A federal appeals court handed down a decision saying that the state of Texas cannot provide in-state tuition to illegal alien students. The decision from the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals stated that a 25-year-old Texas law that allows the discounts is in direct conflict with federal law. The court pointed to a federal statute that says states cannot provide higher education benefits to illegal immigrants based on where they live unless they offer the same perks to all U.S. citizens, no matter what state they are from.
Under the Lone Star State’s rules, out-of-state American citizens were being slapped with significantly higher tuition rates than illegal immigrant students living in Texas, which the court ruled to be illegal. The fight over this matter began in summer 2025, when the federal government filed a lawsuit against Texas over the tuition rules.
The state wasted no time in settling the case, agreeing to place a permanent ban on the discounts. After that settlement was reached, a coalition of several advocacy groups, along with a student and Austin Community College, attempted to get involved and keep the program going. However, the appeals court shut that effort down.
According to a report from Breitbart News, the judges on the court stated that trying to defend the program was pointless due to federal law clearly superseding it. One of the judges on the panel dissented, trying to make the case that the court moved too quickly in reaching its decision, claiming that the federal law might violate the Tenth Amendment by telling states how to run their colleges.
However, the majority ruling stands, bringing an end to the in-state tuition program for undocumented students in Texas. As can be imagined, the reactions to the ruling, particularly from the left, have been strong, especially since the decision creates a wider discussion about similar laws in place in other states around the country.
That is particularly true as ending in-state tuition benefits for illegal aliens is a major focus of the Trump Administration and GOP. For example, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) introduced the “Put American Students First Act” on Tuesday, December 16, which would ban states from providing in-state tuition benefits to illegal aliens, something that many conservatives see as a way that illegal aliens have benefited at the expense of Americans.
It points to 22 different states, along with Washington, DC, and alleges that they have engaged in serious violations of Section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. That bill prohibits the provision of in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens under most conditions.
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That bill’s text provides, “Despite this prohibition, as of 2025, 22 States and the District of Columbia continue to provide in-State rates for tuition and fees to such aliens through policies that circumvent Federal law, subsidizing their postsecondary education at a cost to taxpayers of the United States estimated at more than $1,000,000,000 annually.”
Further, the senator alleges in the text of the bill, “Providing such subsidies creates a perverse incentive for illegal immigration, rewarding unlawful presence with benefits unavailable to citizens and legal residents of the United States who do not live within such State, and undermines the rule of law.”
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