Days after taking office, Attorney General Jay Jones (D) is reversing his predecessor’s position on the Trump administration’s fight against in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants.
Yesterday (Wednesday), Jones filed a motion to withdraw from an agreement that former Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) made with the U.S. Department of Justice in a bid to invalidate the Virginia Dream Act of 2020.
The Justice Department challenged the Virginia law, which allows undocumented immigrants to receive in-state tuition, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Dec. 29. A day later, Miyares joined the DOJ in seeking to have the court declare the law invalid and prevent it from being enforced.
“On day one, I promised Virginians I would fight back against the Trump Administration’s attacks on our Commonwealth, our institutions of higher education, and most importantly – our students,” Jones said in a statement. “Virginians deserve leaders who will put them the first, and that’s exactly what my office will continue to do.”
The DOJ declined to comment to ARLnow on Jones’ action, citing the pending litigation.
The Virginia Dream Act of 2020 provides in-state tuition rates to higher education students meeting Virginia high school attendance requirements, regardless of their immigration status. The DOJ alleges that this discriminates against out-of-state U.S. citizens who cannot receive the same in-state tuition rates as undocumented immigrants living in Virginia.
“This is a simple matter of federal law: in Virginia and nationwide, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” said Attorney General Pam Bondi in a news release announcing the litigation. “This Department of Justice will not tolerate American students being treated like second-class citizens in their own country.”
Several groups, including the Legal Aid Justice Center, ACLU of Virginia and Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, filed motions to intervene in the lawsuit after the consent judgment.
“These are Virginia students who grew up in the Commonwealth, graduated from our high schools, contribute to our communities, and made life-altering decisions for their futures relying on a state law that has existed for years,” said Rohmah Javed, the director of the Immigrant Justice Program at the Legal Aid Justice Center. “They are Virginians in every way that matters, and they deserve someone to stand up and fight for them.”
The DOJ has pursued similar in-state tuition lawsuits in Texas, Kentucky, Illinois, Oklahoma, Minnesota, and California.
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