Programs like the one in Colorado have been on the DOJ's radar for quite some time. Challenges to the state of Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kentucky were all successful, with several other challenges still pending.
Just like the other lawsuits, Colorado’s law unconstitutionally discriminated against U.S. citizens for not offering the same reduced rates or scholarships, according to the DOJ.
The federal statute that was designed to prevent illegal aliens from gaining access to benefits such as in-state tuition says that "an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident."
Ira Mehlman, media director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), says that the law cannot get much clearer than that.
“The language of the statute could not be clearer. It says that if a state offers in-state tuition benefits or any kind of higher education benefits to illegal aliens, they must make those same benefits available to any U.S. citizen, regardless of what state they happen to live in,” Mehlman says.
In another state the DOJ is challenging, Maryland, Associate U.S Attorney General Stanley Woodward said that $9 million of taxpayer money is being used for illegal immigrants' tuition for only one academic year.
Zachary Marschall, editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, said on Fox News that states need to just stop illegal aliens from attending state universities at all, much like what is being done in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina.
“I think states need to look to that for the modeling for this way forward. We cannot have tuition be $100,000 a year at a lot of colleges and then tell working class Americans they also have to subsidize people who have come here illegally,” Marschall says.
