The Justice Department on Monday sued three states — Connecticut, New York and Vermont — over policies that offer in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants at public colleges and universities.
The lawsuits argue that the policies are unconstitutional, violate federal law and discriminate against U.S. citizens from other states who pay thousands of dollars more in out-of-state tuition.
The legal actions were the latest effort by the Trump administration to tighten immigration enforcement and crack down on policies it sees as favoring immigrants who do not have legal status at the expense of Americans.
“Congress long ago made clear that states cannot put illegal aliens over our nation’s own citizens,” Stanley Woodward, the associate attorney general, said in a statement. “By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, New York, Vermont and Connecticut are doing just that. No more.”
In New York, undocumented students who graduated from a state high school pay $7,700 a year at State University of New York campuses, while citizens from other states are charged about $17,730.
Emma Wallner, a spokeswoman for Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, said that the state was reviewing the lawsuit but expressed confidence that the state’s policies would be upheld.
“In keeping with the law, the governor believes all New York high school students deserve the opportunity to pursue higher education in the state,” she said in a statement.
William Tong, the attorney general in Connecticut, addressed President Trump in a statement: “How we run our schools and teach our kids is none of your business, and you have no authority to force the sovereign state of Connecticut to deny our kids a future.”
He added that Connecticut offered in-state tuition and financial aid to all eligible students because “all kids deserve the opportunity to learn, to advance and to achieve their dreams.”
The office of Vermont’s governor, Phil Scott, did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
The Trump administration has now filed lawsuits against 17 states challenging in-state tuition for undocumented residents, the Justice Department said in a news release on Monday, including against California, New Jersey and Virginia.
The results have been mixed.
States with friendly Republican leadership — including Nebraska, Oklahoma and Texas — have chosen not to oppose the Trump administration, instead reaching settlements with the federal government to end the tuition policies.
The Justice Department secured a major legal victory in Illinois, where a federal judge struck down the state’s tuition laws as unconstitutional last month. But, a federal judge in Minnesota handed the Trump administration a defeat in March after dismissing a similar lawsuit filed against that state, a decision that the Justice Department is appealing.
Under a federal law passed in 1996, states that provide in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants based on state residence must offer that same tuition rate to all citizens in the United States.
“This is a simple matter of federal law: Colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Brett A. Shumate, the assistant attorney general in the civil division of the Justice Department, said in a statement.
In New York, undocumented immigrants can receive in-state tuition if they attended a local high school for at least two years and graduated and applied to college within five years of graduating — similar to Minnesota, where three years of local high school are required. Connecticut and Vermont also condition in-state tuition on the completion of local high school.
While the Justice Department argued that this acts as an indirect residency requirement, a federal judge in Minnesota ruled that the tuition benefit complies with federal law because it is tied to high school attendance rather than state residence.
Lawsuits in other states are pending, but the issue could reach the Supreme Court if lower courts are split.
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