Trump DOJ sues Mass. over immigrant tuition law

A MASSACHUSETTS LAW allowing students without legal status to pay in-state tuition rates landed in the crosshairs of the Trump administration with a federal lawsuit alleging the measure is unconstitutional.

The Department of Justice on Monday sued both Massachusetts and Rhode Island, which has a similar law in place, arguing that charging American citizens from other states higher costs to attend public colleges and universities than Bay Staters who are undocumented amounts to “blatant unequal treatment.”

“This is a simple matter of federal law: colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to US citizens,” Brett Shumate, an assistant attorney general in the DOJ’s civil division, said in a statement alongside the legal complaints. “This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.”

The lawsuits represent another step in President Trump’s aggressive campaign to crack down on immigrant populations during his second term as well as the latest front in a battle between the Republican-led federal government and blue states.

A Healey administration official described the lawsuit as “yet another attempt by President Trump to punish immigrant families and hurt our economy in the process.”

“These young people have built their lives in Massachusetts, attended our high schools and are valued members of our community,” said Jason Law, a spokesperson for the state’s Executive Office of Education. “We want them to stay in Massachusetts, enter our workforce, start companies, pay taxes, and continue making contributions to our state.”

After two decades of advocacy, lawmakers added a policy rider to the fiscal year 2024 budget that allows all Massachusetts residents to qualify for cheaper in-state tuition rates and state financial aid at community colleges, state universities, and UMass schools, regardless of their immigration status. Gov. Maura Healey, a Democrat, signed it into law.

Migrants cannot move to Massachusetts and immediately access in-state tuition rates. To qualify, students without legal status need to have attended a Bay State high school for at least three years or obtained their GED here, and they must apply for citizenship or legal permanent residence once eligible to do so.

Initial analysis suggested the change could apply to several hundred students per year, allowing them to save tens of thousands of dollars and generating a few million dollars in new revenue for schools.

DOJ prosecutors argued that federal law prohibits states from providing postsecondary education benefits to undocumented immigrants unless US citizens are eligible for the same boost, regardless of where in the country they live.

More than 20 states had adopted laws allowing students without legal status to pay in-state tuition rates, according to the National Immigration Law Center. Some Republican-led states, such as Florida and Oklahoma, have since repealed those policies.

The federal government previously challenged similar laws in other states such as California, and those cases remain pending.