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Why Is the Justice Department Suing Hawaii, D.C., Arkansas, and Utah?
It is closing the last remaining state and district programs that grant in-state college tuition and related aid to people who are not lawfully present. On September 10, 2026, DOJ filed complaints against those four jurisdictions and said it has now sued every state with such a law. Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr., stated: “No more placing illegal aliens over American citizens on this Department of Justice’s watch.” The department also pointed to a Kansas ruling the day before that declared a similar statute unconstitutional.
The Federal Statute the Complaints Invoke
Congress in 1996 barred states from giving postsecondary education benefits on the basis of state residence to aliens who are not lawfully present unless the same benefit is available to every U.S. citizen regardless of residence. The new complaints argue that Hawaii, the District of Columbia, Arkansas, and Utah do the opposite: they price tuition and, in some cases, scholarships for certain noncitizens who live and went to school locally, while out-of-state American citizens pay the full nonresident rate. Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate has described the same theory as a simple rule: colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens.
That is why officials say the discounts should never have been on the books. Courts in Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Illinois, and Kansas have already enjoined analogous programs.
How the Campaign Reached the Final Four
The series began with consent decrees in states that quickly stopped the practice, then moved through states still litigating. Minnesota obtained a dismissal that the government has appealed. By the time the last four filings landed, the count stood at 25 lawsuits. Woodward said the work continues until President Trump’s promise is met: illegal aliens will not receive benefits denied to American citizens.
DOJ is asking federal judges to enjoin the four remaining tuition and aid rules and declare them preempted.
Strategic Implication for Students and States
The strategic point is hierarchy of claimants. An out-of-state citizen still outranks, under the 1996 statute, a person present without legal status who claims the resident discount. States that treat the second person as a resident for tuition are, in the government’s telling, placing the alien ahead of the citizen. DOJ presents the Kansas order as proof that courts can unwind that ranking.
If the injunctions hold, public colleges in those jurisdictions would have to charge a lawful schedule to students who are not lawfully present. The department’s position is that American students were never supposed to stand behind a benefit federal law withheld from the start. DOJ has now put that position in every relevant courthouse. That is the closing move DOJ announced on September 10.
Read more: https://morsereport.com/a/news/trump-administration-advances-bank-restrictions-to-promote-self-deportation
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FAQs
Why Is the Justice Department Suing Hawaii, D.C., Arkansas, and Utah?
It is closing the last remaining state and district programs that grant in-state college tuition and related aid to people who are not lawfully present. On September 10, 2026, DOJ filed complaints against those four jurisdictions and said it has now sued every state with such a law. Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr., stated: “No more placing illegal aliens over American citizens on this Department of Justice’s watch.” The department also pointed to a Kansas ruling the day before that declared a similar statute unconstitutional.
