A federal judge ruled Illinois' laws providing in-state tuition, financial aid, and scholarships to illegal immigrants unconstitutional, permanently blocking enforcement and handing the Trump administration another courtroom victory in its nationwide campaign against such policies.

U.S. District Judge Stephen McGlynn, a Trump appointee in the Southern District of Illinois, sided with the Justice Department on Friday, declaring the state's in-state tuition policies, the RISE Act, and the Illinois DREAM Act "unconstitutional and invalid" as they apply to illegal immigrants. McGlynn granted the federal government's motion for summary judgment and denied Illinois' motion to dismiss, Fox News Digital reported.

The ruling permanently bars Gov. JB Pritzker's state from enforcing the laws, though McGlynn delayed the order for 14 days to give Illinois a window to ask an appeals court to intervene.

The DOJ filed its lawsuit against Illinois and a handful of colleges back in September 2025. The core argument: Illinois violated federal law by offering in-state tuition and state-funded financial aid to illegal immigrants while denying those same benefits to American citizens who happen to live in other states. A Trump executive order directed the administration to challenge state laws structured that way, and the Illinois case became one of the first to reach a definitive ruling.

U.S. Attorney Steven Weinhoeft did not hold back after the decision came down.

"Illinois sought to incentivize illegal immigration on the taxpayer's dime by treating illegal aliens better than U.S. citizens living in other states, in clear violation of federal law. This ruling enforces the statute Congress wrote and stops the State from putting illegal aliens ahead of American citizens."

Pritzker's office stayed silent as the ruling landed

Fox News Digital reached out to Pritzker's office for comment. No response was reported. The governor has championed the RISE Act and Illinois DREAM Act as expansions of educational access, but the federal court found that access came at the direct expense of American citizens from outside Illinois who were denied the same benefits.

Rep. Mary Miller, a Republican representing Illinois, praised the decision on X, framing it as a win for the people footing the bill.

"This is a win for Illinois taxpayers and American students who were shut out while Pritzker prioritized foreigners in our country illegally."

That framing, taxpayers subsidizing benefits for people who entered the country unlawfully, while lawful residents of other states got nothing, sits at the center of the DOJ's legal theory. Congress set the rule decades ago: states cannot offer education benefits to illegal immigrants that they withhold from all U.S. citizens. Illinois chose to ignore it. A federal judge told them they can't.

DOJ filed a new lawsuit against Colorado one day before the Illinois ruling

The Illinois decision did not land in isolation. Just one day earlier, the Justice Department filed a separate lawsuit against Colorado, targeting that state's ASSET Act and related policies. The DOJ argued Colorado's laws unlawfully provide lower tuition rates and state financial aid to illegal immigrants while denying those benefits to out-of-state American citizens, the same legal framework that brought down Illinois' laws.

More than 6,000 illegal immigrants receive in-state tuition in Colorado, the Washington Examiner reported.

Associate Attorney General Stanley Woodward made the administration's posture clear in a statement tied to the Colorado case:

"For three decades, Congress has made clear that Colorado cannot give education benefits to illegal aliens that it does not give to all American citizens. By granting illegal aliens in-state tuition, Colorado is not only violating federal law but subsidizing education for illegal aliens at taxpayers' expense. Our litigation efforts will not cease until we have fulfilled President Trump's promise that illegal aliens will not obtain preferential treatment over our nation's own citizens."

A spokesperson for Colorado Gov. Jared Polis pushed back, telling Fox News Digital that "the federal government seizing control of determining in-state tuition across the country is absurd," and that Colorado was "expanding access to education to provide students with the skills to get good-paying jobs."

Polis's office cast the fight as federal overreach. The DOJ cast it as enforcing a law Congress wrote thirty years ago. The Illinois ruling suggests federal courts are siding with the DOJ's reading, and Colorado may be next.

Four states down, nine lawsuits still pending

Illinois is not the first state to lose this fight. The Trump administration has already won or reached settlements in similar cases against Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Nebraska. Nebraska specifically agreed to end in-state tuition benefits for illegal immigrants as part of its settlement with the DOJ, the New York Post reported.

Lawsuits remain pending against nine more states: Minnesota, Virginia, California, New Jersey, Kansas, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, and Colorado. That list reads like a roster of blue-state capitals that built education-benefit structures for illegal immigrants and now face the same legal reckoning Illinois just lost.

The breadth of the campaign matters. This is not a one-off case or a single rogue state getting slapped down. The administration is systematically challenging every state law that gives illegal immigrants tuition and financial aid benefits unavailable to American citizens living elsewhere. The Supreme Court's recent decision greenlighting the end of temporary protected status for certain migrant groups showed the judiciary is willing to back the administration's immigration enforcement posture at the highest level.

And the pattern extends beyond tuition fights. Federal courts have handed the administration wins on multiple fronts in recent weeks, including an appeals court ruling siding with the administration on a National Park Service dispute.

Illinois has 14 days, then the laws go dark

Judge McGlynn's 14-day stay gives Illinois a narrow window. The state can ask an appeals court to intervene, potentially seeking an emergency stay while it challenges the ruling. But the summary judgment posture is brutal for Pritzker: the judge did not merely express doubt about the laws or send the case to trial. He ruled on the merits, found the laws unconstitutional and invalid, and permanently enjoined their enforcement.

That leaves Illinois students who enrolled under the RISE Act and DREAM Act in limbo. The ruling does not specify transition provisions for current recipients, and the state has offered no public plan for what happens when the 14-day clock runs out.

Meanwhile, ICE arrests have surged in July, tracking toward a record month, another signal that the administration is pressing its immigration enforcement agenda across every available lever, from courtrooms to the street.

Some Democratic officials have responded to this string of losses by simply defying court orders. That approach has drawn its own scrutiny, as critics have pointed out the contradiction between Democrats who once demanded Trump respect judicial authority and those now ignoring rulings they dislike.

Pritzker has not said whether Illinois will appeal. But the DOJ has made its position plain: it will keep filing suits until every state that gives illegal immigrants preferential treatment over American citizens is brought into compliance with federal law.

When a state spends taxpayer money giving benefits to people who broke the law to be here, benefits it denies to Americans who followed the rules, a court stepping in isn't overreach. It's the system working the way it's supposed to.