Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, whose state is also being sued by the administration, said that young people who grow up in Oregon, go to Oregon schools, and graduate from Oregon high schools “are part of our communities and part of our future.”
The Justice Department has announced that it will sue another four states over statutes that allow eligible non-citizens to obtain resident tuition rates at public colleges and universities.
According to ABC News, the Trump administration earlier this week filed related claims against Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, and Washington, claiming that the states “unconstitutionally discriminate against U.S. citizens who are not afforded the same reduced tuition rates or scholarships, create incentives for illegal immigration, and reward illegal aliens with benefits that U.S. citizens are not eligible for.”
Similar to claims filed against other states, the lawsuits contend that these types of laws constitute a form of illegal discrimination against American citizens.
“As of today, we have now sued 21 states who we allege were thwarting Congress’s clear prohibition on placing aliens over citizens,” Associate U.S. Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. said in a statement. “Our efforts will not cease until President Trump’s promise is fulfilled: illegal aliens will not receive benefits denied to American citizens.”
Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division made a similar argument, saying that the Trump administration won’t let states discriminate against Americans in their own country.
“This is a simple matter of federal law: colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” he said. “This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.”
In response to the lawsuit, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said that the administration’s arguments “res[t] on a faulty premise.”
The statute extending in-state tuition to select immigrants, Mayes said, was written and approved by Arizona voters through Proposition 308. Contrary to the Justice Department’s claims, Mayes says that Proposition 308 doesn’t condition eligibility on residence but on whether a student has attended and graduated from an Arizona high school or home-school equivalent.
“That’s the standard voters wrote into law—tied to where a student attended school and where they graduated, not their residency,” Mayes’s office said in a press release. “As such, it falls outside the scope of 8 USC § 1623 and is consistent with federal law.”
Mayes noted that her office “anticipated this exact challenge.” In a formal opinion, issued in August 2025, Mayes determined that Proposition 308 does not in any sense confer eligibility on the basis of residency but on conditional educational criteria.
“Proposition 308 is also consistent with 8 U.S.C. § 1623, which prohibits a noncitizen not lawfully present in the United States from being ‘eligible on the basis of residence within a State […] for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit’ in equal amount ‘without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.’ That statute restricts eligibility for some benefits offered on the basis of state residence to a noncitizen who is not lawfully present unless certain conditions are met. It creates no restrictions if eligibility is conditioned not on state residence, but instead on other criteria. Because Proposition 308 confers no eligibility for a postsecondary education benefit on the basis of residence—and instead uses other criteria—it is consistent with § 1623,” Mayes wrote at the time.
Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek, whose state is also being sued by the administration, said that young people who grow up in Oregon, go to Oregon schools, and graduate from Oregon high schools “are part of our communities and part of our future.”
“I will continue to stand up for their opportunity to pursue an education and build a life here,” Gov. Kotek told ABC News. “Rather than focus on affordability and reduce costs for Oregon families, the federal administration seems determined to attack state laws that have been successful for a decade.”
Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson, who served as the state’s attorney general for more than a decade before being elected to the governorship, similarly said that his state refuses to be “bullied” by the Trump administration.
“Washington state won’t be bullied into changing how we provide opportunities for young people in our state,” he said. “We’ll see them in court, and we expect to win.”
Sources
Attorney General Mayes Vows to Defend Prop 308 Against Federal Lawsuit
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