Thread: Lawsuit Concerning CA Tuition Break 4 Illegals

Attorneys representing college students from 19 states filed a class-action lawsuit seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from officials for charging them significantly more than illegal aliens pay to attend state-run colleges in California.
The state allows illegal aliens to pay in-state tuition, while making out-of-state American citizens pay higher tuition fees.

The 42 plaintiffs allege that California lawmakers and members of the board of regents for the University of California "knowingly violated a federal law enacted in 1996 that says any state that offers discounted in-state tuition to its illegal aliens must provide the same lower rates to all US citizens."

Some of students in the University of California system could be eligible for as much as $300,000 in total damages, according to plaintiffs' attorneys.


The students state that the lawsuit was filed in a state court in Yolo County on behalf of over 50,000 US citizens who have paid out-of-state tuition to attend public colleges and universities in California since 2002.

They also claim that out-of-state students are paying $20,000 more than illegal aliens per year to attend schools in the University of California system. That's $11,000 more than illegal aliens pay for the same education.

"And in the community college system in California, which has a total of 1.5 million students, the tuition differential is $6,000 a year," said attorney and legal scholar Kris Kokach..

California is among the eight states that have laws charging lower in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens who qualify as in-state residents.

Opponents of illegal alien preferences say that those state laws violate a federal statute, which took effect in 1998, that says any state that offers discounted in-state tuition rates at public colleges to illegals living in the state must provide the same lower rates to all US citizens who attend. The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican, and Sen. Alan K. Simpson, Wyoming Republican.

One angry student said, "These illegal aliens may live in California, but they broke the law to do it. Why should they get preferential treatment over citizens?"

Allegedly, the administrators of the University of California system also recognized that the state law was invalid, and they refused to implement it unless they were "given immunity." As a result, he said, California lawmakers enacted an "immunity statute," which says that if the state tuition law is declared illegal or unconstitutional, schools in the University of California system would not be held liable for retroactive tuition differences.

The bill which gave lower tuition to illegal aliens was signed into law by Governor Gray Davis, a Democrat who was ousted from office by a state recall vote.

One angry student said, "These illegal aliens may live in California, but they broke the law to do it. Why should they get preferential treatment over citizens?"

That about sums it up.