US sues Texas over in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants

Department of Justice Sues Texas Over In-State Tuition for Undocumented Immigrants

The Department of Justice is suing the state of Texas over a policy that allows undocumented immigrants to receive in-state college tuition.

Background

Texas lawmakers considered outlawing the practice in the legislative session that ended Monday, but the half a dozen proposals failed to gain traction. None passed in either chamber.
Read more about key bills that passed and failed in the Texas Legislature.

Justice Department Argument

The Justice Department argued that the policy violates federal law, which prohibits undocumented immigrants from being eligible for any benefit on the basis of state residence for any post-secondary education benefit unless citizens are also eligible.
“The State of Texas has ignored this law for years,” reads the government’s petition, filed in federal court in Wichita Falls. “This Court should put that to an end and permanently enjoin enforcement of certain provisions of the Texas Education Code that expressly and directly conflict with federal immigration law.”

Policy History

Gov. Rick Perry created the first-in-the-nation policy in 2001, allowing undocumented students to receive the discount if they meet certain criteria. Students have to have lived in the state for three years before graduating high school and have been in the state for at least a year immediately before enrolling at the higher education institution, and they must sign a form saying they plan to apply for legal resident status as soon as they can. About two dozen states now also offer the benefit.

Impact

According to the left-leaning think tank Every Texan, as of 2021, these undocumented students accounted for 1.5% of all students enrolled in Texas' public universities, community colleges, technical and state colleges, as well as health-related institutions. That was about 20,000 people.

Response

Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office, which defends state laws in court, did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the suit. But Paxton has voiced his disapproval of the policy in the past, when he was a state lawmaker.
"I would love it if we could pay for college education for anybody in the world that wanted to come to Texas, whether they're from Mexico or they're from Europe or Japan,” Paxton said in a TribCast interview in 2012. “But the reality is we all know we don't print money in Texas, thank goodness, and we (only) have so many dollars. And so, in my opinion, we got to allocate those resources first to the people who live here legally."