Austin, Texas (AP) — Tens of thousands of US college students with no legal resident status have lost access to tuition prices in the state as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.
The Department of Justice has sued the state to end tuition fees for students without legal residency. Starting in Texas June. He also filed a lawsuit Kentucky, Minnesota And recently, Oklahoma. Last year, Florida illegally ended tuition fees for students living there,
“Federal law prohibits aliens that do not legally exist in state tuition benefits that are denied by out-of-state U.S. citizens,” the Justice Department argued this month in a lawsuit in Oklahoma. “There are no exceptions.”
Tuition once enjoyed widespread, bipartisan support, but has been criticized by Republicans in recent years.
Here’s what you need to know about tuition breaks:
Texas program was blocked first
Texas tuition policy was initially passed by a clean, bipartisan majority in Congress and was signed into law by the then GOV. Republican Rick Perry is a way to open access to higher education for lawless, nonresident students who already live in the state. At that time, and now, supporters say they have boosted the state’s economy by creating a more educated and better prepared workforce.
The law allowed students without a legal resident status to qualify for in-state tuition if they lived in Texas for three years before graduating from high school and a year before enrolling in college. They also had to sign an affidavit pledging to apply for legal resident status as soon as possible.
Texas has around 57,000 eligible students enrolled in public universities and universities. The President’s Alliance on Higher Education and Immigrationa nonpartisan nonprofit group of university leaders focused on immigration policy. The state has approximately 690,000 students in public universities in total.
The difference in tuition fees is substantial.
For example, University of Texas Rio Grande Valleya campus of 34,000 students along the border with Mexico, will pay a basic tuition fee of approximately $10,000 on the minimum full-time class schedule for next school year. Non-resident students pay $19,000.
Political pushback and quick ending
Texas laws have been barely challenged for years, but it was attacked as debates on illegal immigration intensified. In the 2012 Republican presidential primary, Perry apologized after critics of the law said they “had no heart.”
The law withstanded several abolition efforts in Republican-controlled Congress. At the legislative meeting that ended June 2nd, the repeal bill did not even receive a vote.
But x quickly fell. After the Trump administration filed a lawsuit calling the law unconstitutional, Attorney General Ken Paxton, a major Trump ally, chose not to defend the law in court and filed an allegation agreeing that it should not be enforced instead.
In Oklahoma, Attorney General Gentner Drummond, who is also a Republican, filed a similar complaint.
“It’s not only wrong to reward foreigners in our country illegally at the low cost of tuition fees that are unavailable to out-of-state American citizens, but it’s discriminatory and illegal,” Drummond said in a statement.
Campuses across the country are feeling an impact
According to the National Center for Immigration Law, at least 21 states and the University of Michigan system have laws or policies that allow tuition breaks for immigrant students. These states include democratic states such as California and New York, but also GOPLEANINE states such as Kansas and Nebraska.
According to the Center, at least 16 states, immigrant students can go to university with scholarships and other assistance.
Immigration lawyers and education advocates said they are assessing whether there is a legal measure to challenge the ruling.
