Trump administration cites 1996 statute; five states have already settled
The four new lawsuits challenge policies the administration says unlawfully discriminate against American citizens because the policies make available benefits to noncitizens that are denied to out-of-state Americans.
“No more placing illegal aliens over American citizens on this Department of Justice’s watch,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward Jr. said in a statement. “We look forward to favorable court rulings and will continue to deliver on President Trump’s promise: illegal aliens will not receive benefits denied to American citizens.”
According to UPI, Trump has been leading what the wire described as an aggressive anti-immigration campaign that has included mass arrests and deportations. The Justice Department’s targeting of state in-state tuition policies follows an April 2025 executive order signed by Trump directing the attorney general to identify and stop enforcement of policies that favor “aliens over any groups of American citizens.”
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate said in a statement that the cases rest on plain statutory text. “This is a simple matter of federal law: colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Shumate said.
The administration’s legal theory relies on a 1996 federal statute that prohibits states from offering in-state tuition to people residing unlawfully in the United States unless a U.S. citizen is eligible for the same benefit regardless of whether the citizen resides in the school’s state. The Trump administration is asking courts to enjoin the three states and Washington, D.C., not only from enforcing the specific policies named in the lawsuits but also from enforcing any state policies that offer financial assistance or scholarships to undocumented residents.
Of the 25 lawsuits filed so far, the Justice Department has received five consent judgments from Republican-led Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Nebraska and Kansas. In a suit against Democratic-led Illinois, a judge ruled in the Trump administration’s favor, but the state is contesting that ruling.
The Arkansas attorney general’s office appeared likely to enter a consent agreement with the federal government. “We agree with the U.S. Department of Justice that federal law preempts state law in this case, and that this state law should not be enforced,” the office’s spokesman, Jeff LeMaster, told Courthouse News.
Proponents of the state policies have argued that they benefit local communities.