An Arizona judge ruled on Tuesday that students brought to the United States illegally by their parents were eligible to pay cheaper in-state tuition in the Maricopa County Community College District, the Associated Press reported.
The ruling, in a lawsuit filed in 2013 by the state’s attorney general at the time, represents a victory for the students, known as Dreamers, and the community college, which contended that President Obama’s deferred-action program on such immigrants enabled them to demonstrate that they were in the country legally. The program, called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, allows those immigrants to apply for deferral of deportation as well as work permits.
The attorney general at the time, Thomas C. Horne, who was defeated last year in the Republican primary, had argued that a voter-approved ballot measure known as Proposition 300 prevents illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits such as the tuition discount.
But Judge Arthur Anderson of the Maricopa County Superior Court ruled that “federal law, not state law, determines who is lawfully present in the U.S.”
Judge Anderson’s decision covers only Maricopa County, but the precedent he set could influence other public colleges in the state, the AP reported, citing a lawyer who represented the community-college district.
The college district’s chancellor, Rufus Glasper, told the AP that some 1,200 students were paying the lower tuition under the DACA policy, and more would probably enroll now that it had won judicial support.
The office of Attorney General Mark Brnovich, Mr. Horne’s Republican successor, did not have an immediate comment on the ruling and whether it would appeal.
