FRANKFORT, KY– Students represented by MALDEF, a Latino civil rights organization, can intervene in a federal-government lawsuit seeking to eliminate regular tuition rates for students without lawful immigration status in Kentucky, according to a court order issued yesterday.
In August, MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund) filed a motion to intervene 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 regulation. At issue is a lawsuit filed on June 17 by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which seeks to invalidate a 2002 policy 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.
According to the motion, if the state policy 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 policy 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. MALDEF’s request to intervene in Texas was denied and the decision is now being appealed. Additionally, MALDEF is seeking to defend tuition equity in Oklahoma.
Please attribute the following statement to Thomas A. Saenz, MALDEF president and general counsel:
“Longstanding state policy that is grounded in the best interests of the entire state, such as Kentucky’s tuition-equity policy, should never go without a vigorous legal defense in the face of a legally unsound attack by the federal government. KSAT is now able to present that meritorious defense in the federal district court.”
Please attribute the following statement to Olivia Alden, MALDEF attorney:
“The Court recognized that because Kentucky state officials refused to defend their own decades-long policy against this lawsuit, the impacted students have the right to defend that regulation. We look forward to continuing to represent KSAT in their fight against the Trump administration’s callous efforts to deny Kentuckians equal educational opportunities.”
Read the order granting intervention HERE.