The U.S. Department of Justice sued Hawaii on Thursday over state laws that grant in-state college tuition to undocumented immigrants, part of a coordinated filing that also targeted Arkansas, Utah and the District of Columbia. The four lawsuits pushed the federal government's total number of state tuition challenges to 25, completing a nationwide campaign against every state offering the benefit.
According to Hawaii News Now, the Justice Department's complaints seek to block laws and regulations that require colleges and universities to offer in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrants, arguing the policies conflict with federal law and unconstitutionally discriminate against U.S. citizens who are not afforded the same reduced rates. The federal lawsuit against Hawaii specifically targets University of Hawaii Administrative Rule HAR 20-4-8(g), which lets noncitizens establish state residency for in-state tuition after just 12 months of physical presence, along with UH Board of Regents Policy RP 6.209, established in February 2013, as reported by Aloha State Daily.
The Legal Theory Behind the Lawsuits
The federal challenge rests on Section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, codified at 8 U.S.C. § 1623, which the Morse Report explains prohibits states from providing postsecondary education benefits based on residence to unlawfully present immigrants unless the same benefit is offered to all U.S. citizens regardless of where they live. Justice Department official Brett Shumate said colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens, according to Hawaii News Now. The department also claimed the policies create incentives for illegal immigration and reward undocumented immigrants with benefits U.S. citizens are not eligible for.
The nationwide litigation push traces back to presidential executive orders titled Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders and Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens, which directed federal action against state policies favoring noncitizens over out-of-state U.S. citizens, per the Justice Department. One day before suing Hawaii, the U.S. District Court for the District of Kansas ruled on September 9 that Kansas's statute granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants was unconstitutional under federal law, giving the department fresh momentum heading into its final wave of filings.
Arkansas and Utah Statutes Also Under Fire
The complaint against Arkansas targets Act 844, codified as Ark. Code Ann. § 6-60-215 and enacted in 2019, which permitted state-supported colleges and universities to grant in-state tuition to eligible undocumented students, according to the federal complaint. Utah's contested policy stems from House Bill 144, enacted in 2002, which allowed undocumented students who attended a Utah high school for at least three years and pledged to seek legal status to pay resident tuition rates, as Higher Ed Dive reports. Hoodline previously reported on Utah's sanctuary campus debate tied to that same law.
Lawsuits over similar tuition policies remain pending in nearly 20 states, while comparable laws have already been permanently blocked in six states, per Hawaii News Now. In earlier rounds of the campaign, public higher education tuition policies in Texas, Kentucky, Nebraska and Oklahoma were invalidated after state officials chose to join the federal government or conceded that federal law preempts their statutes rather than defend them in court, according to Civil Beat.
What the Numbers Mean for Hawaii
An estimated 29,903 undocumented immigrants live in Hawaii, part of a broader foreign-born population of 258,829 that accounts for roughly 18 percent of the state's total residents, according to data from the Higher Ed Immigration Portal. Education advocacy groups, including the Presidents' Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, contend that state tuition equity policies strengthen local economies and help retain talent by keeping postsecondary education accessible to resident students regardless of immigration status, as reported by The Washington Post.
A central question now is whether Hawaii's university regents and attorney general will defend HAR 20-4-8(g) and RP 6.209 in court or instead follow the path taken by states that entered consent judgments acknowledging federal preemption, Aloha State Daily notes. Hawaii's case joins a growing list of state tuition fights that Hoodline has tracked in recent months, including lawsuits against Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington, a separate sweep targeting New York, Connecticut and Vermont, and earlier actions against Maryland and Illinois. Both Arkansas and the District of Columbia have laws providing in-state college tuition and financial assistance to undocumented immigrants, and both now face the same federal legal challenge as Hawaii and Utah.
