Todd Blanche Sworn In As Trump's Attorney General - His First Act Infuriates Dems
American College Students Paid Out-of-State Rates While Illegal Aliens Got Discounts — AG Todd Blanche Just Said Enough
The Department of Justice filed suit Monday against New York, Connecticut, and Vermont — three blue states that have been quietly handing illegal aliens a benefit that out-of-state American citizens don’t receive: in-state tuition and financial aid at their public universities.
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate put it plainly: “This is a simple matter of federal law: colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens. This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.”
The legal principle at stake is not complicated. Federal immigration law has long prohibited states from giving illegal aliens benefits that aren’t equally available to American citizens. States can’t simply declare someone a “resident” because they have a local address and use that declaration to unlock subsidized tuition — especially when an American student from a neighboring state would pay full out-of-state rates at those same institutions.
Monday’s lawsuits are the 17th the DOJ has filed challenging in-state tuition for illegal aliens. The administration has now sued every state in the Second Circuit that has tried to preserve these preferences. This is a coordinated, systematic effort to enforce a law that blue states have spent years actively defying.
The economic reality of these policies deserves to be stated plainly. When an illegal alien receives in-state tuition at a New York, Connecticut, or Vermont public university, that subsidy comes from somewhere. It comes from state taxpayers and from the higher rates charged to everyone else — including American citizens from other states whose tax dollars help fund the same institutions. Illegal aliens are receiving a government benefit that American citizens are literally paying for and can’t access.
That’s not a technicality. That’s an inversion of the entire purpose of in-state tuition — which exists to reward state residents who have paid taxes and contributed to the institutions they’re using. The moment you extend in-state rates to people who are in the country illegally, you’ve transformed a benefit for contributing members of the community into an incentive for illegal border crossing.
These policies are also, as the DOJ correctly argues, a draw. When word spreads — and it does — that you can cross into the United States illegally, establish a local address, and access subsidized higher education at the expense of American taxpayers, that’s an advertisement. It’s one more entry in the long list of benefits that made the Biden open-border era so attractive to people with no legal right to be here.
The DOJ’s statement noted that Congress made clear long ago: states cannot put illegal aliens over the nation’s own citizens.
Seventeen lawsuits. The effort, as the DOJ’s statement promised, will not cease. American students first. Not second. Not equal. First.
As Trump targets CT's in-state tuition for undocumented students, how did other states fare?
In 2011, the Connecticut legislature passed a law allowing undocumented residents to pay the in-state tuition price at public colleges.
State Senate President Pro Tempore Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said giving undocumented students access to in-state tuition was the "fair and equitable" move. The law helps hard-working students who are "as American as any other kid," said Looney, who was Senate majority leader at the time it was approved.
"In many cases they spoke no language other than English, and had been educated in our public schools and weren't even aware they were undocumented," Looney said in an interview.
But 15 years later, Connecticut's law may be in jeopardy, with the U.S. Justice Department suing the state over the policy. In total, the Trump administration has filed lawsuits against 17 states with the goal of banning discounted tuition for people living in the U.S. without legal status.
Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat who voted for the state's law during his time as a lawmaker, called the Trump administration's lawsuit a "cruel attack" and vowed to fight it in court.
The results of similar cases around the country offer a mixed picture of whether the Connecticut law can prevail.
Some of the Justice Department's lawsuits have already succeeded and prevent thousands of students who lack permanent legal status to be in the U.S. in a handful of states from paying the lower college tuition. But most of the legal wins have come in states that sided with the Trump administration.
In Texas, U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor struck down that state's law last year after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked the court to side with the federal government.
U.S. District Court judges struck down laws in Nebraska and Oklahoma after attorneys general in those states also declined to fight the Trump administration's lawsuits.
"I am thankful to have worked with the dedicated professionals of President Trump's Department of Justice to ensure illegal immigrants no longer receive an unlawful tuition discount while American students from outside Oklahoma pay twice as much," Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond said.
Kentucky stopped offering in-state tuition to undocumented students in the wake of a Trump administration lawsuit. Florida changed its law before the Justice Department had a chance to sue.
At least two states have fought the Trump administration's lawsuits in court, with mixed success.
U.S. District Court Judge David Dugan, a President Donald Trump appointee, struck down the in-state tuition law in Illinois last month.
Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul declined to appeal Dugan's ruling, but the state legislature has already changed in-state tuition eligibility requirements in the state. Under the new version of the law, students who attend Illinois high schools for at least three years are eligible for in-state tuition even if they establish residency outside that state before enrolling in college.
Minnesota is the only state to beat the Trump administration in court so far.
U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Menendez, a President Joe Biden appointee, ruled that the federal government lacked standing in the Minnesota case.
Minnesota can continue offering in-state tuition to undocumented students because the offer isn't exclusively based on the student's residence, Menendez said. Students can also qualify for in-state tuition if they attend a Minnesota boarding school or commute to high school in Minnesota from a neighboring state, she said.
The U.S. Justice Department is appealing Menendez's ruling.
In the lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court for Connecticut, prosecutors point to a 1996 statute that says "unlawful" residents can't receive postsecondary benefits on the basis of residence unless all U.S. citizens are eligible for the benefit.
Under the Connecticut law, students can qualify for in-state tuition if they live in the state, complete two years of high school here, graduate here and sign an affidavit stating that they will legalize their immigration status as soon as possible.
If Connecticut wants to allow undocumented students to pay the in-state tuition price, federal prosecutors say, the state must also offer the in-state price to every U.S. citizen.
In-state tuition tends to be substantially cheaper: At some schools, out-of-state tuition is about three times as expensive. At the University of Connecticut, in-state tuition is $17,010 compared to $26,028 for New England regional students and $39,678 for out-of-state students for 2026-27.
Looney, a lawyer, said he doesn't think the federal government has the authority to overturn Connecticut's law.
"It was a state's decision to confer a state benefit only, so I don't believe there is any basis for the Trump administration to proceed successfully in a challenge to this," he said. "The powers that are not exclusively granted to the federal government, nor expressly prohibited to the states, shall be reserved to the states or to the people."
May you like
In a statement, Gov. Ned Lamont described the Trump administration's lawsuit as an attempt to "turn back the clock on progress."
"Connecticut is proud to have one of the best education systems in the nation," Lamont said, "and we believe that our economy works best for everyone when more people have access to education opportunities."
