The Trump administration is pressing forward with its legal campaign against state higher education policies for undocumented students, filing an appeal last week of a federal judge’s decision that had handed Minnesota a decisive victory in court.
The U.S. Department of Justice appealed U.S. District Judge Katherine Menendez’s March ruling on May 1, sending the case to the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Menendez had dismissed the DOJ’s original lawsuit outright, finding that Minnesota’s in-state tuition policy did not discriminate against U.S. citizens — the cornerstone of the federal government’s argument.
The appeal came just one day after the DOJ filed a similar suit against New Jersey, making it the ninth state the administration has targeted over in-state tuition policies for undocumented students.
Minnesota’s policy grants in-state tuition rates at public colleges to students — regardless of immigration status — who attended a Minnesota high school for at least three years and graduated or earned a GED in the state. Those who also demonstrate household income below $80,000 per year may additionally qualify for the North Star Promise Scholarship, which covers remaining tuition and fees after all other financial aid is applied.
The Trump administration has argued that such policies run afoul of a federal law prohibiting states from granting undocumented students higher education benefits tied to in-state residency, unless those same benefits are available to out-of-state U.S. citizens. But Minnesota officials countered that the policy is residency-neutral — that eligibility hinges on high school attendance within the state, not immigration status. Under that framework, even an out-of-state citizen who attended a Minnesota boarding school would qualify for the same tuition benefit.
Menendez agreed, ruling both that the state’s policy applies uniformly to citizens and undocumented residents and that federal immigration law does not override state authority in this area. She also found that Gov. Tim Walz and Attorney General Keith Ellison — both named as defendants in the original suit — lacked the authority to change the statutes in question, meaning the federal government had no standing to sue them individually.
Ellison, who helped lead the state’s defense, was pointed in his response to the March ruling. “Today, we defeated another one of Donald Trump’s efforts to misconstrue federal law to force Minnesota to abandon duly passed state laws and become a colder, less caring state,” he said in a statement.
Whether the 8th Circuit will see it that way remains to be seen. The broader legal landscape is uneven: a federal judge in Texas actually blocked that state’s tuition policy, though notably at the behest of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican who sided with the federal government against his own state’s law. The DOJ has also reached agreements with Texas and Oklahoma to wind down similar programs, though Menendez explicitly noted those outcomes had no bearing on the Minnesota case.
According to the National Immigration Law Center, at least 22 states and the District of Columbia have laws or policies providing in-state tuition to undocumented students, with at least 14 of those — including Minnesota — also offering some form of financial aid or scholarships.
With the appeal now filed and more lawsuits in the pipeline, the administration shows little sign of abandoning a legal strategy that has so far produced mixed results in court.
