Oklahoma Agrees to End In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants

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The state consented to end the practice after the U.S. Justice Department sued it.

The state of Oklahoma and the U.S. Department of Justice have agreed to overturn a state law that let illegal immigrants pay in-state tuition rates.

In-state tuition rates are offered at public colleges and universities to students who are residents of the state where the school is located. People who live outside the state typically pay higher tuition rates.

The Oklahoma law gave in-state tuition rates to students who graduated from an Oklahoma high school in the state and lived with a parent or legal guardian while attending that school for a minimum of two years before graduation.

On Aug. 5, the federal government filed a legal complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma, initiating a lawsuit against the state. The filing came the same day the two sides submitted a โ€œjoint motion for entry of consent judgment.โ€

The lawsuit is part of a drive by the Trump administration to reestablish legal distinctions between U.S. citizens and illegal immigrants.

In the complaint, the federal government said federal law prohibits โ€œaliens not lawfully present in the United States from getting in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state U.S. citizens.โ€

Despite this, Oklahoma law allowed individuals unlawfully present in the country to be eligible for in-state tuition benefits at state schools, while requiring U.S. citizens โ€œfrom other states to pay higher tuition rates.โ€

Federal law forbids โ€œthis unequal treatment of Americans,โ€ which violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, the complaint said.

The Supremacy Clause says that federal laws preempt, or supersede, state laws that conflict with federal laws.

In the motion, both governments asked the district court to enter a final judgment declaring that the state law is invalid because it violates the Supremacy Clause. They also asked the court to issue a permanent injunction blocking the state from enforcing the tuition policy.

The Justice Department said it filed the lawsuit because federal law โ€œprohibits institutions of higher education from providing benefits to aliens that are not offered to U.S. citizens.โ€

The state law โ€œblatantly conflicts with federal law and is thus in conflict with the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution,โ€ the department said in a statement on Aug. 7.

By Matthew Vadum

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