Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond recently moved to end in-state tuition assistance for illegal immigrants after the Department of Justice filed a legal complaint.
The DOJ argued an Oklahoma law conflicted with federal law that “prohibits aliens not lawfully present in the United States from getting in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state U.S. citizens,” the filing states. The state law in question provided tuition aid covered by scholarships and financial aid to students without immigration status if they applied for permanent residency within the state.
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Oklahoma agreed to end the policy the same day the DOJ filed its complaint.
“Today marks the end of a longstanding exploitation of Oklahoma taxpayers, who for many years have subsidized colleges and universities as they provide unlawful benefits to illegal immigrants in the form of in-state tuition,” Drummond said in a press release.
The action follows President Donald Trump’s executive order directing colleges and universities to stop allowing illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition while out-of-state U.S. citizens don’t get the same treatment.
“Rewarding foreign nationals who are in our country illegally with lower tuition costs that are not made available to out-of-state American citizens is not only wrong—it is discriminatory and unlawful,” Drummond added.
The Republican attorney general had apparently been working on resolving the matter with the DOJ for the past two months, News of the United States and Oklahoma Watch reported on Tuesday.
The DOJ has also sued Texas, Kentucky, and Minnesota over similar laws providing in-state tuition benefits to illegal immigrants.
DOJ SUES KENTUCKY OVER IN-STATE TUITION FOR ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT STUDENTS
Like Oklahoma, Texas quickly agreed to end the policy. Minnesota is defending its law against the federal lawsuit, while Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, a Republican, is calling on Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) and the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education to change the policy.
Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., have similar policies in place, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. These laws could set up legal battles between those states and the Trump administration over state financial aid offered to illegal immigrants.