Kansas Immigrant Tuition Ruling Upheld
15 hours ago

DENVER (AP) — A group of students paying out-of-state tuition to attend college in Kansas cannot challenge a state law allowing some illegal immigrants to pay lower in-state tuition, a federal appeals court ruled.

The ruling, issued Thursday, dealt only with whether the plaintiffs could challenge the 2004 Kansas law and did not address the merits of the law.

A trial judge in Kansas had ruled the students lacked standing to challenge the law because they did not face a "concrete and imminent" injury. A three-judge panel of the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed in its ruling Thursday.

The plaintiffs, all U.S. citizens who did not live in Kansas, argued the state violated their constitutional rights to equal protection under the law by offering some illegal immigrants a benefit they couldn't get.

They described their injuries from the law as being the denial of equal treatment and having to pay higher tuition.

The appeals court said the students had not shown that they would have benefited, even if the law that they alleged was discriminatory was removed.

Under the Kansas law, students are eligible for in-state tuition if they attended a Kansas high school for at least three years and graduated, or earned a general educational development certificate in Kansas. Illegal immigrants who meet those conditions also must show they are working toward legal immigration status.

The outcome of the case could affect similar laws in eight other states: California, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington.

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