Texas officially terminated in-state tuition for foreigners who entered the U.S. illegally after the Trump administration filed a lawsuit alleging it was unconstitutional.
The Trump administration’s Department of Justice sued the Lone Star State on Wednesday, alleging that Texas spent more than two decades illegally discriminating against out-of-state American students by giving priority tuition to illegal aliens who resided in the state.
“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement at the time of the filing. “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.”
That same day, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton joined the federal government to file a motion agreeing that the law’s provisions “violate the Supremacy Clause and therefore are unconstitutional and invalid.” In the motion, Paxton and the Trump administration acknowledge that a 1998 law prohibits foreigners who are “not lawfully present” in the U.S. from receiving “any postsecondary education benefit” that is denied to American citizens.
U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor agreed in his order and final judgment issued later on Wednesday that Texas’ educational carve-outs for illegal aliens “violate the Supremacy Clause and are unconstitutional and invalid.”
“Today, I entered a joint motion along with the Trump Administration opposing a law that unconstitutionally and unlawfully gave benefits to illegal aliens that were not available to American citizens,” Paxton said, calling the end of the “discriminatory and un-American provision” a “major victory for Texas.”
The White House, which spent the first few months of President Donald Trump’s second term taking aim at taxpayer subsidization of illegal border crossers, also celebrated following the decision.
Texas wasn’t simply admitting illegal border crossers to universities and then giving them tuition benefits. Until a Texas law banning racist hiring practices and classroom programs went into effect in January 2024, some state schools, such as the University of Texas, had dedicated scholarships for those unlawfully residing in the U.S.