November 20, 2025 - The Department of Justice filed suit against California, saying the state is violating federal law and the rights of non-Californians by allowing undocumented immigrants who live in the state to pay the same reduced tuition rates as other in-state residents at the University of California and California State University.

California is illegally discriminating against American students and families by offering exclusive tuition benefits for non-citizens," Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in a statement announcing the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Sacramento.

The suit targets California Assembly Bill 540, which received bipartisan support in 2001 and offers in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who finished high school in the state. It offers in-state tuition to U.S. citizens who graduated from California high schools but left the state before enrolling in college.

The suit follows two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump designed to stop undocumented immigrants from receiving taxpayer benefits or other preferential treatment that help them pay for college, benefits not available to American students.

At the University of California, in-state residents are currently charged $15,384 a year in tuition, while out-of-state residents pay $51,858, though their financial burden is often reduced by scholarships and other grants. Undocumented immigrants are ineligible for federal financial aid under U.S. law.

The state laws challenged in the suit have been in effect for many years, starting with a 2001 statute that made all students eligible for in-state tuition, regardless of immigration status, if they had attended a California high school for at least three years.

But the suit was apparently prompted by President Donald Trump's April 28 executive order, titled "Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens," his description of undocumented  immigrants. The order, officially designated as EO 14287, directed federal agencies to take steps to restrict funding and other benefits to jurisdictions that the government identified as obstructing federal immigration enforcement.

"Federal law prohibits aliens illegally present in the United States from receiving in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state U.S. citizens," Olsen wrote.

He cited a ruling in August by a federal judge in Oklahoma overturning a similar policy that allowed undocumented residents to pay the same reduced college fees as U.S. citizens living in the state. In that case, however, Oklahoma's Republican attorney general did not defend the state law and agreed with the Trump administration that it should no longer be enforced.

The Justice Department filed suit Monday challenging laws recently signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom that prohibit federal immigration officers, as well as local police, from wearing masks and require them to display their name or badge number while on duty. The federal government has also sought, without success so far, to overturn the state's "sanctuary" laws that restrict cooperation between local police and federal immigration agents.

Trump, meanwhile, has frozen billions of dollars in federal research funds to UCLA and other universities and seeks to withhold funding unless they go along with policies such as limiting recruitment of international students and ending transgender care at university hospitals. A federal judge last week blocked the administration's attempts to freeze funding and require policy changes.

The lawsuit follows similar suits filed in Texas, Kentucky, Illinois, Oklahoma and Minnesota.