A federal judge has permanently blocked Kentucky from giving illegal immigrants discounted in-state tuition at public colleges, ruling the policy violated federal law and the U.S. Constitution.
U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove issued the ruling Wednesday, permanently enjoining the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education from enforcing the discounted rate policy. The decision ends months of legal fighting and hands a clear win to the Trump administration and Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman, who challenged the program.
The lawsuit leaned on a federal statute that bars illegal immigrants from receiving state-based postsecondary education benefits unless the same benefits are available to every U.S. citizen regardless of state residency. Van Tatenhove ruled the Kentucky regulation violated that law and the Constitution’s Supremacy Clause.
Van Tatenhove’s 22-page decision noted the ruling was triggered in part by a February 2025 executive order “ending taxpayer subsidization of open borders.”
The legal fight had already produced one partial resolution last August, when Attorney General Pam Bondi’s lawsuit pushed Kentucky officials into a consent decree agreeing not to defend the policy. But a student advocacy group attempted to intervene and argued in favor of keeping the discounts. The court allowed the group to participate, then rejected its arguments entirely.
Van Tatenhove wrote that the legal case remained active because, despite the education council’s own agreement that its regulation was preempted, the agency was still enforcing it. “As such, a justiciable controversy remains present,” he wrote.
The ruling also clarified that states can legally extend certain benefits to illegal immigrants, but only through acts of the legislature, not through agency regulations.
