The lawsuit, which names Beshear, education commissioner Robbie Fletcher and the Kentucky Council for Post-Secondary Education, claims Kentucky’s practice of offering undocumented immigrants in Kentucky a lower cost of tuition — known as in-state tuition — than it offers out-of-state U.S. residents is illegal.

The Justice Department’s lawsuit says the regulation violates federal law by enabling undocumented students to qualify for the lower tuition rate at Kentucky’s public colleges and universities.