Another Win for Trump: Court Strikes Down Illinois In-State Tuition Benefits for Illegal Aliens
U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft: “Illinois sought to incentivize illegal immigration on the taxpayer’s dime by treating illegal aliens better than U.S. citizens living in other states.”
In a rebuke to Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, a federal district court has struck down Illinois laws providing in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens—a setback to the sanctuary-state governor’s broader immigration agenda.
The ruling also marks the latest win in the Trump administration’s campaign to end taxpayer-funded tuition benefits for illegal aliens, a fight Legal Insurrection has covered from the beginning.
Illinois’ laws allowed illegal aliens to qualify for reduced in-state tuition rates and for other benefits, including scholarships. Meanwhile, American citizens from other states were not offered these same reduced tuition rates or benefits.
Federal law bars states from conferring postsecondary education benefits on any illegal alien based on residence unless the same benefit is available to all U.S. citizens and nationals, irrespective of residency.
In its complaint filed in the Southern District of Illinois last year, the DOJ challenged three Illinois programs benefiting undocumented students: the RISE Act (Retention of Illinois Students & Equity Act), which provides state financial aid; the Illinois DREAM Act, which funds privately-financed scholarships; and the 2003 Acevedo Act’s in-state tuition provisions for public colleges and universities (since amended).
As we observed then, it was hard to see how Illinois would defeat the DOJ’s lawsuit. The Illinois laws “blatantly conflict with federal law and are thus in conflict with the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution,” the DOJ stated.
And yet, far from backing off, Pritzker had doubled down. A month earlier, 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 under the RISE Act.
“Illinois has an apparent desire to win a ‘race to the bottom’ as the country’s leading sanctuary state,” U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft remarked at the time. “Its misguided approach mandating in-state tuition, scholarships, and financial aid to illegal aliens plainly violates federal law.”
On Friday, Judge Dugan agreed.
The State had asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that the federal law (8 U.S.C. §1623(a)) violates the anti-commandeering doctrine—a Tenth Amendment limit that bars the federal government from dictating what state legislatures may or may not do, or compelling them to enact or enforce federal regulatory programs.
However, Judge Dugan found the federal law “does none of these things.” Rather, he held that 8 U.S.C. § 1623(a) is a valid exercise of federal preemption authority—not an unconstitutional commandeering of state legislatures—and that the Illinois RISE Act, DREAM Act, and Acevedo Act tuition provisions are expressly preempted because they grant postsecondary education benefits to aliens not lawfully present on the basis of state residence without extending the same benefits to U.S. citizens regardless of their state of residence.
“Put simply,” he wrote, “U.S. citizens or nationals must be treated no worse than illegal aliens.”
Judge Dugan’s 27-page order declares the Illinois statutes unconstitutional and invalid, blocking their enforcement.
Illinois was the fifth state sued by the Trump administration to end the unlawful tuition benefits, originally offered in over 20 states.
And now, it’s the fifth state to lose that battle. Four similar lawsuits in Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Nebraska have resulted in favorable orders striking down analogous laws that gave reduced tuition to illegal aliens, according to the DOJ.
Meanwhile, lawsuits remain pending across the country in Minnesota, Virginia, California, New Jersey, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maryland, and now, Colorado, as Robert covered here.
“Illinois sought to incentivize illegal immigration on the taxpayer’s dime by treating illegal aliens better than U.S. citizens living in other states, in clear violation of federal law,” said Weinhoeft in a statement announcing the win. “This ruling enforces the statute Congress wrote and stops the State from putting illegal aliens ahead of American citizens.”
Judge Dugan’s order gives the State 14 days to decide whether to seek a stay from the Seventh Circuit—or let that ruling stand.
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Comments
What are the odds this fat, lying grifter goes to prison? Judging from prior IL governor’s, about 50/50. He’ll be a chicken head on the block, what a punk.
Poor Rich Fatty. His crime spree has a setback.
Will Fatty obey the court order?
If only that fatass would drop dead, screw him and his illegals.
Yes, but I think Illinois is the first state to fight it, so the win means more.
Illinois is financially bankrupt.
The state should be curbing expenses, not opening up its checkbook to illegals.
It has always pissed me off that a kid from NH pays full tuition at UMass, but an illegal gets the in-state rate.
Subsidizing lawbreakers, the Massachusetts way.
This must end.
The illegal gets the in-state rate only if he lives in-state. Illegals are not being treated better than legals and citizens, they’re being treated the same way. Which would be perfectly fair and reasonable, except that it’s against the law.
A no=brainer. Why should illegals have the benefit of in-state tuition, when American students don’t get the same? Get smart, America. America First!
Because they live in-state. Legally or not, the fact is that they live there. It makes perfect sense to give them the in-state rate, but Congress in its wisdom prohibited that practice. If 20 states really think it’s a good idea, let them lobby Congress to change the law.
Not that judge Dugan… 🙂