A federal judge just delivered a crushing blow to Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and the state’s radical open-borders agenda.
U.S. District Judge David W. Dugan ruled Friday that multiple Illinois laws granting illegal aliens preferential access to in-state tuition, financial aid, and scholarship programs violate federal law and the Supremacy Clause of the United States Constitution.
The ruling marks a major victory for President Trump’s Justice Department, Illinois taxpayers, and American students forced to compete for limited educational resources while Springfield Democrats rolled out the red carpet for people living in the country illegally.
In his 27-page memorandum and order, Judge Dugan denied Illinois’ motion to dismiss the case and granted the federal government’s cross-motion for summary judgment in part.
The court declared the following provisions unconstitutional and invalid as applied to aliens who are not lawfully present in the United States:
- Current in-state tuition provisions covering Illinois public universities
- The Acevedo Act provision governing public community colleges
- The Retention of Illinois Students and Equity Act, or RISE Act, including its 2025 amendments
- The Illinois DREAM Act and its scholarship program
The judge permanently barred Illinois, Pritzker, Attorney General Kwame Raoul, state education agencies, and the named university and community-college boards from enforcing the challenged provisions for illegal aliens.
“Put simply, U.S. citizens or nationals must be treated no worse than illegal aliens,” Judge Dugan wrote.
That basic principle was apparently too much for Pritzker and Illinois Democrats.
Federal law, specifically 8 U.S.C. § 1623(a), prohibits states from granting postsecondary education benefits to illegal aliens based on state residence unless the same benefits are also available to every American citizen, regardless of where that citizen lives.
Illinois offered reduced tuition and other benefits to illegal aliens with ties to the state while denying those same benefits to American citizens living in other states.
The Trump Justice Department sued Illinois in September 2025, arguing that the state’s scheme treated American citizens like second-class citizens and directly conflicted with federal immigration law.
Illinois officials attempted to defend the laws under the Tenth Amendment’s anti-commandeering doctrine, claiming the federal government could not dictate how the state administered its educational programs.
Judge Dugan rejected that argument.
The court explained that Congress was not ordering Illinois officials to administer a federal program. Instead, federal law simply prohibits states from favoring illegal aliens over American citizens when distributing residence-based postsecondary education benefits.
Illinois has two choices: extend the same tuition and financial-aid benefits to American citizens nationwide or stop providing those benefits to illegal aliens.
What Pritzker cannot do is place illegal aliens ahead of Americans.
“Illinois sought to incentivize illegal immigration on the taxpayer’s dime by treating illegal aliens better than U.S. citizens living in other states,” U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft said following the decision.
“This ruling enforces the statute Congress wrote and stops the State from putting illegal aliens ahead of American citizens,” he added in the Justice Department’s announcement.
Pritzker personally signed the original RISE Act in 2019. He later signed legislation expanding the program to make illegal-alien students eligible for state and locally funded scholarships, grants, stipends, tuition waivers, room-and-board assistance, and other benefits.
He also signed Senate Bill 461 in 2024, expanding eligibility for in-state tuition at Illinois public universities.
As The Gateway Pundit previously reported, Pritzker’s 2025 expansion made illegal aliens eligible for even more state and local financial assistance beginning January 1, 2026.
While American families struggled with soaring tuition, taxes, and living expenses, Pritzker and Illinois Democrats were working overtime to make taxpayer-supported college benefits available to foreigners living in the country illegally.
The Illinois DREAM Act was enacted under former Democrat Governor Pat Quinn in 2011 and established a privately funded scholarship program administered by the state-created Illinois DREAM Fund Commission.
The ruling’s injunction is temporarily stayed for 14 days, giving Illinois officials an opportunity to request a longer stay while they appeal the decision.
Judge Dugan refused Illinois’ request to delay enforcement merely because illegal-alien students had already structured their financial plans around the unlawful benefits.
The court wrote that it would not assume a policymaking role by allowing Illinois to continue violating federal law.
There is one important limitation: the ruling does not address House Bill 5093, another Pritzker-signed tuition law scheduled to govern beginning with the 2027–2028 academic year. Because that statute was not yet operative and was not added to the federal government’s complaint, the court said its legality remains “a question for another day.”
For now, however, the message to Pritzker and the sanctuary-state radicals in Springfield could not be clearer:
American citizens cannot be pushed to the back of the line in their own country.
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