EDITORS' CORNER
Attorney General Kobach says Kansas could be sued if it doesn’t repeal the law
Kansas lawmakers are debating a bill that would stop illegal immigrants from being eligible for in-state tuition costs after state Attorney General Kris Kobach said last week that the benefit violates federal law.
State Senate Bill 254 would fulfill Kobach’s recommendation to repeal the law. It prohibits illegal immigrants in Kansas from receiving any state or local public benefits in accordance with federal law, including qualifying for the lower in-state tuition cost.
Earlier this month, however, the state House voted to remove the tuition section from the bill after the Senate approved it, Wichita State University’s The Sunflower reports.
Due to the conflicting versions, the legislation is now before a joint committee, which will debate what to include in the final version of the bill.
More specifically, the bill would repeal a two-decade old law that “allows students who are seeking U.S. citizenship to receive in-state tuition benefits if they have attended an accredited high school for at least three years or earned a GED,” The Capital-Journal reports.
Currently, about 2,000 illegal immigrants graduate from Kansas high schools annually, the newspaper reported, citing data from the Higher Ed Immigration portal.
Meanwhile, Attorney General Kobach warned that Kansas could be sued if it doesn’t repeal the law.
“For more than 20 years, Kansas has been violating federal law with impunity. Now, the Trump Department of Justice is cracking down on states that have been violating that specific law banning in-state tuition for illegal aliens,” Kobach stated in a Feb. 10 news release.
He said the Trump administration already has sued seven states with similar laws. The administration alleges that offering lower, in-state tuition prices to illegal immigrants while prohibiting out-of-state U.S. citizens from that same benefit is unconstitutional.
“Kansas legislators would do well to bring Kansas into compliance with the law rather than being sued by the federal government,” Kobach stated.
Still, the proposed change has drawn bipartisan opposition, according to The Capital-Journal:
The idea of a bill targeting “innocent” students caught in the crossfire of mostly hardline, partisan immigration policies is a bridge too far for Rep. Bob Lewis, R-Garden City. …
“Our immigration system is confused, and we can’t seem to come together politically on a solution,” he said while delivering remarks on Feb. 5. “But in the meantime, we have complete innocents who are being harmed by the problem.”
Lewis said he has a difficult time believing that even a single Kansas student is at fault for the actions of their parents or other adults who may have led them across the border illegally as a young child. It’s certainly not something that a child could have navigated “on their own volition,” he said.
“These are the innocents that need to be protected,” Lewis said.
One of the groups that opposes the ban is the Kansas Immigration Coalition. In a recent Facebook post, it stated that students “who have grown up here, gone to school here, and call Kansas home” would be harmed.
Kansas is one of nearly two dozen states that offer in-state tuition prices to illegal immigrants but not to American citizens from out-of-state, according to an October report by The Fix.
MORE: New Virginia AG moves to defend in-state tuition for illegal immigrants
