EDITORIAL: Colorado’s tuition sanctuary draws federal fire 59%
By The Gazette Editorial Board0%
8/3/2026, 4:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 14 faulty reasoning types, including Begging the Question, Politically Right Leaning Bias, and Ad Hominem, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 24% saturation with 138 hits. Analysis detected 528 faulty-reasoning hits from 575 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 49.1% and a BS Rank of 59% (10,865 of 26,004 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 58.20% of the article peer group.
The U.S.
Department of Justice sued Colorado late last month to end a program that provides in-state college tuition to illegal immigrants.
The lawsuit underscores how a policy framed as compassion collided with federal law — creating unequal treatment while backfiring on those it purports to help.
As The Gazette reported, state lawmakers in 2013 — led by then-state Sen.
Mike Johnston, now Denver’s mayor — passed Senate Bill 33, dubbed the “ASSET” Act.
That law granted in-state tuition rates to illegal immigrants who attended a Colorado high school for at least three years before graduating.
It was a well-intended effort to expand access to college.
But the legal risk was foreseeable from day one.
In 1996, Congress barred states from granting residency-based tuition benefits to illegal immigrants unless the same benefit is available to every U.S. citizen regardless of their home state.
Last year, the Trump administration started filing lawsuits against states that offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.
Colorado’s case is just the latest.
Among the 13 other states taken to court, Texas, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Nebraska have already been prohibited from continuing their programs.
In Oklahoma, the legislature quickly changed the law following a settlement.
Colorado lawmakers should have seen this coming.
Johnston, though, has called the lawsuit “a slap in the face to countless Colorado children.”
Perhaps he should have considered that when he sponsored legislation conflicting with a federal law that was already on the books for 17 years.
There’s a stronger case that ASSET is “a slap in the face” to immigrants who came to the United States legally, doing it the right way before establishing Colorado residency, along with American citizens from other states who don’t receive the same tuition benefit.
To be clear, the DOJ’s lawsuit doesn’t challenge whether illegal immigrants may attend college.
It challenges whether Colorado may grant them a financial benefit that isn’t available to U.S. citizens from other states.
Therein lies the genuine fairness issue.
ASSET gives preferential treatment to students who are here unlawfully while out-of-state American students pay more.
Such policies send the message that entering the country unlawfully may be rewarded.
In that sense, ASSET was an early step toward Colorado’s status as a sanctuary state.
Extending state benefits and protections to people here unlawfully boosted the political incentive to limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
And that’s exactly what’s happened.
State laws since 2019 have effectively barred law enforcement from proactively working with federal immigration authorities.
It’s hard not to sympathize with those young adults caught in the middle here, most of whom were children when their parents chose to cross the border with them.
But a difficult personal situation doesn’t justify an inherently inequitable policy.
That’s the thrust of the DOJ’s case, which cites the court decision in United States v.
State of Nebraska.
The judge in that case applied the federal law as written, forbidding states from allowing “aliens unlawfully present in the United States to qualify as ‘residents’” for tuition purposes while charging more to similarly situated citizens from other states.
At its core, ASSET has always been a flawed policy that disregards federal law and undermines border security.
Ending it would restore fairness for American citizens and bring Colorado back into compliance with federal law.
Repealing the policy also would be a good first step away from the sanctuary for illegal immigration that Colorado’s ruling class has created.
Analysis
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