The lawsuit brought by Judicial Watch on behalf of California resident and taxpayer Earl De Vries, seeks to decide whether the University of California (UC) Board of Regents has the authority to offer in-state tuition for illegal aliens at all University of California campuses.
In the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, Section 1621 states that illegal aliens can be made eligible for state or local public benefits, “only through the enactment of a state law … which affirmatively provides for such eligibility.”
The California state legislature has passed three laws giving illegal aliens college-related public benefits, including in-state tuition. However, these statutes only apply to illegal aliens attending California State Universities and California Community Colleges, UC campuses were specifically not included.
The University of California Board of Regents recently approved a similar policy that allowed the same benefits as the three statutes above to be offered to illegal aliens who attended a UC college.
The lawsuit claims that the Board of Regents overstepped their authority in offering these benefits. Under the California Constitution the regents of UC are, “subject only to such legislative control as may be necessary to insure the security of its funds and compliance with the terms of the endowments of the university.”
Since these benefits to illegal aliens has nothing to do with “matters of insolvency, endowment, and the awarding of contracts,” which is under the regents’ authority, they do not have jurisdiction to offer these benefits that violate federal law.
The Judicial Watch lawsuit also argues that since there is no state law by the California legislature “affirmatively providing” these benefits to illegal alien UC students that the regents policy violates the Section 1621 provision of the the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
The case is set to be decided in the California appeals court on November 3.
Read more on this story at The Daily Signal.
