Austin, Texas (AP) -Zwei-On the Texas College campus, it was a resilient law in view of the hardening of the Republican immigration agenda: tuition fees for students who had no legal residents.
In a flash, the Texas politics, which was the first of its kind in the USA, was hired on Wednesday and blocked for hours by a federal judge after the Ministry of Justice dismantled it. The Republican leaders in Texas did not fight the challenge, but were eagerly joined by it.
The surprising and speedy end of the law, known as “Texas Dream Act”, fascinated immigration lawyers and Democrats, which called it cruel punishment for tough -working students who ultimately violate the state’s economy. The Republicans cheered the result and the US general Prosecutor Pam Bondi suggested that states with similar tuition fees could be exposed to similar measures.
The lighting regulation ended a guideline in Texas, which once supported, when it was founded in 2001, arranged tens of thousands of students when they started the college and similar laws in two dozen states.
Here is what to know:
The Texas law and the effects
The Texas tuition policy policy was initially adopted with comprehensive cross -party majorities in state legislation and signed by the then GOV. Rick Perry, a Republican, to open the access to university education for students without already living legal stays in the state. Boards and now say that the state’s economy increased by creating a better trained and better prepared workforce.
The law allowed students to qualify for tuition fees in the States without legal residents if they had lived in Texas for three years before they had completed the high school and a year before they registered on college. They also had to sign an affidavit that promised to apply for legal status as soon as possible.
According to the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration, a non -partisan non -partisan group of university leaders who focus on immigration policy, around 57,000 qualification students have enrolled in Texas. The state has a total of around 690,000 students at its public universities.
The difference in tuition fees is significant.
For example, a state resident will pay a campus of the University of Texas Rio, Rio Grande, a campus with 34,000 layers along the border to Mexico, for a minimum full -time plan for full -time classes in the coming school year. A non-resident student pays $ 19,000.
“UtrGV is assumed that the declaration of consent can influence the financial plans already made by individual students,” said the school in a statement on Thursday. “Our priority and focus are on the minimization of the student of the student of the student in accordance with the applicable law and the support of the students to navigate this transition with clarity and care.”
Political setback and a quick end
The law was largely unchallenged for years, but was under fire when the debates on illegal immigration increased. In the Republican presidential code of 2012, Perry finally apologized after saying that critics of the law “had no heart”.
The law raised several cancellation efforts in the legislation dominated by Republicans. In the legislative period ending on June 2, a termination law did not even receive a vote.
But the ax fell quickly. On Wednesday, the Trump government filed a lawsuit in which the law became unconstitutional. The Attorney General Ken Paxton, a key -trump, decided not to defend the law in court, and instead submitted an application to agree that he should not be enforced.
After the state administration agreed with the Trump administration, the law was suddenly hit by a federal judge without arguing about the merits of the lawsuit or a reaction of the students concerned.
Trump, immigration and higher ED
The Trump administration asked the law in a border state in which governor Greg Abbott, Paxton and the Republican leadership helped his efforts between the co-officers with immigrants to fully support and spent billions with it.
The judgment also expanded Trump’s efforts to influence university formation across the country. The administration has used federal financing and its authority for the student visa to pinch the campus activism and the selection of initiatives for diversity, justice and inclusion.
Effects beyond Texas
The decision influenced only the Texas law, but in almost half of the US countries that had similar guidelines, Bondi suggested that the administration could take similar measures elsewhere. Ron Desantis, Governor of Florida, recently signed a legislative template for the abolition of the law in this state in July.
“Other states should note that we will continue to submit affiliates to remedy unconstitutional state laws that discriminate against American citizens,” said Bondi.
Immigration lawyers and educational lawyers said they assess whether there are legal options for questioning the decision in Texas.
“Don’t make a mistake, supporters, students, campus will not only take this,” said Miriam Feldblum, President and Chief Executive President Alliance for Higher Education and Immigration. “But I have no doubt that there will be an effort to do this (elsewhere).”
