FRANKFORT, KY – A Latino civil rights organization has filed a motion to intervene in a federal-government lawsuit seeking to eliminate the regular tuition rates paid by most students in Kentucky for students without lawful immigration status living in Kentucky, according to papers filed in federal court Friday. Kentucky is among four states whose duly-enacted tuition laws have now been challenged by the Trump administration.
MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) filed the request on behalf of Kentucky Students for Affordable Tuition (KSAT), an unincorporated association of college students without lawful immigration status who qualify for regular tuition rates under a long-standing Kentucky policy. At issue is a lawsuit filed on June 17 by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which seeks to invalidate a 2002 regulation that allows undocumented students who graduate from Kentucky high schools to pay tuition equivalent to the rate paid by most students at Kentucky’s public colleges and universities.
“The DOJ’s pattern of collusive lawsuits challenging affordable tuition for immigrant students is a nativist abuse of federal authority,” said Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel. “These laws have stood for years without challenge by administrations of both parties.”
The DOJ lawsuit names Kentucky Gov. Andrew Beshear, the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education (CPE), and its president as defendants, alleging the state regulation violates federal law. Gov. Beshear has filed a motion to dismiss, while CPE and the other defendants are expected to respond by mid-August. Most recently, the parties dismissed the governor as defendant and filed an agreed-upon decree to end the longstanding Kentucky policy.
“This lawsuit is yet another example of the Trump administration’s efforts to demonize the immigrant community, this time by targeting young immigrants merely seeking an education,” said MALDEF Attorney Olivia Alden. “The filing of this action during the summer has the cruel and immediate effect of creating confusion as students prepare to return to — or start —school and pay tuition for the upcoming fall 2025 semester. We commend the students of KSAT for their bravery and unwavering commitment to fighting for affordable higher education for all.”
KSAT’s members are students who either currently attend or plan to enroll in Kentucky public colleges and universities this fall. According to the motion, if the regulation is overturned, tuition for these students could jump by up to 152 percent—from $446 to $897 per semester credit hour—potentially forcing many to withdraw from their degree programs or abandon their plans entirely.
The motion to intervene was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, Frankfort Division.
The DOJ’s lawsuit argues that the Kentucky regulation violates the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, a legal theory similar to one used by the federal government to collude with the Texas attorney general to strike down Texas’s legislatively-enacted tuition policy for undocumented students living in Texas. That case, United States v. Texas, ended on June 4, when a federal court declared the Texas Dream Act unconstitutional in a matter of hours, without any public hearing or input from affected students.
MALDEF also sought to intervene in the Texas lawsuit on behalf of a group of students facing higher tuition rates. In that case, attorneys argue that the federal and state governments used a “contrived legal challenge” to circumvent the normal legal process, which prevented sufficient notice or consideration before taking away the regular tuition rates so many students depended on. MALDEF continues to oppose the federal government’s efforts to invalidate longstanding tuition protections for undocumented students across the country.
Read the motion HERE.