Overview
- The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, names the state, Gov. Gavin Newsom, Attorney General Rob Bonta, and the governing boards of UC, CSU and California Community Colleges, and seeks an injunction halting enforcement.
- Prosecutors cite 8 U.S.C. §1623 and argue that tying lower tuition to California schooling is a proxy for residency that unlawfully withholds the same benefit from out-of-state U.S. citizens, and they also move to block state scholarships and subsidized loans.
- AB 540 allows in-state rates for students who meet California schooling criteria regardless of immigration status, and a 2010 California Supreme Court decision upholding that approach is now being challenged by the DOJ as incorrectly decided.
- California officials vowed to defend the policies, with a Newsom spokesperson calling the suits politically motivated and the University of California saying its practices align with current legal standards pending court rulings.
- Roughly 80,000 to about 103,000 undocumented students in California higher education could be affected, and the filing is part of a broader campaign that includes similar suits in multiple states and follows recent executive orders limiting benefits.