The Department of Justice (DOJ) filed a complaint against Texas to block the state’s two-decade-old law that provides in-state tuition to illegal immigrants.

Hours after the DOJ filed the complaint, Texas officials agreed to comply with federal law and stop providing illegal immigrants with in-state tuition costs, The Texas Tribune reported.

The complaint was filed Wednesday in the Northern District of Texas against the State of Texas and several Texas officials to get Texas to comply with federal requirements.

Under federal law, higher education institutions are prohibited from providing benefits to illegal aliens not offered to U.S. citizens.

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The DOJ’s complaint aims to enjoin the enforcement of a Texas law requiring colleges and universities to provide in-state tuition rates for immigrants who maintain residency in Texas, regardless of whether they are in the U.S. legally.

According to the DOJ, the laws in Texas “blatantly” conflict with federal law, putting them in conflict with the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.

“Under federal law, schools cannot provide benefits to illegal aliens that they do not provide to U.S. citizens,” Attorney General Pam Bondi said. “The Justice Department will relentlessly fight to vindicate federal law and ensure that U.S. citizens are not treated like second-class citizens anywhere in the country.”

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The lawsuit was filed in response to two executive orders signed by President Donald Trump since returning to the Oval Office in January.

The executive orders were signed to ensure illegal immigrants cannot receive taxpayer benefits or preferential treatment.

One of the orders, “Ending Taxpayer Subsidization of Open Borders,” ordered all agencies to “ensure, to the maximum extent permitted by law, that no taxpayer-funded benefits go to unqualified aliens.”

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The Justice Department filed a complaint against Texas to block the state’s law that provides in-state tuition to illegal immigrants. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

The other order, “Protecting American Communities From Criminal Aliens,” directs officials to “take appropriate action to stop the enforcement of State and local laws, regulations, policies, and practices favoring aliens over any groups of American citizens that are unlawful, preempted by Federal law, or otherwise unenforceable, including State laws that provide in-State higher education tuition to aliens but not to out-of-State American citizens.”

Fox News Digital has reached out to Gov. Greg Abbott’s office for comment.

Widely known as the Texas Dream Act, the legislation being targeted by the Trump administration was introduced in February 2001, when federal courts ruled that a child’s immigration status should not prevent the child’s access to primary and secondary schools.

But when it came to higher education, federal immigration status could have prevented some children born outside the U.S. from getting a college education from a public institution because of higher rates charged to nonresidents.

When children born outside the U.S. graduated from Texas high schools, those students were required by previous state law to pay a higher rate to Texas public colleges or universities, as if they were from out of state or were international students.

The legislation, signed by Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, June 16, 2001, removed federal immigration status as a factor in determining eligibility to pay in-state tuition at Texas public colleges and universities for students who graduate from a Texas high school and who meet the minimum residency, academic and registration criteria.

The government’s most basic duty is to keep its citizens safe. President Joe Biden woefully neglected to fulfill this obligation, allowing our borders to be overrun by millions of unvetted illegal immigrants, criminal aliens and cartels smuggling deadly synthetic opioids.

Far from Washington, border states like Texas were left to suffer the consequences. Texas spent billions of dollars on Operation Lone Star in an attempt to abate this catastrophe. 

We all owe Gov. Greg Abbott a debt of gratitude for doing what the Biden administration wouldn’t, but we also owe Texas a monetary debt. Now the bill is due: it’s time for the federal government to pay Texas taxpayers back.

From the moment he arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, President Biden reversed the previous administration’s successful immigration policies: he ended President Donald Trump’s “Remain in Mexico” policy; directed DHS to halt construction of the border wall, instead using federal funds to store wall materials; and ended Title 42, the COVID-era policy that was our last line of defense against the migrant surge.

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President Biden oversaw a crisis on our southern border that far surpassed illegal migration numbers from prior decades. In Biden’s four years, CBP encountered over 10 million illegal immigrants. More than 1.7 million known gotaways evaded Border Patrol entirely and are freely roaming somewhere in the interior of our country. 

Hundreds of thousands of Americans died from overdose of synthetic opioids, including fentanyl, a drug manufactured with Chinese precursor chemicals and smuggled through our open border by drug cartels. Innocent Americans such as Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray died at the hands of illegal migrant criminals.

Despite the immigration authorities that were already available to President Biden, he threw up his hands, claiming that there was nothing more he could do – all while his Homeland Security secretary reassured the public that the border was “secure.” But facts don’t lie. The whole world knew America’s borders were wide open.

This tragic crisis was felt most acutely in Texas. My state shares the longest border with Mexico, and with the president missing in action in the midst of a disaster, Gov. Abbott had to intervene. 

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Under Operation Lone Star, Texas law enforcement apprehended over half a million illegal immigrants, including more than 50,000 criminal arrests. They built more than 240 miles of border barriers, seized over half a billion deadly doses of fentanyl and reduced illegal immigration into Texas by 87%, according to the governor. However, these efforts cost upwards of $11 billion, a pretty penny for Texans to pay for the basic safety and security that the federal government owes its people.

If there is any lingering question that President Biden’s policies are to blame for the mess we saw at our southern border, consider President Trump’s swift success in reversing the damage. As soon he was elected and even before he took office, the migrant flows began to subside. 

In the first two weeks of 2025, CBP encounters were nearly 50% lower than they were at the same point in 2021, at the start of the Biden administration. In President Trump’s first 100 days in office, daily border encounters decreased by 95%.

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This dramatic sea change resulted from President Trump and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem’s commonsense policies. On day one, President Trump declared a national emergency at the southern border. He ended President Biden’s “catch and release” policy and reinstated his own tried-and-tested “Remain in Mexico” policy. ICE arrests have increased by more than 600%, while arrests of criminal migrants have doubled.

The Trump administration’s policies are a welcome change from the past four years of disaster under the Biden administration. But the damage Texas experienced and the financial sacrifice we made for the good of the country must be fully repaid.

The federal government under President Biden created this crisis, and Congress must rectify it. Texans have had to bear the brunt of open borders, rampant crime and deadly fentanyl for four years, costing the state billions of dollars to fill in for our absentee commander in chief.

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In late January, Gov. Abbott asked Congress to reimburse Texas for the $11.1 billion that Texas taxpayers spent. I immediately began working in partnership with President Trump, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Texas Republicans in the House, to ensure Congress fulfills this request through the reconciliation bill, also known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

Rep. Chip Roy attends President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 4, 2025. (Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Texas Republicans make up the largest Republican delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives; thus the speaker could not pass a bill without support from this key voting bloc. It was unacceptable that the initial text of the legislation released by the House did not reimburse Texas.

But thanks to coordinating efforts with Congressman Chip Roy, R-Texas, language to reimburse states like Texas was added to the legislation during the amendment process, and the House passed these provisions in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

The next hurdle is to shepherd our reimbursement provisions through the Senate. I will continue working with Leader Thune, Gov. Abbott and President Trump to ensure the Senate includes even stronger language in the One Big Beautiful Bill and that Texas specifically will be rightfully repaid for Operation Lone Star. I will continue fighting to ensure this language remains in the final version of the One Big Beautiful Bill that will go to the president’s desk.

The road to victory is long, but if there’s one thing us Texans know how to do it’s to stay the course and defy the odds. President Biden abdicated his responsibility as commander in chief at the southern border. It’s now up to Congress to reverse the damage and make Texas taxpayers whole.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, claimed on Tuesday that conservatives would enslave people like her if they could, claiming their opposition is just another incarnation of old hatreds.

Crockett argued that current Republican attacks are an outgrowth of the mentalities behind slavery and segregation.

“It is easier, in my opinion, to do what’s right every single day that I go in and serve and do right for everyone. Because at the end of the day, I know that there was a time and a place, and if they could, they would throw me back in chains,” she claimed on the “Outlaws” podcast. “Somehow, those that came before us managed to break loose of the physical chains, even though we still have a bunch of systemic chains that we are still kind of wrangling with.”

Such battles, she said, make her reflect on the country’s past.

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“I think about the fact that they also had this justification as if we were different, as if we didn’t all bleed the same and we weren’t the same,” she added. “And so, as the attacks seem new, they really are tired and old, and we’ve been through them before. And I can recognize the hate no matter if we’re talking about in the ’50s or if we’re talking about in 2025.”

Crockett claimed that as Republicans are poised to face a backlash, the “superpowers” of people like her will be revealed.

“And so with me, I know that we’ve persevered past them. We have still been able to accomplish so much despite them,” she said. “And I truly believe that as we walk into this next season — this losing season for the haters — I think that we will again be able to transgress and show that, like, we are great, we are normal. We are actually — if anything — we got superpowers, as far as I’m concerned.”

At another point, podcast host TS Madison described feeling “so afraid as a Black trans woman” in modern America, asking the congresswoman, “What is going on?”

“I like to say, ‘They hate you because they can’t be you.’ So every little hate that they spew your way, my way, it is because they know that they see how beautiful we are inside and out, and we walk in that greatness every single day,” Crockett said. “And there is nothing that they can do that will diminish us or make us feel less than, even though that’s what they want us to believe we are. So let me just say thank you for living your truth, because that really takes courage.”

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U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX) is one of the most outspoken and incendiary voices in the Democratic Party. (Jemal Countess/Getty Images for MoveOn)

Crockett went on to argue that whether one is Black or identifies as transgender, there are those who “get all riled up about anybody that is not old, White, male and rich.”