesterday in the Southern District of Illinois, the government asked the court to block the state from enforcing the laws.
The DOJ’s lawsuit follows two executive orders signed by President Trump: “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders,” to ensure that no taxpayer-funded benefits go to unqualified aliens; and “Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens,” to overturn state laws like the one in Illinois that offer in-state education tuition to aliens but not to out-of-state American citizens.
Illinois is the fifth state to be sued in the Trump administration’s ongoing battle to end the unlawful incentives to illegal immigration in the form of tuition benefits, originally offered in over 20 states.
Three of the five states have capitulated to the government’s demands. Texas and Oklahoma both halted their in-state tuition programs for illegals shortly after the DOJ challenged them, as we reported earlier here and here.
And now, two months after the government filed a similar lawsuit, Kentucky is going to stop offering in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants at public colleges and universities, Attorney General Russell Coleman told Fox News Digital.
It’s hard to see how Illinois’ laws will fare any better in this showdown. The DOJ’s lawsuit is a straightforward challenge to the State’s unconstitutional in-state tuition programs, similar to those it defeated in the other three states. As the complaint points out, two federal district courts have declared that similar laws in Texas and Oklahoma were preempted by federal law.
That doesn’t mean Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is backing off, however; in fact, he’s doubling down. Last month, he signed a law to expand student financial aid to all residents, regardless of immigration status, thereby allowing illegal immigrants residing in the state access to even more educational financial benefits.
“Illinois has an apparent desire to win a ‘race to the bottom’ as the country’s leading sanctuary state,” said U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft for the Southern District of Illinois. “Its misguided approach mandating in-state tuition, scholarships, and financial aid to illegal aliens plainly violates federal law.”
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
The only taxpayer-funded “benefit” that illegal aliens should receive is a one-way ticket back to their hellhole of origin.
Brilliant! It should be used in Republican campaigns!
Gov. Toilet’s new statute has a good chance of surviving because it allows all Illinois residents to receive the benefits.
Out of state USA citizens are being denied the benefit because they do not reside in Illinois.
That is a mischaracterization of the relevant test. The test is whether non-Illinois residents can get the same benefit.
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.” 8 USC 1623(a).
Exactly so.
I don’t think so. Out of state students/applicants are ineligible for in-state tuition rates under Illinois policy. The fact that they are discriminated against due to their nationality (American) compared to other applicants (illegal aliens from any/all other countries) makes Illinois vulnerable.
In-state vs out-of-state doesn’t apply because that’s not discriminating against one group due to nationality.
Not quite. Illinois is not offering in-state benefits to illegal aliens from out of state! It’s offering it only to those who live in the state, whether legally or not.
The problem here is not national-origin discrimination, it’s that there’s a statute that specifically bans what IL is doing. The statute specifically says that illegal aliens may not be given educational benefits that are not also available to all US citizens regardless of where they live. So if a benefit is not available to a US citizen living in TX, or even in Australia, then it can’t be available to an illegal alien living in IL.
Federal law is quite clear. Illinois has no defense. Of course, they may get a sympathetic activist judge. Then the law becomes, shall we say, malleable.
Laws are LAWS. The opposit of ‘malleable’. LAWS!
not according to black robed demigods
Sweet summer child. Blackrobes in commie hellholes like Massachusetts have beebn sucessful for decades in erasing entire constitutional amendments by ruling that they simply don’t apply to YOU.
its a start
Still and again, simply because someone wins a popularity contest to elected or appointed office, it doesn’t mean they can aggressively, egregiously, and repeatedly vomit whatever anti-constitutional nonsense into directive or law.
If they do, we the people should arrest them and put them in prison.
“That doesn’t mean Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker is backing off, however; in fact, he’s doubling down. Last month, he signed a law to expand student financial aid to all residents, regardless of immigration status, thereby allowing illegal immigrants residing in the state access to even more educational financial benefits.”
Aggressively, egregiously, and repeatedly.
Put Pritzker in prison NOW.
sure they can… and are …..
Prison?! On what charge?
Why sue? Just start arresting people for breaking federal law.
Arresting?! On what charge?
The benefits being offered here are illegal. Federal law says that the illegals can’t be eligible for them. That doesn’t justify arresting anyone!
Everything this hole does is wrong, yet the knuckle draggers in Chicago keep him in office.
Imagine, if you will, a prison in which the prisoners have taken control and replaced the staff. It would certainly look to outsiders as if everything going inside is wrong but somehow nobody was interested in correcting it.
Or, if you don’t want to imagine, just examine pretty much any actual major American university.
If you look at the Democrat Party as the political arm of the criminal elements in America, it suddenly makes sense,
The entire Pritzker family is atrociously corrupt and immoral, but Guv JB always reminds me of the Michelin Man with a bad toupée.