A federal judge has permanently barred Kentucky’s public universities from offering in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants, ruling that the state’s policy violated federal law and the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause. U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove issued the order Wednesday, ending a months-long legal fight that pitted the Trump administration and Kentucky’s attorney general against a regulation crafted not by the state legislature but by an unelected education board.
The ruling strikes down a policy created by the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education that had allowed certain students in the country illegally, provided they graduated from a Kentucky high school, to qualify for the same discounted tuition rates offered to lawful state residents. Judge Van Tatenhove found the regulation conflicted with federal immigration law because it was enacted through administrative regulation rather than an act of the state legislature.
The distinction matters. Federal law is explicit: “an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a state for any post-secondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit… without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.” Kentucky’s education council tried to do through bureaucratic rulemaking what only the legislature could lawfully do, and a federal court said no.
The case traces back to a Department of Justice lawsuit that originally named Kentucky Gov. Andrew Beshear as the defendant. Attorney General Pam Bondi’s DOJ pursued the challenge, and by August, Kentucky officials chose not to fight. Instead, they forged a consent decree, a legal agreement acknowledging the policy’s conflict with federal law.
But the story didn’t end there. After the consent decree was signed in late August, a student advocacy group attempted to intervene, arguing the tuition benefit should survive. The court allowed the group to make its case. Van Tatenhove rejected those arguments in a 22-page decision.
The judge wrote that even though the education council had agreed with the federal government that its regulation was preempted, the council kept enforcing it anyway, forcing the court to act.
As Fox News Digital reported, Van Tatenhove put it plainly:
“Here, despite the [education] council’s agreement with the United States that its regulation is preempted, it continues to enforce the regulation. As such, a justiciable controversy remains present.”
That finding left the court no choice but to issue a permanent injunction. The Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education is now permanently enjoined from enforcing the regulation.
The legal foundation for the ruling rests on a 1996 federal statute that bars states from granting postsecondary education benefits to illegal immigrants unless the same benefits are extended to all U.S. citizens regardless of residency. Newsmax reported that Van Tatenhove found the Kentucky policy directly conflicted with that law.
Van Tatenhove wrote that the ruling was “precipitat[ed]” in part by a February 2025 executive order aimed at “ending taxpayer subsidization of open borders.” The Trump administration’s broader push to enforce existing immigration law provided the backdrop for the DOJ’s challenge.
The administration’s willingness to enforce long-standing federal statutes that prior administrations left dormant has produced results in courtrooms across the country. The president’s direct engagement in major constitutional cases has signaled that immigration enforcement is not merely a campaign promise but an operational priority.
Van Tatenhove also drew a sharp line on how states may extend benefits to people in the country illegally. His ruling stated that while states retain the right to provide certain benefits to illegal immigrants, they must do so through duly enacted state law, not through agency-level regulations passed without legislative authority.
“The sole and exclusive means by which a State may provide public benefits to an unlawful alien is through the enactment of a State law.”
That principle should give pause to education bureaucracies in other states that have created similar policies through regulatory shortcuts rather than legislation.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, who joined the Trump administration in challenging the policy, responded exclusively to Fox News Digital. His statement left no ambiguity about where he stands:
“Federal law is clear: illegal immigrants don’t get preferential treatment at Kentucky’s public universities, and Kentucky taxpayers certainly shouldn’t be footing the bill. As Kentucky’s chief law officer, I was proud to join the Trump Administration to make sure our Commonwealth is upholding federal law and fundamental fairness for American citizens.”
Coleman added: “We’ll continue focusing on helping Kentucky students reach for their full potential.” The framing was deliberate, the attorney general cast the ruling as a win for Kentucky families and students who play by the rules, not as an attack on anyone.
The broader pattern is hard to miss. Federal and state programs designed to benefit people who entered the country illegally have drawn increasing scrutiny from lawmakers who argue that such benefits create perverse incentives and undermine lawful immigration.
Gov. Beshear, originally named as the defendant in the DOJ lawsuit, has not publicly responded to the ruling. His office previously told Fox News Digital that the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education is an independent agency, separate from the governor’s office. Fox News Digital reached out to Beshear for comment on the latest decision.
That arm’s-length posture is convenient. The governor’s office distances itself from the policy when the legal heat arrives, but the regulation was created under Kentucky’s executive-branch education apparatus, not by the legislature. If the governor’s office had no role, it raises the question of who in state government was minding the store while an unelected board handed out tuition discounts that conflicted with federal law.
Bondi, whose DOJ lawsuit set the legal challenge in motion, posted on social media platform X that her attorneys had “secured a crucial win for America-first policies” and that “Kentucky can no longer give in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens.”
The permanent injunction means Kentucky’s higher education system must end the discounted rates for illegal immigrants immediately. The ruling carries weight beyond Kentucky’s borders. Van Tatenhove’s reasoning, that only a state legislature, not an administrative body, can extend public benefits to people in the country illegally, could serve as a template for challenges in other states where similar policies were created by regulation rather than statute.
Several open questions remain. The student advocacy group that intervened was not named in available reporting, and it is unclear whether it plans to appeal. The specific regulation number at issue was not identified. And the full scope of how many students benefited from the policy, and what happens to those currently enrolled under the in-state rate, has not been addressed publicly.
What is clear is the legal principle: federal immigration law preempts state regulations that hand tuition breaks to illegal immigrants. Kentucky’s education council tried an end-run around that law. A federal judge shut it down.
When taxpayer-funded benefits flow to people who broke the law to be here, and the policy itself was never even voted on by elected representatives, the system has failed twice, once on immigration enforcement and once on democratic accountability. Wednesday’s ruling corrected both.
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