A federal judge on Wednesday permanently blocked Texas from enforcing a state law allowing illegal immigrants living in the Lone Star State to pay in-state tuition rates for public universities after the Trump administration challenged the statute.
The two-decades-old law was overturned after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a motion in the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas agreeing with the Justice Department’s contention that the statute “expressly and directly conflicts” with federal immigration law.
“[T]he Court hereby declares that the challenged provisions … as applied to aliens who are not lawfully present in the United States, violate the Supremacy Clause and are unconstitutional and invalid,” District Judge Reed O’Connor determined.
“The Court also hereby permanently enjoins Defendant as well as its successors, agents, and employees, from enforcing Texas Education Code § 54.051(m) and § 54.052(a), as applied to aliens who are not lawfully present in the United States,” O’Connor, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, ruled.
After the ruling, Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott declared on X that “In-state tuition for illegal immigrants in Texas has ended.”
“Ending this discriminatory and un-American provision is a major victory for Texas,” Paxton said in a statement.
In a lawsuit filed shortly before Paxton entered the state’s joint motion in the case, the Trump administration argued that “federal law prohibits illegal aliens from getting in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state U.S. citizens.”
“There are no exceptions. Yet the State of Texas has ignored this law for years,” the lawsuit stated. “This Court should put that to an end.”
The 2001 state law was passed by the Texas Legislature under the administration of former Republican Gov. Rick Perry, who served as energy secretary during President Trump’s first term.
The law, which survived several Republican-led legislative repeal efforts, allowed illegal immigrant students who have been Texas residents for at least three years leading up to their high school graduation and who pledge to apply for permanent legal status to pay dramatically lower tuition rates than out-of-state students.
The University of Texas at Austin, for example, charges out-of-state students between $40,582 and $48,712 for annual tuition, whereas in-state students pay between $10,858 and $13,576, according to the school.
Texas was the first state in the nation to pass such legislation, which is now on the books in dozens of states.
“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to US citizens,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement issued before the judge’s ruling. “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.”
The DOJ’s complaint cited Trump’s February executive order, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders,” and his April directive, “Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens,” as the impetus for the lawsuit.
