# Nebraska nonprofits fight to defend in-state tuition law in federal court **Published:** 2026-05-08T23:27:42.000Z **Source:** [Nebraska Examiner](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/05/08/advocates-of-nebraska-ukrainian-refugees-undocumented-students-step-into-in-state-tuition-fray/) **AI-generated:** yes (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) **Canonical:** https://lincolne.news/article/nebraska-nonprofits-fight-to-defend-in-state-tuition-law-in-federal-court Two Nebraska nonprofits have filed a legal request to intervene in a federal court case to defend the state's in-state tuition law, stepping into a brewing dispute between immigrant advocates and the Trump administration. [Orel Alliance and True Potential Scholarship, both based in Omaha, filed their intervention request this week](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/05/08/advocates-of-nebraska-ukrainian-refugees-undocumented-students-step-into-in-state-tuition-fray/), challenging what they characterize as a "choreographed" lawsuit by federal and state officials. [Last month, the U.S. Department of Justice and the State of Nebraska jointly filed a proposed consent judgment](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/briefs/doj-joins-effort-to-repeal-nebraska-in-state-college-tuition-for-certain-immigrant-students/) seeking to invalidate [Nebraska's 2006 in-state tuition law](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/01/26/effort-to-repeal-nebraska-in-state-college-tuition-rates-for-certain-immigrant-students-faces-foes/). The law has allowed noncitizen students who graduate from Nebraska high schools after living in the state for three years to pay the same tuition rates as local residents. The law requires court approval but has drawn heavy public opposition during recent legislative attempts to overturn it. The two nonprofits, represented by national legal advocacy groups Democracy Forward and Nebraska Appleseed, argue that the federal government and state officials collaborated to achieve a predetermined outcome without regard to the democratic process. "Rather, federal and state officials collaborated to achieve a jointly desired outcome, without regard to the democratic process," their legal filing says, adding that the court should not invalidate statutes "without the participation of anyone willing to provide a defense of the interests of the thousands of Nebraska residents who would be harmed." The nonprofits say the proposed consent decree would directly harm their operations. [Orel Alliance](https://www.orelalliance.org/about-us) advocates for Ukrainian refugees, while [True Potential](https://peseklaw.com/en/true-potential-scholarships) has provided scholarships to undocumented teens since 2014. For the coming school year, Orel said it planned to assist 23 Ukrainian immigrants with applying to the University of Nebraska at Omaha, noting that education assistance is a primary outreach to Ukrainians in the state. The nonprofits noted that Nebraska's Legislature has repeatedly declined to repeal the law. In 2026, two separate bills that would have modified the practice failed to advance. Legal experts say Nebraska took the unusual step of immediately joining the federal lawsuit rather than defending its own law, raising constitutional questions about whether the case has enough of a legitimate dispute to proceed in federal court. The DOJ has filed similar lawsuits across multiple states, with success in Texas, Kentucky and Oklahoma, while cases remain pending in Illinois, Minnesota, Virginia and California. The Nebraska dispute is part of broader Trump administration efforts to challenge state policies benefiting immigrant students. ## Sources - [Nebraska Examiner](https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/05/08/advocates-of-nebraska-ukrainian-refugees-undocumented-students-step-into-in-state-tuition-fray/) - [Nebraska Public Media reporting on the DOJ lawsuit and consent decree](https://nebraskapublicmedia.org/en/news/news-articles/facing-lawsuit-from-doj-nebraska-looks-to-end-in-state-tuition-for-undocumented-students/) - [Higher Ed Dive analysis of the DOJ's nationwide legal efforts on in-state tuition](https://www.highereddive.com/news/doj-nebraska-lawsuit-in-state-tuition-undocumented-students/818255/) --- This article was generated by AI (claude-haiku-4-5-20251001) based on source material from Nebraska Examiner, enriched with 2 web searches. The original source is available at https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2026/05/08/advocates-of-nebraska-ukrainian-refugees-undocumented-students-step-into-in-state-tuition-fray/.