The Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, has signed a new bill into law that would allow illegal immigrants to receive student financial aid, just months after saying his state could not afford the cuts to Medicaid in President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill.
The bill will establish "equitable eligibility for financial aid and benefits" to every student in Illinois, regardless of immigration status.
It reads:
a student who is an Illinois resident and who is not otherwise eligible for federal financial aid, including, but not limited to, a transgender student who is disqualified for failure to register for selective service or a noncitizen student who has not obtained lawful permanent residence, shall be eligible for financial aid and benefits.
State Senator Celina Villanueva, a Democrat and sponsor of the bill, celebrated the bill in a statement, saying that "this law is about making sure no student is left behind because of where they were born." Her office told Fox News Digital that the measure "eliminates the patchwork of confusing and sometimes conflicting requirements that have excluded undocumented, DACAmented, and mixed-status students from critical aid."
The bill "builds upon Villanueva’s long-standing advocacy for immigrant and first-generation students by creating a more consistent and inclusive pathway to accessing support," her office's statement continued.
Representative Mary Miller (R-IL) said that allowing taxpayer-funded financial aid for illegal aliens is a slap in the face to hardworking Illinois families and students."
"Our state is drowning in debt, yet JB Pritzker is determined to drain even more taxpayer dollars to reward illegals," she continued. "It's absolutely shameful."
The move by the Illinois Governor and hopeful for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028 comes short after Pritzker touted President Trump's Big Beautiful Bill as a threat to much-needed federal Medicaid funding that his state simply could not afford to cover.
As Illinois was slated to lose $48 billion in Medicare funding over 10 years as a result of the BBB, Pritzker took to the press to decry, “This is shameful, if you ask me, and it’s going to be very hard to recover. The state of Illinois can’t cover the cost – no state in the country can cover the cost of reinstating that health insurance that is today paid for mostly by the federal government, partly by state government.”
The funding for his education bill could have gone to help offset Illinois' healthcare costs.
Editor's Note: President Trump is leading America into the "Golden Age" as Democrats try desperately to stop it.
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