Within hours of a federal lawsuit targeting Texas’ policy of letting its nearly 20,000 undocumented students qualify for lower public tuition rates, the 24-year-old law was no more. Now, the DoJ is suing Minnesota over college tuition for illegal immigrants. Will Minnesota follows Texas? We won’t hold our breath.
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Department of Justice sues Minnesota over college tuition for undocumented immigrants
Naasir Akailvi
KARE-TV
The Department of Justice is suing the State of Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison over a state program that allows some undocumented immigrants access to free and in-state college tuition costs.
The suit alleges that Minnesota’s Dream Act and North Star Promise scholarship violates federal law by offering in-state and free tuition prices to undocumented students, but not U.S. citizen students from other states.
“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi, in a release. “The Department of Justice just won on this exact issue in Texas, and we look forward to taking this fight to Minnesota in order to protect the rights of American citizens first.”
The federal government argues that established law prohibits providing postsecondary education benefits to “aliens that are not offered to U.S. citizens,” according to the release.
The North Star Promise, which was passed in 2023 and launched in the fall of 2024, provides state funding for tuition and college fees for students from families making less than $80,000 annually.
The amount of funding students receive is based on their remaining costs after all grants and scholarships have been awarded.
In order to qualify for the North Star Promise, students must be Minnesota residents. But exactly what qualifies someone as a Minnesota resident is part of the issue.
On the state’s Office of Higher Education website, a list of possible eligibility criteria is listed, but it does not include citizenship status.
A special mention is made for students who meet the MN Dream Act, which allows undocumented Minnesotans eligibility for in-state tuition rates and state financial aid. That law passed in 2013, led in the Senate by DFL Sen. Sandy Pappas.
“We worked so hard to get that passed,” Pappas said. “I’m just sad that the federal government is trying to do this, and I know the Attorney General is going to fight back really hard.”
In a statement, a spokesperson for Attorney General Keith Ellison said “we are reviewing the lawsuit and will vigorously defend the state’s prerogative to offer affordable tuition to both citizen and non-citizen state residents.”
According to the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, which is also named in the suit, 139 Dream Act students received the North Star Promise scholarship this past school year, with total awards amounting to $383,273.90.
Carolina Ortiz, associate executive director with the immigrant advocacy group COPAL MN, called news of the lawsuit “heartbreaking.”
“Growing up undocumented, I had to live with the consequences of being denied access to affordable education,” said Ortiz, who was finally able to go to college after the Minnesota Dream Act passed in 2013. “Prior to that, I either was fully denied because of my status, or they said, ‘yes,’ we’ll accept you but you have to pay out-of-state tuition and pay for everything up front. And that to me was just a closed door.”
The issue of college tuition assistance for undocumented students came up at the state capitol this session, too. A bill sponsored by Rep. Isaac Schultz in the House and Sen. Jordan Rasmusson in the Senate would have made non-citizens ineligible for both the North Star Promise scholarship and the health-care program known as MinnesotaCare. While Republicans successfully rolled back MinnesotaCare access for undocumented adults, they were not able to make changes to tuition assistance.
““I introduced legislation to prevent us from becoming a magnet for illegal immigration, including ending free college tuition for those here illegally. These taxpayer-funded policies are fundamentally unfair to the hard-working, legal resident families and students who depend on financial aid to attend college,” Rasmusson said in a statement. “State colleges and universities are proposing significant tuition hikes, and we shouldn’t deepen our state deficit by funding sanctuary policies that make us a magnet for illegal immigration. Legal Minnesota residents are already struggling under more than $10 billion in new taxes and fees, and we need to put them first.”