The Department of Justice is taking Illinois to court over state laws it says unlawfully offer in-state tuition and scholarships to illegal aliens.
The DOJ filed a complaint Tuesday asking a federal court to prevent Illinois from enforcing those laws, which it says are both unlawful and unconstitutional.
“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement. “This Department of Justice has already filed multiple lawsuits to prevent U.S. students from being treated like second-class citizens—Illinois now joins the list of states where we are relentlessly fighting to vindicate federal law.”
The challenged laws include Illinois’ 2011 DREAM Act, which established a fund that offers scholarships to “undocumented students” in Illinois, as well as the 2020 RISE Act, which extended Illinois financial aid to “noncitizen student[s]” who have “not obtained lawful permanent residence.”
The DOJ says those laws discriminate against U.S. citizens in violation of federal law. Specifically, it points to a 1996 law that bans states from offering in-state tuition to illegal aliens unless they offer the same tuition to all U.S. citizens from any state.
By violating federal law, the DOJ says, the laws also violate the Constitution’s supremacy clause, which establishes federal law as “the supreme Law of the Land.”
Its complaint names as defendants the state of Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker, state Attorney General Kwame Raoul, university officials, and others.
The case comes amid a battle between President Donald Trump and Pritzker over Trump’s threat to deploy National Guard troops to the state to help local law enforcement in Chicago fight crime.
On Tuesday, Trump said in an Oval Office event, “We’re going in. I didn’t say when, we’re going in.”
Pritzker responded on X, “The President’s absurd characterizations don’t match what’s happening here. There’s no emergency that warrants deploying troops in Chicago. He’s insulting Chicagoans by calling our home a hellhole—and anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting them, too.”