DOJ Sues Oklahoma Over In-State Tuition Policy for Immigrants

Oklahoma unlawfully allows noncitizens present in the US to get in-state tuition benefits, the US Department of Justice asserted Tuesday.

The DOJ says Oklahoma’s policy, which unfairly requires US citizens from other states to pay higher tuition rates than noncitizens, violates federal law and the US Constitution, according to its complaint filed in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma. The DOJ seeks both injunctive and declaratory relief.

The office of the Oklahoma Attorney General didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

The DOJ has filed at least three similar suits in recent months, including complaints challenging tuition policies in Kentucky, Texas, and Minnesota. As with its complaint here, the DOJ says tuition policies in those three states violate the supremacy clause in the US Constitution, which requires overriding a state law that interferes with or is contrary to US law.

A federal district court recently ruled in the Texas case that the state can no longer offer undocumented immigrants lower tuition to attend state schools than to US citizens who live outside the state, reasoning that the state’s policy violated the supremacy clause.

Federal law bars “aliens not lawfully present” in the US from receiving in-state tuition benefits denied to out-of-state US citizens, the DOJ’s Oklahoma complaint says. But Oklahoma law offers cheaper tuition to noncitizens than it does for US citizens who live out of state.

The state’s law conflicts with a federal statute that clearly says an “alien not lawfully present” in the US won’t be eligible for a postsecondary education benefit unless a US citizen is eligible for that benefit, according to the DOJ.

The federal law says all US citizens must be eligible for a benefit regardless of residency, before noncitizens can get that benefit based on residency, the complaint says.

The DOJ also cited President Donald Trump’s Feb. 19 executive order, which seeks to ensure that taxpayer-funded benefits don’t go to noncitizens, and his April 28 executive order directing officials to ensure that state laws don’t favor noncitizens over US citizens.

Because the state law violates federal immigration law, the DOJ asserts that Oklahoma is violating the supremacy clause, and injunctive relief is necessary.

The case is United States v. State of Okla., E.D. Okla., No. 6:25-cv-00265, complaint 8/5/25.