High Court Rejects Tuition-Law Case

What a waste of courtroom time...But thanks to the judge for justice.
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KS: High Court Rejects Tuition-Law Case
The Wichita Eagle, July 3, 2008
By Jim Sullinger

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to review a case challenging a 2004 Kansas law allowing some illegal immigrants living in the state to receive in-state tuition to public universities and colleges.

The case was filed by Kris Kobach, now chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, on behalf of 24 out-of-state university students and their parents.

The lawsuit, financed by the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, contended that a 1996 federal law prevents the state from offering to illegal immigrants residency-based benefits that are not available to all U.S. citizens.

The law offers the lower in-state tuition rate to illegal immigrants who attend Kansas high schools for three years and obtain either high school diplomas or state-issued GEDs. The students must sign affidavits saying they plan to apply or are applying for U.S. citizenship.

The latest count, in September 2007, showed that 243 students were taking advantage of the provision.

Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, said he was disappointed but not surprised that the high court refused last week to review the case.

He said the court receives about 8,000 such requests each year and only about 80 are granted.

The case was heard in federal district court in Topeka in 2005. U.S. District Judge Richard Rogers wrote a 38-page decision that said the out-of-state students did not have standing to file the lawsuit and dismissed it.

That decision was upheld at the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver. Kobach then asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

Kobach said the case was decided purely on procedural grounds.

"No court has ever ruled on whether the Kansas statute violated federal law or the U.S. Constitution," he said Wednesday.

Later this month, Kobach will argue a similar case before the California Court of Appeals. If California courts strike down the law there, he said, a similar lawsuit could be filed in the state courts in Kansas.

Other states that have enacted similar laws are Illinois, Nebraska, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington.

Supporters of the Kansas law say it applies mainly to children who were born outside the U.S. and came to this country when their parents entered illegally. The law is backed by Gov. Kathleen Sebelius and the Kansas Board of Regents.