Students write at desks. (Photo by Getty Images)
A Latino civil rights organization that hopes to stop the Trump administration from denying in-state college tuition rates to immigrants without permanent legal status is intervening in a challenge to a Kentucky policy.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Kentucky education officials earlier this summer to stop the state from granting in-state college tuition rates to immigrants who lack permanent legal status. The department said an administrative regulation that allows those immigrants in-state tuition discriminates against U.S. citizens.
The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed a motion in the lawsuit on behalf of Kentucky Students for Affordable Tuition (KSAT). The group is an unincorporated association of college students who are immigrants lacking permanent legal status that qualify for in-state tuition.
MALDEF’s motion says if the regulation is overturned, the students’ tuition could increase up to 152%. Some of the students’ rates will increase from $446 to $897 per semester credit hour. The students currently attend or plan to attend Kentucky public colleges and universities this fall.
“The DOJ’s pattern of collusive lawsuits challenging affordable tuition for immigrant students is a nativist abuse of federal authority,” said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel, in a statement. “These laws have stood for years without challenge by administrations of both parties.”
When the Justice Department sued Kentucky, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the lawsuit stems from a similar challenge in Texas. Since then, the department has filed lawsuits in Minnesota and Oklahoma. President Donald Trump previously signed an executive order directing administration offices to stop state and local laws that provide in-state tuition to immigrants but not out-of-state American citizens.
MALDEF attempted to intervene in the Texas lawsuit on behalf of a group of students that faced higher tuition rates.
Kentucky Republicans have criticized Beshear for not stopping the state regulation. Earlier this year, Republican state Rep. T.J Roberts, of Burlington, filed a bill to undo the Kentucky policy. It didn’t get a committee hearing in the GOP-controlled state legislature.
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