The federal government is suing the New Mexico Higher Education Department over a 2-decade-old program that provides in-state tuition, scholarships and grants to immigrants who had attended other schools in the state, regardless of their citizenship status.
In the lawsuit filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, U.S. attorneys wrote that federal law prohibits those here illegally from receiving postsecondary education benefits “if such benefits are denied to U.S. citizens residing in other states.”
“There are no exceptions,” the lawsuit adds. “Yet, New Mexico has ignored this Congressional prohibition for over two decades.”
The state was one of four — including Arizona, Oregon and Washington — sued by the U.S. Department of Justice on Thursday over similar policies of “preferential treatment of illegal aliens,” the agency said in a statement. The four lawsuits come on top of 17 suits filed previously against other states over in-state tuition policies for undocumented immigrants.
“As of today, we have now sued 21 states who we allege were thwarting Congress’s clear prohibition on placing aliens over citizens,” Associate Attorney General Stanley E. Woodward, Jr. said in the statement. “Our efforts will not cease until President Trump’s promise is fulfilled: illegal aliens will not receive benefits denied to American citizens.”
The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction prohibiting New Mexico from enforcing the 2005 law, known as Senate Bill 582.
The New Mexico Higher Education Department had not yet received “official documentation” of the lawsuit, spokesperson Auriella Valles wrote in an email Thursday.
“As we continue to review the information, we remain focused on our long‑standing commitment to expanding higher education pathways for New Mexicans,” she wrote.
She pointed to a slate of programs designed to “support residents pursuing higher education,” which she noted “play a vital role in strengthening the state’s workforce, building talent pipelines, and ensuring that students have access to opportunities that support both individual and statewide success.”
‘Not an easy bill to get through’
SB 582 passed the Legislature in 2005 with a 28-3 vote in the state Senate and a 41-26 vote in the House.
The bill notes benefits shall be extended to all state residents, “regardless of immigration status,” who have attended a secondary educational institution in New Mexico for at least one year — or who have graduated from a high school or earned a GED certificate in the state.
It was sponsored by then-state Sen. Cynthia Nava, a Democrat and former superintendent of Gadsden Public Schools who represented Doña Ana in the Senate from 1993 to 2012. Nava now lives in Corrales.
“It was not an easy bill to get through,” Nava said in a phone call Thursday. “It took a lot of work and advocacy, and there was a lot of pushback against it.”
But, she noted, the bill garnered bipartisan support since “almost every legislator knew somebody in their district” who fit the category of students.
Although Republicans joined on to support the bill, she said, “I don’t know if that would be the case today.”
It was her own experience in Gadsden, a school district on the state’s border with Mexico, that she said led her to steward the bill.
“ I saw countless students that would have a great high school career and be really motivated, and then they couldn’t even go to college,” she said. “We had piles of history and data and work that they had done — and it led to nothing.”
Among those who showed up to advocate for the bill, she noted, was then-Santa Fe High School student Cindy Nava (no relation to Cynthia Nava). At the time, Cindy Nava was a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program. Because of the legislation, she later completed associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees at New Mexico higher education institutions and today is a Democratic state senator representing Bernalillo and Sandoval counties.
“I think that bill was an economic multiplier,” Cynthia Nava said. “And I think it’ll really be detrimental if we don’t prevail.”
The nonprofit Somos Un Pueblo Unido worked with Nava on the 2005 legislation, which Executive Director Marcela Diaz described as aligned with similar in-state efforts to invest in workforce pipelines. Diaz said the state’s economy has benefited from decades of extending those benefits to students regardless of immigration status.
She also noted the state should hardly be worried about a “cookie cutter” lawsuit that has been filed against 20 other states for similar tuition policies.
“We think we’re on good, strong legal footing,” she said. “ We expect that the state is going to mount a vigorous defense against this terrible threat to our families and our economy.”
‘A responsibility to respond’
New Mexico is also a defendant in a separate federal lawsuit filed in May challenging more recent legislation: House Bill 9, coined the Immigrant Safety Act, prohibits state and local cooperation with federal immigration enforcement and detention. The federal government says the legislation unconstitutionally obstructs federal immigration enforcement.
That complaint also named Albuquerque, and it was amended in June to add Bernalillo and Doña Ana counties as defendants— all due to local policies aimed at restricting activities and collaboration with federal immigration agents.
That list of defendants could soon include Santa Fe.
Following an uptick in ICE arrests in the city last week, which galvanized local leaders to urge stronger guardrails on federal immigration agents, Santa Fe officials indicated their intention to borrow policies similar to Albuquerque’s.
Specifically, Immigration Committee Chair Ivan Cornejo pointed to a proposal to ban federal immigration agents from “staging” on city property.
According to Albuquerque’s city code, a staging area is “an area that is used to assemble, mobilize, and deploy vehicles, equipment, or materials, and related personnel, for the purpose of carrying out immigration enforcement.”
Santa Fe Mayor Michael Garcia noted his support for the proposal during a town hall-style meeting alongside Cornejo on Monday. The event was organized by Indivisible Santa Fe.
“We actually have some of the most progressive protection laws in the state of New Mexico,” he said, adding Albuquerque “beat us to initiating some laws, but we will soon follow suit.”
Even if that means ending up on the lawsuit, Garcia noted.
“We’re going to probably get sued,” he said. “But I feel we have a responsibility to respond — to do everything we can to protect residents.”
