Court won't rehear challenge of in-state tuition for immigrants

DENVER (AP) -- A federal appeals court Monday denied a request to rehear a challenge of a law allowing some illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition in Kansas.

A group of students paying out-of-state tuition to attend college in Kansas had challenged the 2004 Kansas law.

In August, a three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver agreed with a trial judge who ruled the students lacked standing to challenge the law because they did not face a "concrete and imminent" injury.

The plaintiffs asked for a rehearing before the full court. On Monday, the judges denied the request. They said they stood by their decision, which they said agreed with previous rulings by the Supreme Court and other federal courts.

The plaintiffs had argued that Kansas violated their constitutional rights to equal protection under the law by offering some illegal immigrants a benefit they couldn't get.

Appeals court judges said in August that the students had not shown that they would have benefited, even if the law that they alleged was discriminatory was struck down.

In Kansas, students can qualify for in-state tuition if they attended a Kansas high school for at least three years and graduated, or earned a general educational development certificate in Kansas. Illegal immigrants can qualify if they meet those conditions and show they are working toward legal immigration status.

National organizations had said the outcome of the case could affect similar laws in California, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Washington.