Lawsuit pits small-town residents against NU Board of Regents, other college boards, on law granting cheaper tuition to immigrants

Posted: Wednesday, September 1, 2010 5:00 pm | Updated: 12:46 pm, Wed Sep 1, 2010.

World-Herald News Service | 0 comments

OMAHA — Nebraska’s latest battle over illegal immigration is about to unfold in the town of Fairbury, where residents number fewer than 3,700 and foreigners are only a few dozen.

It is in this Jefferson County seat — where the legendary Wild Bill Hickok is said to have begun his infamous gunslinging career — that six taxpayers have filed a lawsuit asserting that Nebraska’s 2006 law granting in-state tuition rates to certain illegal immigrants violates federal law and is an improper use of their tax dollars.

The lawsuit names the University of Nebraska Board of Regents and other state college boards as defendants.

The Fairbury plaintiffs are represented by Kansas City, Mo., law professor Kris Kobach, who is building a national reputation as an opinion leader and architect of some of the toughest immigration laws in the country, including those in Arizona and Fremont.

The plaintiffs also are his in-laws and their neighbors.

So far the Nebraska law — designed for youths whose parents brought them to the U.S. illegally but have attended at least three years of a high school in Nebraska — has been used by a few dozen students.

It has been dogged by controversy. Gov. Dave Heineman unsuccessfully vetoed the law before it went into effect in 2006. A few legislators have since tried to repeal it, and it’s been a contentious issue in several political races.

So why has the issue now come to Fairbury, a town that doesn’t even have a local college campus or an industry that attracts immigrants?

Kobach said he has been contacted by frustrated taxpayers statewide for years. He spends a lot of time with family and friends in Fairbury, he said, so it is “convenientâ€