Texas has ended its decades-long policy of extending in-state tuition to students without legal status.
Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Wednesday the state had filed a joint motion with the U.S. Department of Justice asking a federal court to declare a section of the Texas Education Code “unconstitutional and invalid” and permanently block the state from enforcing it. A judge agreed.
"Ending this discriminatory and un-American provision is a major victory for Texas," Paxton said in a statement.
The order came after the U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday filed a complaint to stop Texas from giving in-state tuition to immigrant students without legal status.
In a news release, the department said Texas unconstitutionally discriminates against U.S. citizens who aren’t afforded the same privileges.
“The Justice Department will relentlessly fight to vindicate federal law and ensure that U.S. citizens are not treated like second-class citizens anywhere in the country,” Attorney General Pamela Bondi said in the statement.
Texas, the complaint reads, allows students “who are not lawfully present in the United States to qualify for reduced tuition at public state colleges, even as U.S. citizens from other states must pay higher tuition rates.”
DOJ said the policy conflicts with federal law. In 2001 Texas became the first state to pass a law allowing students without legal status to receive in-state tuition if they meet certain requirements. Twenty-four states now have similar policies, according to the Higher Ed Immigration Portal.
Dallas activist and DACA recipient Ramiro Luna told KERA he's "deeply disappointed" in the DOJ and said the complaint is an infringement on states' rights.
"I understand the opportunity that education has provided me," he said. "We're cutting at the kneecaps, you know, young bright students from pursuing their dreams, and those dreams are going to be something that's going to feed into our state and the country as a whole."
Democratic state Rep. Ramón Romero of Fort Worth said in a statement released by the House Mexican American Legislative Caucus it’s “shameful” for the Trump administration to “[attack] Texas students who grew up in Texas, graduated from high school in Texas, and call this state home.
“Targeting them does nothing to make our country stronger,” he wrote.
The lawsuit, filed in the Wichita Falls division of the Northern District of Texas, is part of the Trump administration’s larger effort clamping down on illegal immigration and tightening immigration policies.
President Donald Trump recently signed two executive orders targeting immigrants without legal status, including one that ensures “no taxpayer-funded benefits go to unqualified aliens,” and another barring “laws, regulations, including State laws that provide in-State higher education tuition to aliens but not to out-of-State American citizens.”
In a post on X, Gov. Greg Abbott shared Judge Reed O'Connor's order, writing that "In-state tuition for illegal immigrants in Texas has ended."
There were about 57,000 students without legal status enrolled in Texas colleges and universities in 2022, according to a report from the President's Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration.
The state Senate this session considered a bill that would have ended in-state tuition for students without legal status, but the legislation failed to get out of the chamber.
Bill Zeeble is KERA’s education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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