Overview
- The Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday, July 9, 2026 denied an appeal and motions to intervene, leaving in place a June 2025 consent judgment that halted in‑state tuition for students not lawfully present in Texas.
- The panel held that 8 U.S.C. §1623(a) bars states from granting residence‑based postsecondary benefits to aliens not lawfully present unless the same benefit is available to all U.S. citizens regardless of residency, so the federal statute preempts the Texas Dream Act.
- Advocacy groups, Austin Community College and a student sought to intervene after Texas declined to defend the law, but the court found their effort legally futile and refused to admit them as parties to appeal the consent judgment.
- As a result, students who previously used the Dream Act’s residency rule are being reclassified as out‑of‑state and face much higher tuition costs; reporting estimates place roughly 57,000 nonlawfully present students enrolled in Texas colleges in 2022 and earlier research put related tuition contributions at about $81 million in 2021.
- The decision resolves the Texas case for now but follows wider DOJ suits challenging similar state laws, and a dissent flagged procedural concerns and possible Tenth Amendment issues that could shape future appeals or separate litigation.