The Justice Department secured another victory in its campaign against state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants on Wednesday after a federal judge struck down a Nebraska law that allowed certain students in the country illegally to qualify for in-state tuition rates for nearly two decades.U.S. District Judge Brian Buescher, an appointee of President Donald Trump, ruled that Nebraska’s 2006 law conflicts with federal immigration law and permanently barred the state from enforcing it. The decision came after the DOJ sued Nebraska in April, arguing the state’s tuition and scholarship policies unlawfully granted benefits to illegal immigrants that were unavailable to some U.S. citizens.“The Nebraska statutes establishing residence requirements for illegal aliens to obtain in-state tuition, while leaving United States citizens from other states to pay full out-of-state tuition, blatantly violate” federal law, Buescher wrote in his 54-page opinion.
Under the now-invalidated law, students in the country illegally could qualify for in-state tuition if they graduated from a Nebraska high school and lived in the state for at least three years, among other requirements.
The lawsuit centered on a provision of federal law stating that an illegal immigrant in the United States cannot receive a postsecondary education benefit based on state residency unless the same benefit is available to all U.S. citizens. Because out-of-state residents were required to pay higher tuition rates than some illegal immigrant students, both the DOJ and Nebraska argued the state law was preempted by federal law.
