Review the benefits state and federal governments bestow on illegal aliens, and what becomes readily apparent is that choosing the most egregious among them is challenging. But charging illegal aliens in-state university tuition rates tops many people’s list. The most adversely affected are citizen parents and their children who live in more than 20 states that collect income tax but then spend those dollars to subsidize illegal aliens’ tuition.
Those same parents have nurtured their child, encouraged him in his studies, and heartened him in his extracurricular activities, only to learn that his incoming freshman seat — fixed in number — will be given, tuition paid, to an illegally present foreign national. For most American families, admission to a public university is, without assuming a crushing debt load, often their only option. American kids already compete with millions of international students to get into a top-tier college.
U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi noted that not only does in-state tuition for illegal aliens violate federal law, but the policy also represents an injustice to American citizens. “No state can be allowed to treat Americans like second-class citizens in their own country by offering financial benefits to illegal aliens,” Bondi added.
Since 1996, when Congress enacted the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act — legislation that expressly prohibits postsecondary education benefits unless a U.S. citizen is eligible for the same benefit, equal in amount, duration and scope — some states have often ignored the law. An illegal alien’s permanent residence is not a variable in the tuition equation; regardless of where the prospective student lives, he must be a citizen or a lawfully present alien.
After decades of winking at the states that have blatantly broken IIRIRA, in early June the Department of Justice filed a lawsuit against Texas, which, paradoxically, in 2001 was the first to offer in-state tuition to illegal immigrants through the Texas Dream Act. Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is also challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn for his seat, filed a joint motion with DOJ that acknowledged Texas’ law conflicted with the Supremacy Clause. Within six hours of the complaint’s filing in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, the Texas Dream Act was repealed. The court agreed with the DOJ that the statute “expressly and directly conflicts” with federal immigration law. DOJ has also identified Minnesota and Kentucky as states in violation of federal law, with other states soon to follow.
Public interest groups like The Texas Civil Rights Project, Democracy Forward, American Civil Liberties Union of Texas, National Immigration Law Center, and the Dallas-based firm of Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann filed a motion to intervene in ongoing federal court litigation. Incoming 2025 Texas students who may have benefited from the Texas Act are now uncertain about their future.
The Texas Dream Act was another example of immigration law created out of emotion, not intellect. The legislation provided another example of voters’ concern about continuing to provide illegal aliens benefits they are not legally entitled to. Texas Gov. Perry learned his lesson the hard way.
In 2011, Perry was vying with former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney for the Republican presidential nomination. At a GOP debate in Florida, Perry defended his support for the Texas Dream Act and doubled down. “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they have been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart. I still support it greatly,” Perry said fatefully. When Perry spoke, some 32,000 illegal aliens had unfairly competed with native-born Texans, who are U.S. citizens, for a finite number of slots at state colleges. Perry gave the illegal immigrants a sizeable taxpayer subsidy, in-state tuition rates, equal to nearly $10 million.
Perry also willingly picked the pockets of Texas taxpayers by allocating their hard-earned dollars to fund unlawfully present foreign nationals’ university degrees. The governor’s ill-advised remarks, which echoed his predecessor George W. Bush’s immigration views, cost Perry the GOP nomination.
Voters want compassionate enforcement of immigration law, not amnesty or incentives to immigrate illegally. Twenty years is a long time to be on the wrong side of a federal law message that, thanks to Attorney General Bondi, states that offer in-state tuition to illegal aliens have finally come to understand.
Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years.
