Trump administration sues Arkansas over in-state tuition for DACA students, other immigrants

The Trump administration is suing Arkansas and asking a federal judge to strike down a 2019 law allowing state colleges and universities to charge in-state tuition to students who have legal permission to remain in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA, among others. 

The Justice Department on Thursday filed lawsuits against Arkansas, Hawaii, the District of Columbia and Utah. The federal government is suing 25 states total over such measures.

The Justice Department lawsuit said the Arkansas law is unconstitutional and called it “blatant unequal treatment.”

The suit challenges a law signed by former Gov. Asa Hutchinson, a Republican, in 2019 that allowed in-state tuition for immigrants who have lived in the state for at least three years and graduated from a public or private high school in the state.

The law applies to DACA students; those who have work permits or whose parents do; and immigrants from the Marshall Islands. 

The measure had originally applied to immigrants regardless of legal status but was narrowed to those three categories. It passed with bipartisan support in the majority-Republican Legislature. The lawsuit comes after a federal judge struck down a 2004 law allowing in-state tuition for some immigrants in Kansas on Wednesday. That law had also been challenged by the Trump administration.

Arkansas’ Republican Attorney General Tim Griffin’s office said it was reviewing the complaint to determine next steps but agreed with the Trump administration.

“We agree with the U.S. Department of Justice that federal law preempts state law in this case, and that this state law should not be enforced,” Griffin spokesperson Jeff LeMaster said in a statement.

Supporters of the law said it was a fair move for students who have been living and going to school in the state and would help the state economically by keeping high-skilled students in Arkansas.

Former state Rep. Megan Godfrey, a Democrat who co-sponsored the legislation, said the Trump administration lawsuit was mischaracterizing the law as something that benefitted immigrants who weren’t in the country legally.

“It’s disingenuous to say it’s a law for ‘illegal aliens,’ and it’s a political stunt,” Godfrey said. “It’s an intentional riling up of a base that is so extreme on immigration issues that they are out of step with a Republican supermajority in Arkansas.”

Hutchinson signed the in-state tuition measure along with another bill allowing the state to issue nursing licenses to DACA recipients. It was also the same day he announced his plans to sign a law cutting off funding for “sanctuary cities” that don’t cooperate with federal immigration authorities.

“We’re a welcoming state, and we want to be able to continue that,” Hutchinson said when he signed the tuition measure.