UVA Sued By Trump Administration For Offering In-State Tuition To Illegal Aliens
Imagine, for a moment, you’re the parent of an exceptional North Carolina high school senior. She worked hard. Her grades are excellent Her test scores are top tier.
She applies to and is accepted at Virginia’s prestigious flagship, the University of Virginia. The cost of in-state tuition for a first-year student ranges from roughly $16,500 to $27,000 while the cost to out-of-state students is more than can $66,000.
That discrepancy is to be expected. State-supported schools always offer reduced to tuition to in-state kids.
But UVa goes way beyond that. The university founded by Thomas Jefferson offers in-state tuition and enhanced financial aid to ILLEGAL ALIENS who live -illegally - in the commonwealth. If they attended high school here for two years these illegals are treated as preferred students.
Make it make sense.
Yesterday, the Department of Justice announced that it had filed suit in the Eastern District of Virginia, asking a federal judge to bar the state from enforcing the policy.
The suit claims that UVa’s policy “is not only wrong, but illegal.”
“In Virginia and nationwide, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a news release. “This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.”
If that North Carolina girl can’t get in-state tuition, why should someone who is in the country illegally get preferential treatment?
The Washington Post reports that 22 states have similar bizarre policies granting special status to illegals. So far, the Trump administration has sued seven of them.
The Post reckons that half a million illegal aliens are enrolled in American colleges and universities, roughly 13,000 in Virginia. It’s unclear how the paper arrived at that estimate. In fact, the number could be considerably higher, given that public schools do not ask if students are in the country legally.
Who should Virginia thank for this flagrantly illegal policy? The Post says it’s former Gov. Ralph Northam and the far-left General Assembly.
Color me unsurprised.
In Virginia, any student, regardless of legal status, who attends two years of high school in Virginia and who paid, or whose parents paid, state income taxes, among other requirements, can receive in-state tuition and other aid. The law was passed in 2020, when Ralph Northam (D) was Virginia’s governor.
In a sane world, this law would be repealed and illegal aliens would be turned over to ICE. They definitely would not be escorted into dorms.
That won’t happen with the Democrat-controlled statehouse now.
In fact, look for Attorney General-elect Jay Jones to waste countless tax dollars fighting the Trump administration lawsuit.
Lucky us. I hope the commonwealth loses this legal battle.
