Washington, Oct 2 — The US Justice Department sued the University of Delaware, challenging a policy that allows some immigrants without lawful status to qualify for lower in-state tuition while US citizens living outside Delaware generally pay higher non-resident rates.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of actions by the Trump administration challenging state and university tuition policies that extend resident rates to undocumented students.
The Justice Department alleged that the University of Delaware's policy violates federal law by making a post-secondary education benefit available to people who are not lawfully present in the United States without providing the same benefit to US citizens regardless of their state of residence.
The allegations have not been adjudicated by a court.
“This Department of Justice’s efforts will not cease until we have challenged every state law or university policy that gives preferential treatment to illegal aliens over our Nation’s own citizens,” Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward Jr. said.
“Congress long ago made clear that states cannot give reduced tuition to illegal aliens not available to all Americans,” he said.
The complaint asks a federal court to block the university from enforcing its policy allowing people residing in Delaware to receive in-state tuition rates regardless of whether they are lawfully present in the country.
The government also wants the court to prevent the university from adopting new tuition policies that it says would provide similar advantages based on immigration status.
“This is a simple matter of federal law: colleges cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department's Civil Division said.
“This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country,” he said.
The Justice Department said Thursday's case brings to 26 the number of lawsuits it has filed challenging policies providing in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants.
It said six cases involving Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Illinois and Kansas have resulted in court orders favourable to the federal government's position.
Other lawsuits remain pending in states including California, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Virginia, Minnesota, Maryland, Colorado, Connecticut, Vermont, Arizona, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii, according to the department.
The University of Delaware did not appear to have posted a substantive public response to Thursday's lawsuit on its main public statements page by the time of this report.
For the 2026-27 academic year, the university lists undergraduate tuition for certain programmes at $656 per credit hour for Delaware residents and $1,770 for non-residents.
The legal dispute centres on a federal statute governing post-secondary education benefits based on residence. The Justice Department argues that the law prevents states or institutions from granting such benefits to undocumented immigrants unless US citizens are eligible for the same benefit without regard to where they live.