On February 28, 2017, an incoming college student whose mother was not a U.S. citizen filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The case was assigned to Judge Rosemary Collyer. The plaintiff sued the District of Columbia and several government employees involved in ...
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On February 28, 2017, an incoming college student whose mother was not a U.S. citizen filed this lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The case was assigned to Judge Rosemary Collyer. The plaintiff sued the District of Columbia and several government employees involved in the D.C. Tuition Assistance Grant Program (DCTAG) under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, the District of Columbia Administrative Procedures Act, and D.C. CODE §§ 38.2702(c)(2). The plaintiff, represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, alleged that the defendant had violated the Supremacy Clause, the Due Process Clause, and the Equal Protection Clause of the United States Constitution as well as the District of Columbia's Administrative Procedure Act. The plaintiff sought declaratory and injunctive relief, as well as attorneys’ fees.
DCTAG was a federal tuition assistance program that provided financial aid to D.C. residents attending college. To be eligible for DCTAG, applicants had to have been domiciled in D.C. for twelve consecutive months before the start of their freshman year. The plaintiff, a U.S. citizen, had lived in D.C. with her mother for the plaintiff’s whole life. However, because her mother was not a citizen, her mother could not establish domicile. The plaintiff was denied funding for the 2015-2016 school year because she had been a dependent of a noncitizen in the previous twelve months. When she reapplied for the 2016-2017 school year, the defendants allegedly told her that she would never be eligible for DCTAG because her parent did not have the “requisite citizenship status.”
The parties settled the case out of court on April 26, 2017. The court dismissed the case without prejudice until June 12, 2017. If June 12, 2017 passed and neither party moved to reopen the case, the case would be dismissed with prejudice. That date passed with neither party moving to reopen the case, so the settlement was presumably consummated. We do not know the terms of the settlement because all settlement proceedings happened outside of court. The case is now closed.
Rebecca Strauss - 06/14/2018
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