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States’ laws ‘constitute blatant unequal treatment favoring illegal aliens over U.S. citizens,’ lawsuits claim
The Department of Justice recently filed lawsuits against New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington for their laws requiring in-state tuition prices be granted to illegal immigrants attending state universities.
These four new complaints—filed Aug. 27—mark the 18th through 21st cases of this kind since the Justice Department’s first lawsuit against Texas in June 2025. Most of the cases are on-going.
Christopher Hajec, deputy general council at the Federation for American Immigration Reform, told The College Fix that he believes these lawsuits will continue to be filed, although he is not sure what state will be next.
Some states have attempted to skirt around the federal law by “not bas[ing] instate tuition for illegal aliens on residence, but on some proxy for residence, such as graduation from a high school in the state,” he said in a recent interview.
Every one of the 21 complaints filed over the last 15 months—from Texas up through Washington—cite a federal law that states that illegal immigrants cannot be eligible “on the basis of residence … for any postsecondary education benefit” unless that same benefit is available to U.S. citizens regardless of their residence.
The federal government argues that the states’ laws providing lower tuition and, in some cases, financial aid to in-state illegal immigrant students while not offering the same to out-of-state U.S. citizens is illegal.
Currently, 15 states offer state-funded financial aid to illegal immigrants who are residents, a National Immigration Law Center fact sheet states.
The lawsuit against Washington, which is nearly identical to the other three new lawsuits, alleges that its laws “constitute blatant unequal treatment favoring illegal aliens over U.S. citizens.”
The complaint alleges the “Washington Dream Act” is illegal because it denies in-state student grants to out-of-state U.S. citizens—despite in-state illegal immigrants receiving those grants. A second state law at issue in the lawsuit makes illegal immigrants eligible for state-funded student loans.
The Aug. 27 complaint also claims Washington has ignored federal law on this issue for over two decades. Arizona’s complaint alleges that it has been in violation since 2022, Oregon’s complaint claims a decade, and the complaint against New Mexico alleges it has ignored the law for two decades.
The exact number of illegal immigrants who receive in-state tuition in the U.S. is not clear. However, the Arizona lawsuit cites research by the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting that found “in the Fall 2025 semester, at least 720 illegal aliens had received in-state tuition” in the state, a difference of about $24,000 compared to the out-of-state price.
All four of the newest complaints also reference President Donald Trump’s April 28, 2025 executive order. It requires agency leaders to identify and work to stop the enforcement of state and local policies that favor “aliens over any groups of American citizens that are unlawful … including State laws that provide in-State higher education tuition to aliens but not to out-of-State American citizens.”
With the exception of Minnesota, the Justice Department has been successful in court thus far. It had wins this April, June, and July against Nebraska, Kentucky, and Illinois, as The Fix previously reported.
In Minnesota, a judge dismissed the federal government’s lawsuit against the state in March, ruling that the Justice Department misinterpreted the federal law. The judge also ruled that the state bases eligibility on high school graduation, not “on the basis of residence,” according to a case tracker at Higher Ed Immigration Portal.
Hajec told The Fix that the Justice Department is “more likely to lose in states that employ a proxy for residence rather than expressly base instate tuition expressly on residence.”
In Texas, the courts thus far have sided with the federal government. However, several liberal groups including the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and the ACLU of Texas intervened in the case to keep fighting to maintain the state benefits for illegal immigrants, according to the case tracker.
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the defense fund, said his group is asking to intervene in the newest four lawsuits, too.
“The latest cases simply continue the Trump administration’s misuse of the court system to continue a concerted campaign of hostility toward all immigrants,” Saenz stated in a news release. “If these cases were so urgent, why did the first Trump administration never file a single such case, even though all of the relevant statutes – state and federal – were on the books long before 2017?”
However, in the case of Texas, Hajec told The Fix that the state laws do conflict with the federal law, which gives “all US citizens the right to pay instate tuition at a state university if the state let illegal aliens pay instate tuition based on their residence in the state.”
As of the end of August, the states still litigating either through their attorneys general or through immigration groups that have intervened are: Texas, Kentucky, Minnesota, California, Virginia, Nebraska, New Jersey, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Colorado, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, New Mexico, Arizona, Oregon, and Washington, according to the case tracker.
MORE: New Virginia AG moves to defend in-state tuition for illegal immigrants
