Judge Dismisses Legal Challenge to KS Tuition Break for Illegal Immigrants
by Jim Brown
July 8, 2005
(AgapePress) - A former counsel to Attorney General John Ashcroft is appealing a ruling that tossed out a lawsuit challenging a Kansas law that provides in-state tuition to illegal aliens.On Tuesday (July 5), Judge Richard Rogers of Topeka dismissed the lawsuit, claiming it had no standing to challenge the law. Rogers said the 24 out-of-state students and their parents at Kansas universities were not harmed by the law.
The plaintiffs' attorney, University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor Kris Kobach, says Kansas is one of nine states violating a 1996 act of Congress which said no state can give in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. He believes Judge Rogers misinterpreted several important precedents in the law
"The judge's decision is somewhat troubling," he says. "He's claiming that U.S. citizens suffer no injury when illegal aliens are given subsidized tuition, even though the U.S. citizens' tuition goes up to compensate for the tuition break given to the illegal aliens."
The attorney, who was Ashcroft's chief advisor on immigration law enforcement, says the Kansas law not only rewards lawbreakers, but also forces citizens of the state to subsidize the tuition of those who are breaking the law.
"It's just unfair to make so many U.S. citizens who are working hard, mortgaging themselves to the hilt, and really having a tough time paying for college ... pay even more just so some illegal aliens can have a subsidized tuition," Kobach exclaims. "So it's a pretty hard argument to swallow that the other side is offering, that somehow there's a compassion-based reason to provide this subsidy."
A spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which helped to bring the lawsuit, echoes that sentiment. "The judge has ignored evidence of severe financial strain on the affected law-abiding families, the plain language and intention of federal law, and the brazen appearance of unfairness such an unjust result would seem to suggest," says FAIR president David Stein. The Kansas law, he adds, "treat[s] illegal aliens even better than legal, nonimmigrant students."
Kobach and FAIR are appealing the ruling to the Tenth U.S. Circuit of Appeals.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
