The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the end of in-state tuition benefits for illegal aliens in Texas.
Governor Abbott announced the win on X:
The court’s 2-1 decision leaves standing an agreement reached last year between the Trump DOJ and the state of Texas to end the unlawful taxpayer-funded benefits, which are denied to U.S. citizens in other states.
The ruling also ends over a year of litigation initiated by would-be intervenors seeking to undo that agreement.
Like other states, Texas charges its own residents a much lower rate to attend its public colleges than those who live out of state.
For over twenty years, Texas laws required state colleges and universities to offer those reduced in-state tuition rates to aliens, whether they were here legally or not—a benefit denied to citizens from other states.
But that’s discrimination against our own citizenry, and it’s illegal. In June of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice sued to block the state from enforcing the laws, as we covered from the beginning here.
That lawsuit seemed to be over before it started, however, when, just hours later, the DOJ and the State entered into a consent judgment agreeing to end the benefits. Their filing was promptly approved by the district judge.
But then, shortly thereafter, two advocacy groups, a community college, and a student sought to intervene in the case, throwing a monkey wrench into what looked like a done deal.
The lower court denied their request last August, explaining that “intervention is legally futile,” because the laws’ provisions are expressly preempted by federal law.
The groups appealed, arguing the district court had prejudged the merits without a hearing or adversarial briefing.
Yesterday, a majority of the Fifth Circuit disagreed, rejecting the would-be intervenors’ arguments as meritless. Its decision upholds the parties’ agreement to end the unlawful benefits and affirms the lower court ruling.
The court reiterated that federal law bars states from conferring postsecondary education benefits on any illegal alien based on residence unless the same benefit is available to all U.S. citizens and nationals, irrespective of residency. As the court summed it up, “U.S. citizens or nationals must be treated no worse than illegal aliens.”
For years, illegal immigrants came to this country knowing that in over 20 states, all kinds of benefits, including scholarships and loan subsidies, in addition to in-state tuition rates, lay in store—for them, but not for U.S. citizens.
Last year, the Trump DOJ began its broad-scale campaign to end the preferential tuition benefits—benefits that basically amount to incentives for illegal immigration. Texas was the first of now 12 states so far to be sued.
This is not the first time outside parties have tried to derail a consent judgment entered with the DOJ to end the unlawful benefits. Last month, as I wrote here, the federal district court in Nebraska rejected just such an attempt and approved the decree—for similar reasons, finding the state’s provisions “blatantly violate” federal law.
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