BUZZ
Upholds agreement between the Cornhusker state and Department of Justice
Illegal immigrants will no longer be treated better than Iowans or North Dakotans when attending the University of Nebraska, according to a federal ruling.
District Court Judge Brian Buescher upheld a consent decree reached in April that ends Nebraska’s in-state tuition deal for illegal immigrant. The law treated illegal immigrants as residents of the state for tuition purposes if they can prove they have lived in the state for 180 days and intend to stay there, as The College Fix previously reported.
Such a policy violates federal law, which forbids states from offering better tuition rates to illegal immigrants than it does to American citizens. The policy went unenforced for nearly 30 years, including under the first Trump administration.
Judge Buescher wrote:
The law is clear. The Nebraska statutes establishing residence requirements for illegal aliens to obtain in-state tuition, while leaving United States citizens from other states to pay full out-of-state tuition, blatantly violate the federal law set out in 8 U.S.C. § 1623. Both the United States Department of Justice and the Nebraska Attorney General’s office point this out and agree on the result.
Attorney General Mike Hilgers declined to challenge the lawsuit, instead entering into a consent decree with the DOJ. However, a state senator, Dunixi Guereca, and two higher education nonprofits filed briefs to intervene in the case.
The two nonprofits, True Potential and Orel Alliance, argued that law could affect their ability to provide promised scholarships.
However, “True Potential has not identified any legal obligations that the Consent Judgment would affect, where True Potential has not demonstrated a legal obligation to provide those scholarships.” Similarly, Orel Alliance, which helps Ukrainian immigrants attend college, could not identify an actual student who would be affected.
Attorney General Hilgers praised the ruling in a statement.
“Federal law is clear: no benefits can be extended to illegal immigrants that aren’t available to American citizens,” he stated, according to Nebraska Public Media. “The court enjoined several unconstitutional laws that did just that. We are grateful for the court’s consideration and result.”
The ruling is the latest victory for the Trump administration against in-state tuition for illegal immigrants.
Texas reached a similar deal with the Trump administration to ends its preferential treatment of illegal immigrants, as The Fix previously reported. Oklahoma followed suit last summer as well.
However, blue states, including Minnesota, have fought back against the lawsuits.
A federal judge in Minnesota tossed that challenge, arguing that the in-state tuition applies to anyone who spent three years in the state prior to entering college. Therefore, she ruled, it did not necessarily violate the 1996 law.
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