American students from out of state pay full tuition at public universities. American students from neighboring states pay full tuition. A student from Kansas attending the University of Colorado pays the out-of-state rate. An illegal alien from Guatemala attending the same university does not — in Colorado and 20 other states, illegal aliens receive in-state tuition that can mean tens of thousands of dollars in discounts per year. The Trump DOJ just sued all 21 of them.

Arizona State University alone provided approximately $10.5 million in tuition reduction benefits to illegal aliens in a single year. Multiply that across every public university in 21 states — Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia, California, New Jersey, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, Colorado, New York, Connecticut, Vermont, and now Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington — and you’re looking at a massive annual transfer of subsidized public education from American taxpayers to people who entered the country illegally.

Associate AG Stanley Woodward put it plainly: “Over 30 years ago, Congress made clear that states cannot put illegal aliens before our nation’s own citizens. By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona are pushing citizens to the side and ignoring federal law. No more.”

The law at issue is 8 U.S.C. § 1623, which explicitly prohibits states from providing illegal aliens any postsecondary educational benefit that isn’t equally available to all American citizens. The statute has been on the books since 1996. States have been violating it for decades. Courts have been inconsistent in their enforcement. The Trump DOJ is now treating it as the clear prohibition Congress intended.

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