In January 2026, the Trump administration sued Virginia (in the final days of the Youngkin administration) over a law that allows students who attended Virginia high schools and whose families pay Virginia taxes to qualify for in-state tuition, regardless of immigration status, called the Dream Act. The next day, the Commonwealth joined the Trump administration in a joint motion for a consent judgment.

So we took action.

On behalf of the Dream Project, the Legal Aid Justice Center and the ACLU of Virginia filed an emergency motion to intervene. The motion sought to defend the Dream Project’s ability to carry out its mission and support the thousands of Virginia students who stood to lose access to affordable higher education.

Our hope was that no quick decisions could be made by the court without the input of those directly affected and without the incoming state administration having a chance to change course.

It worked. In a win for Virginia’s immigrant communities, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia denied the joint motion between the United States and the State of Virginia to nullify the Dream Act. The Virginia Attorney General’s office asserted that it would defend this important law, and the Court determined that outside intervention was no longer needed. We went to court to make sure the Dream Act got a strong defense, and we got what we came for. The students were able to have their dreams defended.