As of October 2025, twenty-two states were offering in-state tuition rates to illegal aliens at public universities. The same discount that a kid from Dallas gets after his parents paid Texas property taxes for eighteen years — handed to someone who crossed the border illegally and enrolled.
The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals just ruled that's over. At least in Texas. And the legal reasoning applies everywhere.
The ruling found that federal law Section 1623(a) preempts state tuition benefits for illegal aliens. The court's language was precise: states are barred "from conferring postsecondary education benefits on any illegal alien based on residence unless the same benefit is available to all U.S. citizens and nationals irrespective of residency." Translation — if an illegal alien in Texas gets in-state rates, then a kid from Oklahoma has to get them too. Since no state wants to offer in-state tuition to all 50 states' worth of American citizens, the benefit for illegal aliens collapses.
The panel was composed of Judge Jerry Smith, a Reagan appointee, and Judge Don Willett, a Trump appointee, forming the majority. Judge Irma Ramirez, a Biden appointee, dissented. The ideological split was exactly what you'd predict.
Texas Governor Greg Abbott celebrated the decision on July 9. "Texas and the Trump DOJ just secured another major victory for the rule of law," Abbott said. "The Fifth Circuit upheld the END of in-state tuition for illegal immigrants in Texas." The DOJ Civil Division, led by Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate, argued the federal government's position in the case.
The implications extend well beyond Texas. Twenty-two states have similar provisions, and Section 1623(a) is federal law — it doesn't stop at the Fifth Circuit's geographic boundary. Any state still offering discounted tuition to illegal aliens is now operating on borrowed time until the next lawsuit lands. The University of Arizona has already started cutting scholarships for its fall 2026 freshman class in anticipation of the legal shift.
The law itself isn't new. Section 1623(a) has been on the books for years. What's new is a DOJ willing to enforce it and a court willing to read it as written. For two decades, states treated the provision like a suggestion. The Fifth Circuit just reminded them it's a statute.
Twenty-two states. Exposed. The federal law was always there — someone just finally bothered to use it.