DOJ Sues Gov. Walz Over Program Favoring Illegal Immigrants Over Citizens
The Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit against the state of Minnesota and Democratic Governor Tim Walz over a program designed to offer financial aid to illegal immigrants pursuing higher education.
The DOJ had previously blocked a similar initiative in Texas by threatening legal action and has already moved forward with a related lawsuit in Kentucky, The Blaze reported on Friday.
“No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement regarding the Minnesota lawsuit.
“The Department of Justice just won on this exact issue in Texas, and we look forward to taking this fight to Minnesota in order to protect the rights of American citizens first,” she added.
According to Politico, illegal immigrants in Minnesota are eligible for in-state tuition rates and state financial aid under the Minnesota Dream Act, which was enacted in 2013 under a previous Democratic governor.
The DOJ lawsuit claims that the program discriminates against U.S. citizens, the outlet noted further. “The magnitude of this discrimination against U.S. citizens is substantial,” said a statement from the DOJ. “The cost of tuition for resident students is significantly lower than for U.S. citizens that are not in-state residents.”
The lawsuit also names the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and State Attorney General Keith Ellison as defendants. It follows an executive order issued by President Donald Trump in April, directing federal agencies to identify and eliminate “laws, regulations, policies, and practices” that favor illegal immigrants over U.S. citizens.
Walz, who served as the Democratic vice-presidential nominee in the party’s unsuccessful 2024 campaign, has since stated that the country “was not ready” for the message he and his running mate were promoting, The Blaze
said.
Meanwhile, Bondi celebrated a pair of historic wins at the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday.
“Today, the Supreme Court instructed district courts to STOP the endless barrage of nationwide injunctions against President Trump. This would not have been possible without tireless work from our excellent lawyers @TheJusticeDept and our Solicitor General John Sauer. This Department of Justice will continue to zealously defend @POTUS’s policies and his authority to implement them,” Bondi wrote on X.
The high court shut down federal judges’ ability to prevent executive acts throughout the country via nationwide injunctions.
The court’s 6-3 decision, with all six GOP-appointed justices in the majority, is a significant setback for those pursuing legal challenges to Trump’s executive orders and other actions, many of which have been blocked or put on hold by lower district courts.
Nationwide injunctions prohibit the government from enforcing a law, rule, or policy across the United States, not simply against the individual parties engaged in the litigation or in the districts where they are granted.
The ban on nationwide injunctions in most cases was issued in regards to Trump’s early executive order blocking birthright citizenship. The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland explained: “The US Supreme Court allows Trump’s executive order restricting birthright citizenship to go into effect in some areas of the country for now by curtailing federal judges’ ability to block the president’s policies nationwide.”
On Friday, following the ruling, Bondi said that the Supreme Court would likely decide the birthright citizenship issue once and for all during their next session, which begins in October. The justices
heard oral arguments in the case in May after three lower federal courts had issued nationwide injunctions against the order’s implementation.
In his order, Trump declared that the 14th Amendment provision granting U.S. citizenship to children born on American soil applies only to those with at least one parent who is a citizen or permanent resident.
If it were to be implemented, Trump’s policy would deny citizenship at birth to an estimated 255,000 babies born annually in the U.S. to illegal immigrants or temporary visa holders, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Top DHS Special Agent And His Wife Found Dead
A Department of Homeland Security special agent and his wife were found dead in their New Jersey home in what appears to be a murder-suicide, prosecutors said.
Police in Sayreville responded to the couple’s home on Glynn Court around 8 p.m. July 3 and found Kelly Latauro, 46, dead inside the residence, the Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office said.
Her husband, 52-year-old Christopher Latauro, was discovered dead in the backyard.
Both appear to have been shot.
Authorities said Christopher is believed to be the shooter and the case is being investigated as a murder-suicide.
Police told residents to keep away from Glynn Court, from Deerfield Road to Scarlet Drive, briefly because of police activity.
The area was reopened about 40 minutes later, but police remained on scene.
According to NJ101.5, citing DHS records from 2019 and 2020, Christopher was a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security.
Authorities have not said what may have sparked the violence.
Kelly’s sister-in-law Robyn Perlman-Spencer confirmed her death in a Facebook post on July 7, remembering her in a heartbreaking tribute.
“As many of you may now know, my beautiful sister in law Kelly Iatauro was senselessly and suddenly taken from us on Friday. Kelly was a bright light- kind, thoughtful, hysterical, inappropriate, and just one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She left a lasting impression on anyone that was lucky enough to know her,” Robyn wrote in part.
Sayreville police confirmed officers responded to the Glynn Court residence on July 3 and found both people dead of gunshot wounds.
The incident is being treated as a murder-suicide, and Christopher is suspected to be the shooter, the spokesperson said.
The Department of Homeland Security and Middlesex County Prosecutor’s Office did not immediately respond to additional requests for comment on the case.
What began as a heavy police response to a deadly scene left two people dead and the quiet Middlesex County neighborhood stunned.
Investigators are still trying to piece together what happened inside the home leading up to the gunfire.
Separately, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin made headlines last week with an election-related announcement.
Mullin on Friday said officials who don’t cooperate with the administration’s election security efforts may be slapped with fines — and potentially prison time.
“If the election officials, once we gave them the information they need to secure their elections — and they chose not to — then those individuals can also be held accountable by fines, by penalties, and even, depending on how far it goes, prison time,” Mullin said during a press conference at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Mullin also promised DHS would work to “speed up our security enhancements” for states.
He vowed to hold up federal election security grants until state officials took steps the administration demanded, including running their voter registration lists through a system that checks for non-citizen voters on the rolls.
Mullin made his comments after President Donald Trump’s primetime address on election security Thursday night, when he repeated already known concerns about the security of voting systems, alleged Chinese efforts to get into voter rolls, and aired old gripes about the results of the 2020 election, which he lost to Joe Biden.
In his remarks on Friday, the DHS secretary focused on DHS’s work with states to secure election systems and scrub voter registration rolls for fraud and concerns about noncitizen voting.
The Justice Department also sent letters this month threatening prosecution to election officials across the country if they don’t remove noncitizens from their voter rolls.
On Friday, Mullin seemed to suggest that the agency was able to estimate the numbers using the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) system at the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and said 23 states are already working with DHS to analyze voter rolls.
And he criticized the legal challenges that are hindering the administration’s efforts: Last month, a judge blocked the Trump administration from creating a database of information about Americans, including Social Security numbers and citizenship status.
