FORT WORTH, Texas (CN) - The Trump administration sued the state of Texas on Wednesday to overturn part of a decades-old law that allows some students without legal residency that live in Texas to pay in-state tuition rates at Texas colleges.
Wednesday's lawsuit is the latest move by the Trump administration to constrict the rights of immigrants in the United States. The Department of Justice points to two of Trump's executive orders as the driving force behind the lawsuit, including one from April 28 that specifically calls out state laws providing in-state tuition rates to immigrants.
"These laws unconstitutionally discriminate against U.S. citizens, who are not afforded the same privileges, in direct conflict with federal law," the DOJ said in its press release Wednesday.
in its suit, the administration specifically calls out two provisions of the Texas Education Code that set out what qualifies someone as a Texas resident to determine whether they pay in-state or out-of-state tuition.
The federal government argues that those portions of Texas' law contradicts a 1996 federal law that bars citizens without legal status from being eligible from resident tuition rates unless a U.S. citizen from any state could receive that benefit in that state. As such, they argue that the contradictory state law should be declared unconstitutional under the supremacy clause of the Constitution.
"Federal law prohibits illegal aliens from getting in-state tuition benefits that are denied to out-of-state U.S. citizens," the Department states in the opening of their lawsuit. "There are no exceptions. Yet the State of Texas has ignored this law for years. This court should put that to an end and permanently enjoin the enforcement of certain provisions of the Texas Education Code that expressly and directly conflict with federal immigration law."
The first portion of the education code that the DOJ cites expressly states that citizens of other countries must pay nonresident tuition, but it lays out three caveats for how they can be approved to pay resident tuition.
Of those caveats, the federal government challenges the third, which grants the residency requirement to a student who graduates high school or receives a diploma equivalent in Texas, has lived in Texas for three years prior to graduation, and has lived in Texas for the full year before they are formally enrolled in college.
The DOJ points to a later section of the education code that explicitly relates to noncitizen residents who apply under the challenged provision. Under this later section, a noncitizen Texas resident must submit an affidavit stating they will apply for permanent legal residence in the United States as soon as they are eligible.
U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, an appointee of George W. Bush in the Northern District of Texas, will preside over the case. O'Connor frequently ruled against policies of the Obama and Biden administrations, especially the Affordable Care Act, and is widely considered one of the more conservative federal judges.
The Department of Justice and the Texas Attorney General's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Source: Courthouse News Service
