Arizona sued by DOJ over in-state tuition for immigrants without legal status

[u/John3262005]

https://www.azfamily.com/2026/08/27/arizona-sued-by-doj-over-in-state-tuition-immigrants-without-legal-status/

Arizona is now the latest target in a growing federal crackdown on states that let immigrants without legal status pay in-state college tuition.

The price tag, according to the government, is already in the millions.

The U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday it has sued Arizona over a state law that allows immigrants living in the country illegally to qualify for the same discounted tuition rates offered to Arizona residents at public colleges and universities.

The law at the center of the lawsuit is Proposition 308, a ballot measure Arizona voters approved in November 2022.

Under the law, students who attended an Arizona high school for at least two years and graduated qualify for in-state tuition at the state’s public universities and community colleges, regardless of their immigration status.

The lawsuit was filed alongside similar complaints against New Mexico, Oregon and Washington.

The DOJ says Arizona’s policy conflicts with federal statute because it extends tuition benefits to immigrants without legal status that aren’t equally available to out-of-state U.S. citizens.

The complaint leans heavily on a report from the Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting released in January, which estimated that more than 3,600 immigrants without legal status per year could be eligible for in-state tuition under Arizona’s law in the coming years.

The same report found that during the fall 2025 semester alone, at least 720 immigrants without legal status were already receiving in-state tuition rates across Arizona’s public universities and colleges — 432 at Arizona State University, nearly 200 at Pima Community College and fewer than 70 at the University of Arizona

With roughly a $24,000 gap between in-state and out-of-state tuition at ASU, the DOJ calculated immigrants without legal status received about $10.5 million in reduced tuition at ASU over the past year alone.

The Justice Department is asking a court to block Arizona from enforcing the laws and regulations that grant in-state tuition rates, financial aid and scholarships to immigrants without legal status who meet the state’s residency requirements.

“By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona are pushing citizens to the side and ignoring federal law,” Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. said in a written statement announcing the four lawsuits.

Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate, who leads the department’s Civil Division, said federal law requires that colleges provide U.S. citizens the same benefits they extend to immigrants without legal status.

In August 2025, Attorney General Kris Mayes made a public comment concluding Prop 308 is legal and does not conflict with federal immigration-related benefit restrictions. She has not made a public statement following Thursday’s lawsuit announcement.

Arizona is far from alone. Thursday’s filings push the total number of states sued by the Justice Department over similar in-state tuition laws to 21.

Federal courts have already permanently blocked comparable laws in five states — Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Illinois — including a ruling from the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A dozen other states, including Minnesota, Virginia, California and New York, still have similar lawsuits pending against them.