Republican leaders in Virginia, who will hand over the reins of state power to Democrats on Saturday after losing November’s off-year elections, are ending their four years in office on a nasty note. With an assist from the Justice Department, they have mounted a last-minute effort to snatch the promise of a college education from thousands of immigrants living illegally in the commonwealth.
In 2020, Virginia’s legislature passed a law to allow all residents to pay in-state tuition at state schools, regardless of their legal status. The kids only need to show that they attended a high school in the state and that a parent or guardian paid taxes there for at least two years. Doing so could cut their tuition bill by more than half. At the University of Virginia’s College of Arts and Sciences, for example, out-of-state rates are more than $55,000 annually, compared to about $16,000 for in-state students.
The purpose of these discounts was to help draw immigrants out of the shadows and onto a career path that could lead to sponsorship by employers — and perhaps, eventually, citizenship. An estimated 13,000 illegal immigrants in Virginia are currently capitalizing on these discounts. Most of them are considered “dreamers,” meaning they were brought to the United States when they were young and lost their legal status through no fault of their own. Virginia is among more than 20 states that adopted such policies, starting with Texas in 2001.
The Trump administration, however, opposes such laws, so it’s been teaming up with friendly state attorneys general to overturn them in federal court. On Dec. 29, the Justice Department sued Virginia, claiming that in-state tuition rates for “illegal aliens” are discriminatory toward U.S. citizens who live outside Virginia. A day later, outgoing Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) eagerly agreed, entering into a consent decree with the federal government that would end the policy. Now, they are hoping a federal judge will sign off before Attorney General-elect Jay Jones (D) is inaugurated on Saturday in Richmond.
The Justice Department successfully used this same tactic last year in Texas and Oklahoma, eliminating tuition benefits for thousands of students without a single vote from state lawmakers who had codified those programs into law. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R), who was ineligible to seek reelection and will be replaced by Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger (D), praised President Donald Trump’s administration for “taking on this issue across the country and putting Americans first!”
The Trump administration’s legal argument is not without merit. A 1996 federal law prohibits states from granting higher education benefits to students without legal status “on the basis of residency” unless those same benefits are available to citizens outside a state. States have gotten around this by tying in-state tuition not to a student’s residency, but to other factors, such as their attendance at high schools in the state. The administration counters, essentially, that this is a distinction without a difference.
While that argument might prevail in court, it’s quite another thing to explain that cold logic to young immigrants who worked hard to get into college and whose families have contributed to their communities and paid taxes. Should a federal judge bless this last-minute ploy, these students will need to scramble to finance a huge hike in their tuition — or drop out.
Republicans who view college admissions in a purely zero-sum way might see this as a victory for American-born students. Those who know the value educated immigrants can provide for the country, however, understand it is a great waste.
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