Summary of H.R. 3566

September 2015

H.R. 3566, introduced by Congressman Paul Gosar (R-AZ), is a bill that would prevent illegal aliens from receiving in-state tuition benefits at public colleges and universities. The companion bill in the Senate (S. 60) was introduced by Senator David Vitter (R-LA).

I. General Prohibition of Preferential Treatment for Illegal Aliens

The bill amends Section 505(a) of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility  Act of 1996 (8 U.S.C. § 1623) (IIRIRA) to mandate that any alien “not in a lawful immigration status” is not “eligible for any postsecondary education benefit” unless “every citizen and national of the United States” is eligible for that benefit in the same amount. This means that colleges and universities would not be able to offer tuition to any illegal aliens at rates lower than the rates they charge out-of-state American citizens.

Why This Subsection Is Necessary

Congress intended IIRIRA Section 505 to prevent illegal aliens from benefitting from taxpayer subsidized in-state tuition rates at public colleges and universities if those rates were not available to out-of-state American citizens. Generally, before IIRIRA, states would base eligibility for in-state tuition on “residence” within a state for a certain period of time before the student matriculated. Since illegal aliens are “residents” of the state they live in, Congress thought it could deny them in-state tuition by targeting the residency requirement. However, as enacted, Section 505 created a loophole that some states have exploited to grant in-state tuition to illegal aliens while still forcing out-of-state citizens to pay full tuition. Because the language is so narrow, a number of states started offering subsidized tuition benefits

either 

 on the basis of residence

or 

 on the basis of having attended high school within the state. This allowed illegal aliens who attended high school in a state to be eligible for discounted tuition because their eligibility was based on high school attendance and not residence. H.R. 3566 fixes the loophole by instead prohibiting in-state tuition rates to aliens who are “not in a lawful immigration status” unless “every citizen and national of the United States is eligible to