Kris Kobach files another tuition lawsuit aimed at undocumented students
He may be running for Secretary of State in Kansas, but Kris Kobach announced yesterday that he’s taking aim at students in Nebraska.
The law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City has made illegal immigration a focus of his run for state office, promising to purge the voting rolls of non-citizens. This week he added another bullet — aimed at the undocumented — to his already lengthy legal resume.
On Monday, Kobach filed suit in Nebraska to overturn a 2005 state law that grants in-state college tuition to undocumented children who live in Nebraska for at least three years and graduate from a local high school. “It is a great injustice when U.S. citizens who have always obeyed the law are charged more in tuition than aliens whose very presence in the United States is a violation of federal law,” Kobach said in the announcement.
It’s not his first attempt to strike down provisions that give immigrant kids a financial break. In 2004, Kobach sued the state of Kansas when it passed a similar provision and, two year later, he went after a California law, as well. The Kansas suit was dismissed by a federal judge — after it cost state taxpayers $175,000 in legal fees. The California suit is pending before that state’s Supreme Court.
In the press release, Kobach argues that, “the liberal movement to give in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens is losing ground rapidly.” Perhaps he didn’t notice the DREAM Act bill introduced in the Missouri Senate earlier this month.
