Feds sue Colorado over college aid for illegal immigrants

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(The Center Square) - The U.S. Department of Justice has filed a federal lawsuit against Colorado for offering reduced tuition rates and state-funded scholarships for illegal immigrants.

This is the department’s 14th lawsuit against a state for allowing taxpayer-funded in-state tuition for illegal immigrants enrolled in universities and colleges. The suit was filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for Colorado.

Listing the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, the State Department of Higher Education and its executive director, JB Holston, as the defendants, the federal complaint claims Colorado’s ASSET Act and several related state laws are in violation of federal law. 

Colorado’s Advancing Students for a Stronger Tomorrow (ASSET) Act was signed into law in 2013 and initially allowed illegal immigrants and eligible DACA students to receive in-state tuition rates. DACA, which stands for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, was a program started by President Barack Obama in 2012.

In 2019, House Bill 19-1187 was passed in Colorado and revised the benefits allocated to postsecondary students. The legislation also expanded the benefits eligible for illegal immigrants, including in-state financial aid. 

Only six Republicans in the General Assembly, Colorado's legislature, voted yes on the 2013 act. The 2019 bill passed with no Republican support. 

In 2022, the General Assembly passed HB 22-1155, “In-State Tuition for Colorado High School Graduates,” which subsequently granted illegal immigrants postsecondary benefits if they resided in Colorado for at least one year – as opposed to the previous three-year requirement - before enrolling in a state college or university.

Legislators also removed the requirement for illegal immigrants to submit an affidavit stating they applied for lawful residency or would apply as soon as they were eligible. 

As of 2026, the benefits for eligible illegal immigrants and DACA recipients are in-state tuition rates for public colleges, universities and participating private schools, access to the Colorado Opportunity Fund and state financial aid.

The U.S. Department of Justice is alleging these Colorado laws violate federal immigration laws and argues the federal government has the authority to seek injunction relief. 

The DOJ complaint 

The complaint requests that a federal judge block the state from offering in-state tuition to illegal immigrants enrolled in higher education. This demand for immediate injunction mirrors the complaints issued against other states such as Massachusetts and Rhode Island over a similar dispute. 

The defendants — the Colorado Department of Higher Education and its executive director — did not respond to The Center Square's request for comment.

The U.S. Department of Justice relied on Section 1623(a) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which prohibits states from offering post-secondary education benefits to illegal immigrants solely based on their state residency status. 

The DOJ further recites federal law that mandates “an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State ... for any postsecondary education benefit …” 

A DOJ spokesperson said in a recent article that the department is “committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise that illegal aliens will not obtain taxpayer benefits or preferential treatment over our own citizens." 

The complaint also calls on President Donald Trump’s February 2025 Executive Order, titled "Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders," which requires the head of each executive department or agency to “identify all federally funded programs administered by the agency that currently permit illegal aliens to obtain any cash or non-cash public benefit …” 

States are not legally required to enforce federal executive orders unless there are certain conditions. If the president's order enforces a valid federal law that applies to all states, or if the order is tied to federal funding, states are required to oblige with the federal directive. In this case, if an agency violates the federal order, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security may take appropriate action.

Since the Colorado Commission on Higher Education operates within the Colorado Department of Higher Education and receives federal funding, both entities are subject to federal jurisdiction. They're required to follow the executive order. Failure to do so could result in a massive withdrawal of federal funding for higher education in Colorado. 

Lawrence Pacheco, the chief communications officer for the Colorado Attorney General’s Office, told The Center Square it had “no comment on this active litigation.” 

Future of Colorado's higher education

In February, a conservative legal watchdog group, the Equal Protection Project, filed a request with the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Colorado’s ASSET Act. EPP argued the Colorado law presents a stronger conflict with federal law than the laws the Department of Justice challenged in California and Virginia.

“Colorado’s statutory structure goes further than [California and Virginia] laws by allowing eligibility after substantially shorter periods of in-state high school attendance or physical presence and by integrating that eligibility across additional state-funded postsecondary benefits beyond tuition classification,” the request states. 

The federal complaint also flagged the shortened attendance and residency requirement statute in Colorado’s HB 22-1155. 

William Jacobson, president and founder of the Equal Protection Project, said during an interview with The Center Square that the Department of Justice did not inform his group prior to filing the complaint against Colorado, but he’s “glad they took action.” 

The group has challenged numerous “DACA/Undocumented student only” scholarships across the United States with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

“We object to scholarships limited to [undocumented/DACA students] because that excludes American-born students, which we believe is national origin discrimination," Jacobson said.

So far, his organization has been successful in four of its six civil rights complaints targeting schools with scholarships limited to “undocumented/DACA students.” But among the list of schools with active programs is Colorado’s Metropolitan State University, which was hit with a two-part 15-page complaint in January that details nine scholarships that EPP says discriminate against American-born students.

Higher Ed Immigration Portal released a study conducted by The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and American Immigration Council and found that as of 2024, there are more than 400,000 illegal immigrants enrolled in higher education across the U.S., making up approximately 2% of all postsecondary students. 

State schools such as the University of Colorado Boulder appear to remain compliant with the Colorado ASSET law, writing on its website that it welcomes “all students, including undocumented, DACA and ASSET-eligible students.” It defines "undocumented students" as “students who do not have the legal papers required to prove residence, citizenship or work authorization in the United States.”

University of Colorado Boulder spokesperson Michele Ames said in an interview with The Center Square that the school remains compliant with Colorado law.

“In Colorado, this means any student who meets the defined residency requirements - including students who lack documentation, students who are homeless and other specific types of students – qualifies through the ASSET Act,” Ames said.

She also confirmed the University of Colorado system has about 200 students who use the Colorado ASSET Act to receive in-state tuition. 

Colorado State University remains compliant with the state law as well, with its admissions website stating CSU is a “great college option” if you are DACA- or ASSET-eligible and live in Colorado. The school did not respond to The Center Square's request for comment.