On immigrant tuition law, Paxton and Abbott gladly help feds mess with Texas | Opinion

The feds are messin’ with Texas again.

And while Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton usually relish a fight over Washington sticking its nose into Lone Star business, this time, they are cool with it. Heck, they’re even helping.

The Trump administration sued the state June 4 over the state law allowing Texas high school graduates here three years or more to attend public colleges and universities and pay in-state tuition, even if they were in the country illegally. Within hours, Abbott and Paxton had agreed to settle the case by stipulating that the law was unconstitutional. The Justice Department argued that federal law prevents states from offering better tuition rates to anyone here illegally than to out-of-state U.S. citizens. An ideologically friendly judge quickly signed off, and that was that — a longstanding Texas policy went poof without anyone even knowing it was in danger.

This stinks for many reasons, not the least of which is immediate uncertainty for thousands of college students. Another is the stench of collusion, a deliberately fixed process designed to achieve something that could not pass legislative muster.

TEXAS LEGISLATURE DECLINED TO CHANGE IMMIGRANT TUITION LAW

The Legislature has had a chance to overturn the tuition law every two years since it was passed in 2001. There was a bill to do so in the just-completed session in Austin. It never made it to the full Senate or got any consideration in the House.

Legislative leaders seem uninterested in defending their prerogatives, though. There have been no cries for a legislative fix or an effort to challenge the court settlement. The executive branch found a way to end-run lawmakers, and their response was essentially: Don’t let us get in your way!

One factor is a dramatic shift among staunch Republicans on the law. A party that used to welcome immigrants and understand the upside of educating young people who were almost certain to remain here now opposes any benefits for them. That’s driven, in part, because of the unrelenting failure of Washington to secure the border and ensure that migration is orderly, sensible and economically beneficial to the United States.

As recently as 2011, Gov. Rick Perry, who signed the 2001 tuition law, vigorously defended it — at considerable cost to his presidential aspirations. When GOP rival Mitt Romney attacked him over it, Perry didn’t hold back, saying: “If you say that we should not educate children who have come into our state for no other reason than they’ve been brought there by no fault of their own, I don’t think you have a heart. We need to be educating these children because they will become a drag on our society.”

Suffice it to say that like GOP voters in that campaign, Texas Republicans have moved on from Perry.

JUDGE-SHOPPING IN TEXAS’ SURRENDER ON IN-STATE TUITION

The legal machinations repeated a tactic we’ve seen too often from elected officials and activists across the political spectrum: judge shopping. The case just happened to be brought before U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor. Paxton, with his myriad suits against the Biden administration, has been a frequent visitor to O’Connor’s court. But, hey, if you’re going to coordinate a stage play of a legal process, why risk an independent-minded judge who might object?

The most disturbing aspect of the tuition-law settlement, though, is Paxton’s willingness to bypass the oath he has taken three times as he’s been sworn in as attorney general. The oath, common to all state officeholders, affirms that they will “faithfully execute” their duties and “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States and of this state, so help me God.”

We all know from the details of his sordid business deals and the evidence of his corruption laid out in his impeachment trial that Paxton views some of his commitments as mere suggestions. But this act alone would justify impeachment and removal from office, not that the Legislature wants to go there again. If we cannot count on the attorney general to defend the duly enacted policies of the Legislature and decades of precedent, what do we have him for?

The tuition law was necessary but imperfect. It was limited not only to those who spent their final three years of K-12 education in Texas high schools but also required them to affirm that they would seek permanent residency as soon as they could. It’s a reasonable argument to say that the state should not confer benefits upon those here illegally that many U.S. citizens cannot get.

But that could be fixed, or at least improved, perhaps by extending in-state tuition to residents of all adjacent states to give Texas universities a leg up in attracting the best students in the entire region.

The argument that the tuition break is an enticement for more illegal immigration has always been suspect. Poor people deciding whether to risk the trip to the U.S. aren’t thinking years ahead to whether they’ll be able to send their kids to UT.

But we have an entire system set up to have that policy debate. State officials shouldn’t willingly punt on their duties to avoid it.

This story was originally published June 11, 2025 at 11:28 AM.