Immigration in Minnesota: Licenses, MinnesotaCare, and Tuition

Immigrant rights and benefits in Minnesota cover driver’s licenses, in-state college tuition, health coverage for children, workplace protections, and data-sharing firewalls that apply regardless of federal immigration status. These state programs sit alongside federal rules every immigrant still has to follow, including tax filing and employment verification. One major change took effect at the end of 2025: MinnesotaCare coverage for undocumented adults, briefly expanded in January 2025, was rolled back by the legislature and ended December 31, 2025.¹

A Driver’s License Without Proof of Status

Minnesota’s Driver’s Licenses for All law, House File 4, lets any state resident apply for a standard Class D driver’s license or ID card without proving citizenship or lawful immigration status.² The law took effect October 1, 2023.

You prove who you are with either two primary documents or one primary plus one secondary. Primary documents include an unexpired foreign passport, an unexpired consular ID with a photograph, or a certified birth certificate from any jurisdiction. A Permanent Resident Card, Employment Authorization Document, or Certificate of Naturalization also counts as primary.³ Secondary documents include a Social Security card, a certified marriage certificate, a DACA approval notice, a driver’s license expired five years or less, or a certified court order showing your name and date of birth. Any document not in English must come with a translation and a signed attestation from the translator.

You also need proof of Minnesota residency, like a utility bill or rental agreement. The statutory fee for a standard Class D license is $27.75, plus a $2.25 surcharge on every transaction.⁴ Check that your name matches across every document before your appointment. A mismatch between your passport and birth certificate can force a second trip with additional paperwork or a court-ordered name change.

The REAL ID Limitation

The standard license issued under this law is not REAL ID compliant. As of May 7, 2025, Minnesotans 18 and older can no longer use a standard driver’s license to board domestic flights or enter certain federal facilities like military bases and some federal courthouses.⁵ If you need to fly domestically or enter a federal building, you’ll need a U.S. passport or passport card, a DHS trusted traveler card like Global Entry or NEXUS, or a U.S. military ID. The standard license is still fully valid for driving, as general state ID, and for any purpose that doesn’t involve a federal security checkpoint.

MinnesotaCare After the 2025 Rollback

MinnesotaCare is Minnesota’s state-subsidized health insurance program for residents who don’t qualify for Medical Assistance. The January 2025 expansion that opened the program to residents regardless of status was reversed by the 2025 legislature. Here is where things stand now:¹

New applications from undocumented adults 18 and older closed June 15, 2025. All MinnesotaCare coverage for undocumented adults ended December 31, 2025.
Children under 18 remain eligible regardless of immigration status, with coverage state-funded on a fee-for-service basis.
A minor loses eligibility at the end of the month of their 18th birthday.

Immigrants with legal status — permanent residents, refugees, and asylees — remain eligible for MinnesotaCare under the same rules as any other Minnesota resident. Eligibility requires household income at or below 200% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines. In 2026, that threshold is $31,920 for a single individual and $66,000 for a family of four.⁶ Children under 21, American Indian and Alaska Native families, and households earning below 35% of the federal poverty level pay no premiums.⁷

Will Health Coverage Hurt My Immigration Case?

Enrolling in MinnesotaCare should not count against you under the federal public charge rule. USCIS generally does not consider noncash benefits in a public charge determination, and the only noncash benefit that matters is long-term institutionalization at government expense.⁸ Medicaid (other than long-term institutional care), CHIP, and marketplace insurance under the Affordable Care Act are all explicitly excluded. The benefits that do count are cash: Supplemental Security Income, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and state or local cash assistance programs for income maintenance.

In-State Tuition and the North Star Promise

The Minnesota Dream Act, codified at Minnesota Statutes 135A.043, lets students without lawful immigration status pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. You qualify if you attended a Minnesota high school for at least three years, graduated or earned a GED in Minnesota, and enroll in a public postsecondary institution. Males between 18 and 25 must also register with the federal Selective Service.⁹

Information you submit to request the tuition benefit is classified as private data under Minnesota law. Postsecondary institutions can use it only to determine eligibility, and they cannot share it with any federal, state, or other agency without your written consent or a legal requirement to do so.⁹

Dream Act students are not eligible for federal financial aid. The FAFSA requires applicants to be a U.S. citizen, permanent resident, or in another eligible noncitizen category, with status verified through matches with the Social Security Administration and DHS.¹⁰ The North Star Promise program fills part of that gap. It covers remaining tuition and fees at participating public two-year and four-year institutions after all other grants, scholarships, and waivers have been applied, on a last-dollar basis.¹¹ Family adjusted gross income must be below $80,000. Undocumented students report income through the Minnesota Dream Act Application rather than the FAFSA. The application has to be submitted each year, and awards are calculated term by term by the institution.

Filing Federal Taxes With an ITIN

Every immigrant earning income in the United States has federal tax filing obligations, regardless of status. If you can’t get a Social Security number, you file using an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, a nine-digit number issued by the IRS for tax processing only. An ITIN does not authorize employment and does not qualify you for Social Security benefits.

You apply by submitting IRS Form W-7 with your federal tax return. A valid passport is the most efficient supporting document because it proves both identity and foreign status on its own. Without a passport, you need at least two documents that together establish both. The IRS accepts originals or copies certified by the issuing agency. Processing typically takes seven to eleven weeks, so file well before April. There is no application fee. An ITIN expires if you don’t use it on a federal return for three consecutive tax years.

Nonresident aliens with income connected to a U.S. trade or business, including wages, are taxed at the same graduated rates as U.S. citizens and file Form 1040-NR. Students on F, J, M, or Q visas with taxable income like wages or taxable scholarship funds are also required to file. U.S.-source income not connected to a business, like certain investment income, is taxed at a flat 30% or a lower treaty rate. Missing the filing deadline by more than 16 months can lead the IRS to deny deductions and credits you would otherwise be entitled to.¹²

Minnesota requires a state return using the same filing status as your federal return, and you can’t file the state return until you have your ITIN and your federal return is complete.¹³

Workplace Rights and What Employers Can Demand

Federal law requires every employer to verify a new hire’s identity and work authorization using Form I-9, completed within three business days of the first day of work. You fill out Section 1 on or before day one, and the employer examines your supporting documents for Section 2. A key protection: the employer cannot tell you which documents to present. If you offer a valid document from the approved lists, the employer must accept it. Rejecting acceptable documents or demanding extras because of how you look or where you come from is illegal.¹⁴

You can establish both identity and work authorization with one List A document, like a U.S. passport or Employment Authorization Document. Or you can combine one List B document proving identity (like a state driver’s license) with one List C document proving work authorization (like a Social Security card). The Minnesota standard driver’s license issued under the Licenses for All law qualifies as a List B identity document.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employers from discriminating based on national origin in hiring, firing, pay, assignments, and promotions. Employers cannot post job ads preferring workers from a particular country or with a specific visa type. Workplace harassment based on national origin is illegal when it becomes severe enough that a reasonable person would consider it hostile or abusive. Charges go to the EEOC first, which has to happen before any federal lawsuit.¹⁵

The Minnesota Human Rights Act does not list immigration or citizenship status as a protected category. It does protect against discrimination based on national origin and race, which covers people born outside the United States, those who speak another language, people who appear to be immigrants, and those assumed to be undocumented.¹⁶ Most workplace discrimination targeting immigrants fits within those categories.

Immigration Enforcement and Data Protections

Minnesota law prohibits state and local law enforcement from holding someone solely on a federal immigration detainer if that person would otherwise be released. The basis is constitutional protection against unreasonable seizures under both the U.S. and Minnesota constitutions, and the absence of any Minnesota civil law authorizing immigration detainer arrests. If you post bail on a minor charge, local authorities cannot keep you in custody just because ICE filed a detainer.

Practice varies. Minnesota’s state prison system reports routine coordination with ICE on custody transfers for undocumented individuals convicted of crimes and honors all detainer requests. Data from 2023 through 2025 shows that roughly 20% of ICE detainer requests sent to local detention facilities in Minnesota resulted in transfers to federal immigration authorities, with the rest unfulfilled because local jails declined to hold people past their release date.

Several state programs have explicit data-sharing firewalls. MinnesotaCare enrollment information is kept separate from federal immigration enforcement databases. Dream Act tuition data held by colleges is classified as private and cannot be disclosed to any federal or state agency without the student’s written consent.⁹

Where to Get Legal Help

The Minnesota Office of New Americans, within the Department of Employment and Economic Development, is the central state resource for immigrants and refugees navigating state systems and connects newcomers with legal, employment, and housing services.¹⁷

For immigration-specific legal help, the Immigration Legal Services Hub brings together nonprofits that offer free or low-cost representation on naturalization, asylum, removal defense, and other matters for qualifying low-income residents. Hub members include the Advocates for Human Rights, the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services, and the Volunteer Lawyers Network.

Other resources include the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota at 1-800-223-1368 for free legal advice and representation; the James H. Binger Center for New Americans at the University of Minnesota Law School for direct representation; Southern Minnesota Regional Legal Services’ Agricultural Worker Project at 1-800-652-9733 for farmworkers statewide; the Minnesota State Bar Association Immigration Pro Bono Clinic; and the Volunteer Lawyers Network, which runs immigration clinics with services in Spanish, Hmong, and Karen. The Minneapolis Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs and St. Paul’s immigrant resource programs offer local legal defense referrals, loans, and educational programs.

1
Minnesota Department of Human Services. DHS Announces MinnesotaCare Eligibility Changes
2
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota House of Representatives HF 4 – 4th Engrossment
3
Minnesota Department of Public Safety. Standard License, Permit and ID Required Documents
4
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 171.06 – Fees
5
Minnesota Department of Public Safety. REAL ID Driver’s License and ID Card
6
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. 2026 Poverty Guidelines
7
Minnesota Department of Human Services. MinnesotaCare Premiums
8
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Public Charge Resources
9
Minnesota Office of the Revisor of Statutes. Minnesota Code 135A.043 – Resident Tuition
10
Federal Student Aid. U.S. Citizenship and Eligible Noncitizens
11
Minnesota Office of Higher Education. North Star Promise
12
Internal Revenue Service. Taxation of Nonresident Aliens
13
Minnesota Department of Revenue. Individual Taxpayer Identification Number
14
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Employment Eligibility Verification Form I-9
15
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Discrimination Against American Workers Is Against the Law
16
Minnesota Office of the Ombudsman for Families. Minnesota Human Rights Act Protections
17
Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Office of New Americans