DOJ Sues Arizona, Washington, New Mexico and Oregon Over In-State Tuition for Illegal Immigrants, Bringing Total to 21 States

The Trump Justice Department sued Arizona, Washington, New Mexico and Oregon on Thursday, August 27, 2026, over state laws that let illegal immigrants pay in-state college tuition. That brings the total number of states sued over these laws to 21, according to the Department of Justice and reporting from States Newsroom.

The legal theory is straightforward. A 1996 federal law, 8 U.S.C. § 1623, says states cannot give illegal immigrants a higher education benefit based on residency unless every U.S. citizen, regardless of what state they live in, gets that same benefit. DOJ says these four states are breaking that law.

"This is a simple matter of federal law: Colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens," said Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate of DOJ's Civil Division, according to Fox News. "This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country."

Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. put it more bluntly, per Courthouse News Service: "Over 30 years ago, Congress made clear that states cannot put illegal aliens before our nation's own citizens. By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, Washington, Oregon, New Mexico, and Arizona are pushing citizens to the side and ignoring federal law. No more."

The Money Gap Is Real

At the University of Washington, in-state tuition for 2026-2027 runs $13,406 versus $44,460 for out-of-state students, a $31,054 gap, according to the DOJ complaint cited by Fox News. At Arizona State University, the gap hits $24,448.

Arizona State's own data shows at least 720 noncitizens received in-state tuition, including 432 at ASU alone, per Courthouse News Service. DOJ estimated last year that ASU students without legal status received about $10.5 million in reduced tuition combined. An Arizona Center for Investigative Reporting estimate cited by DOJ suggests more than 3,600 noncitizens could qualify statewide.

This comes from public university budgets funded by state taxpayers. If federal law bars this kind of preference, and five courts have already agreed it does, then continuing the policy is a legal violation with a dollar figure attached.

The States' Defense

Arizona voters approved Proposition 308 in 2022 by ballot referendum, extending in-state tuition to any student who attended high school in Arizona for two years and graduated there, regardless of immigration status. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes has defended the law's structure in writing.

Her spokesperson, Taylor Richie, told Courthouse News Service the law is built around where a student went to school, not where they currently live: "That's the standard the voters wrote into law, tied to where a student attended school and where they graduated, not their residency. As such, it falls outside the scope of 8 U.S.C. § 1623 and is consistent with federal law."

New Mexico's 2005 law works similarly, requiring one year of in-state high school attendance and graduation. Whether that residency workaround actually survives federal preemption is now a live legal question in four more courtrooms.

Where This Stands

DOJ has already won in five states: Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Illinois, where courts struck down the tuition laws. Illinois is the only one of those five that fought back in court instead of settling with the administration. The rest joined DOJ's position rather than defend their own statutes.

Lawsuits remain pending against California, Colorado, Connecticut, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia, according to States Newsroom and Honolulu Civil Beat. Twenty states plus the District of Columbia have offered this kind of tuition benefit, per Civil Beat's reporting on Hawaii's own 2013 policy.

The Other Side of the Ledger

Advocacy groups reject the framing entirely. Gaby Pacheco, president of TheDream.US, called the lawsuits "part of a coordinated assault on Dreamers' educational opportunity, stability, and safety," and noted Arizona's law passed both the legislature and a statewide ballot vote in 2022.

Thomas Saenz of MALDEF, which is seeking to intervene in four of the lawsuits on behalf of affected students, raised a pointed question: if these laws were so urgent to challenge, why didn't the first Trump administration, in office from 2017 to 2021, ever file a single such case, even though the same statutes were already on the books? Saenz called the current push "a shameful and extremely odious course of conduct."

The department's position is that the legal violation exists regardless of when enforcement began.

The practical effect lands on students. Illegal immigrant students in Arizona, Washington, New Mexico and Oregon who currently qualify for in-state rates face the prospect of losing that status while their states' laws are litigated, unless a court blocks enforcement or the states settle, as several already have.