Trump (still) needs to enforce this illegal immigrant tuition law

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OPINION: President Trump’s second term should include actually enforcing immigration law when it comes to illegal students

President Donald Trump has a second chance to enforce a little-known federal law that will treat legal American citizens as equal to illegal migrants.

The “Illegal Immigration Reform and Responsibility Act of 1996” requires that states provide the same tuition rates to out-of-state American students if the public university allows in-state illegals to pay resident rates.

Yet, President Trump’s Department of Justice never enforced the law. Back in office this upcoming January, Trump and his team should make it right.

The statute states:

Notwithstanding any other provision of law, an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State (or a political subdivision) for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.

The College Fix previously asked Trump’s DOJ in 2020 why it would not enforce the law. It declined to give any real response. A good first step would be to fire any of the swamp monsters who stood in the way of enforcement of the law or advised the attorney general not to enforce the law.

Enforcement is simple, according to Hans von Spakovsky, a Heritage Foundation expert and former DOJ attorney. “The Attorney General of the US needs to tell the head of the Civil Division to enforce the statute,” von Spakovsky previously told The Fix.

This would simply require that attorneys in the civil division of the department file lawsuits against states that offer the in-state tuition rates, the Heritage Foundation fellow previously said. Currently, about half of states provide tuition benefits to illegal immigrants, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.

It is a simple matter of justice. States should not be free to subsidize illegal immigrants while asking Americans from other states to pay higher tuition.

Public universities should also stop treating illegal immigrants like American citizens, and instead make them pay international rates, like other non-American students do.

Source: https://www.thecollegefix.com/trump-still-needs-to-enforce-this-illegal-immigrant-tuition-law/