By McKenna Horsley
Kentucky Lantern
The U.S. Department of Justice is suing Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Kentucky education officials to stop the state from granting in-state college tuition rates to immigrants who lack permanent legal status.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said the lawsuit stems from a similar challenge in Texas. The Kentucky lawsuit also follows Republican President Donald Trump signing two executive orders earlier this year to “ensure illegal aliens are not obtaining taxpayer benefits or preferential treatment,” the DOJ said.
The Justice Department filed the lawsuit Tuesday in the Eastern District of Kentucky, arguing the administrative
regulation discriminates against U.S. citizens. The complaint says federal law prohibits “aliens not lawfully present” in the country from getting a benefit denied to out-of-state citizens.
Named in the complaint are Beshear, Kentucky Education Commissioner Robbie Fletcher and the Council on Postsecondary Education.
“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” said Bondi in a press release. “The Department of Justice just won on this exact issue in Texas, and we look forward to fighting in Kentucky to protect the rights of American citizens.”
Texas was the first state to offer some immigrants without permanent legal status in-state tuition 24 years ago, but it recently abruptly ended the policy after the Justice Department challenged it in court.
According to the National Immigration Law Center, 25 states and Washington, D.C. have had “tuition equity” laws or policies that permit certain students who have attended and graduated from secondary schools in their state to pay in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities regardless of their immigrations status. Residents of other states are typically subject to a higher tuition rate.
Crystal Staley, a spokesperson for Beshear told the Lantern in an email that the governor’s office has not been served with the lawsuit as of Wednesday morning “and had no advance notice, nor any prior discussion with the Department of Justice about it.” She added that the state regulation in question was issued by the Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE) before 2010. Beshear was elected as governor in 2019. The regulation was re-codified in 2022.
“Under Kentucky law, CPE is independent, has sole authority to determine student residency requirements for the purposes of in-state tuition, and controls its own regulations,” Staley said. “The Governor has no authority to alter CPE’s regulations and should not be a party to the lawsuit.”
CPE spokesperson Melissa Young said that its staff was reviewing the lawsuit and regulation as of Wednesday morning.
Jennifer Ginn, a spokesperson for the Kentucky Department of Education, said Fletcher, named as a defendant in the Justice Department’s lawsuit, “is the chief state school officer for elementary and secondary education in Kentucky.”
“He is not charged with oversight or management of Kentucky’s postsecondary education system,” she said.
The Republican Party of Kentucky seized on the complaint to attack Beshear, who’s been getting attention as a possible presidential contender in 2028, even though the policy was first put in place before he became governor. In a Wednesday afternoon statement, RPK spokesperson Andy Westberry said Beshear through his appointees to CPE was “working to turn Kentucky into a shadow sanctuary state by providing taxpayer-funded benefits to individuals in the country illegally — benefits not available to U.S. citizens.”
“We’re demanding that Andy Beshear stop violating longstanding federal law and end the practice of offering in-state college tuition to illegal aliens,” Westberry said.
Republican Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman said in a statement he has “serious concerns” that the policy violates federal law.
“Preserving in-state tuition for our citizens at the Commonwealth’s premier public universities is important to fostering Kentuckians’ potential and encouraging a vibrant state economy,” Coleman said. “Our Office will support the Trump Administration’s efforts to uphold federal law in Kentucky.”
Earlier this year, Republican state Rep. T.J Roberts, of Burlington, filed a bill to undo the Kentucky policy. However, it didn’t get a committee hearing in the GOP-controlled state legislature. In a Wednesday statement, Roberts praised the DOJ’s lawsuit and said the regulation discriminates against U.S. citizens “both those born here and those who have followed the lawful path to citizenship.”
McKenna Horsley covers state politics for the Kentucky Lantern, part of States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization. It is republished here under Creative Commons license.