The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has adopted new rules to ban illegal immigrant students from receiving in-state tuition rates, a move that was taken to comply with a court ruling compelling it to do so.
The Trump administration sued Texas to get the change, saying that parts of its education law conflicted with federal law pertaining to illegal immigrants.
“In direct and express conflict with federal law, Texas education law specifically allows an alien who is not lawfully present in the United States to qualify for in-state tuition based on residence within the state, while explicitly denying resident-based tuition rates to U.S. citizens that do not qualify as Texas residents,” the administration argued.
“No matter what a state says, if a state did not make U.S. citizens eligible, illegal aliens cannot be eligible,” the administration argued. The court agreed.
The state entered into a consent agreement in June to end in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, and the rule change will implement that agreement.
“Institutions are responsible for charging a person nonresident tuition beginning with the first academic term that begins after the date the institution discovers that the institution erroneously classified a person as a Texas resident,” the rule stated.
In some cases, it could mean that students will be retroactively charged out of state tuition rates on the Fall 2025 semester.
Immigration groups are, of course, largely opposed to the rule, particularly as it applies to Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) students, who have existed in a gray area between legal and illegal status for years.
But the board said it is “legally bound by the judgment, as an agency of the State of Texas” and “does not have the authority to permit any other person or institution that may be separately and independently bound by federal law and the Federal Order to delay or avoid compliance.”
The federal order repeatedly said that the Barack Obama-era DACA program is illegal, and can't be the basis for any relief from the new rules.
According to the board, "DACA recipients are not lawfully present and thus ineligible to receive the benefit of Texas resident tuition on that basis.”
Texas has been trying for years to end DACA, and has been joined by 19 other states in doing so.
The closest they have come is the 2023 ruling that vacated DACA and put a nationwide injunction on it.
At any rate, illegal immigrants will no longer be a drain on federal higher education resources in Texas, which is as it should be, DACA or no.
