tuition

May 1 (UPI) — Federal prosecutors are suing New Jersey for offering qualifying noncitizen residents in-state college tuition and state-funded benefits, the latest state the Trump administration has accused of discriminating against out-of-state Americans in its anti-immigration crackdown.

The Justice Department has brought nine lawsuits challenging states’ laws often called Dream Acts, which generally offer noncitizens who have lived in and attended high school in the state for several years the same college tuition that citizen residents are charged.

The Justice Department filed its lawsuit Thursday, asking the court to block New Jersey from enforcing two laws: one passed in 2013 that offers in-state tuition to eligible noncitizen residents, and another passed in 2018 that extends their eligibility to state financial aid programs and scholarships.

Federal prosecutors alleged in the lawsuit that the laws “blatantly discriminate in favor of illegal aliens over U.S. citizens from other states” and violate federal law, which bars states from offering postsecondary education benefits based on residency to people unlawfully present in the country unless U.S. citizens are eligible for the same benefits.

“Imagine being denied the opportunity of education in our own country. By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, the state of New Jersey is doing just that,” Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward said in a statement.

The lawsuit comes as the Trump administration carries out an aggressive anti-immigration policy that has included mass round-ups of noncitizens to revoking deportation protections for those from war- or catastrophe-torn nations.

Almost exactly a year ago, President Donald Trump signed the “Protecting American Communities from Criminal Aliens” executive order, which directed the attorney general to identify laws “favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens,” including state laws “that provide in-state higher education tuition to aliens but not to out-of-state American citizens.”

Of the nine lawsuits challenging these Dream Act laws to date, Texas, Kentucky and Oklahoma have resolved their cases either through agreements, consent decrees or joint motions.

Lawsuits are still pending in Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia, Nebraska, California and now New Jersey.

According to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal, 21 states and Washington, D.C., provide in-state tuition to undocumented students, while 18 and D.C. also provide access to state financial aid.

Minnesota public universities can continue to offer in-state tuition and scholarships to some immigrants in the country without legal status, a federal judge ruled Friday, dismissing a lawsuit filed by the U.S. Justice Department last summer that attempted to halt the programs.

The decision follows a series of clashes between the federal government and Minnesota officials over immigration enforcement.

U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez said in her decision that the federal government failed to prove that programs offering in-state tuition for immigrants without legal status discriminated against U.S. citizens.

The federal lawsuit named Democratic Gov. Tim Walz and Democratic state Atty. Gen. Keith Ellison as defendants, along with the state’s Office of Higher Education. It said Minnesota law discriminates against U.S. citizens because it provides in-state tuition and scholarships to students living in the U.S. illegally if they attended a Minnesota high school for three years, and U.S. citizens who attended schools outside of the state cannot receive the same benefits. States generally set higher tuition rates for out-of-state students.

The federal government said those state statutes “flagrantly” violate a federal law that prevents states from providing preferential benefits to immigrants in the U.S. illegally regardless of whether or not they meet residency requirements.

“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” U.S. Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi said in a statement after the lawsuit was filed last year.

Menendez said the Justice Department misinterpreted the law, enacted during the Clinton administration, because anyone who attended a Minnesota high school for at least three years are granted the same public benefits, regardless of their U.S. residency or immigration status.

She also said the federal government didn’t have standing to sue the state attorney general or governor since neither has the power to change the state laws that determine tuition eligibility.

Ellison celebrated the decision in a statement Friday.

“Today, we defeated another one of Donald Trump’s efforts to misconstrue federal law to force Minnesota to abandon duly passed state laws and become a colder, less caring state,” he wrote.

The funding for immigrants without legal status represents an “investment for our state to do everything we can to encourage a more educated workforce,” Ellison wrote.

The U.S. Justice Department didn’t respond to an email request for comment Friday.

The department has filed similar lawsuits this month against policies in Kentucky and Texas. Last week, a federal judge in Texas blocked that state’s law giving a tuition break to students living in the U.S. illegally after the state’s Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton, said he supported the legal challenge.

In discussing the Texas case last year, Bondi suggested more lawsuits might be coming.

Florida ended in-state tuition eligibility for immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. At least 22 states and the District of Columbia have laws or policies granting the in-state benefit, according to the National Immigration Law Center. Those states include Democratic-led California and New York, but also Republican states including Kansas and Nebraska.

According to the center, at least 13 states in addition to Minnesota allow immigrant students without legal status to receive financial aid and scholarships on top of in-state tuition.

Riddle writes for the Associated Press.