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.”
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