Texas Universities Verify Lawful Presence for In-State Tuition (USCIS)

(TEXAS, USA) Texas public universities can now contact federal immigration officials to verify whether non-citizen students are in the country with lawful presence before granting them in-state tuition, marking a major shift in how residency is checked after a June 2025 court ruling upended a key part of the state’s higher education system.

Court ruling and immediate effects

The change follows a federal judge’s decision to permanently block access to in-state tuition for undocumented students in Texas who are not lawfully present in the United States. The ruling, handed down in June 2025, effectively dismantled the 24-year-old Texas Dream Act and immediately put thousands of current and future students’ college plans at risk.

According to court filings cited by advocates:

• About 57,000 Dreamers and other undocumented students already enrolled in Texas colleges were affected overnight.
• An estimated 197,000 students under 18 expected to graduate from Texas high schools in the coming years were also potentially affected.

Legal basis: IIRIRA and the dispute

At the heart of the case was the U.S. Department of Justice’s argument that granting in-state tuition to undocumented students violated the federal Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA).

Key points of IIRIRA cited in the case:

• The law bars states from giving postsecondary education benefits based on residency to non–U.S. citizens who are not lawfully present, unless those same benefits are also available to U.S. citizens regardless of where they live.
• The ruling forced Texas officials to rewrite residency rules, replacing a system that had allowed many undocumented students raised in Texas to pay the same tuition rates as their classmates.

New rules adopted by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board

To comply with the court order, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board approved rules that take effect for the Fall 2025 term.

Under the new rules:

1. Any non-citizen student seeking in-state tuition must submit:
   • A residency questionnaire, and
   • An affidavit affirming lawful presence in the United States.
2. Institutions are explicitly allowed to verify a student’s lawful presence by checking directly with USCIS — U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

3. Schools may ask for “reasonable documentation” to back up a student’s claim, but the Board did not specify what counts as reasonable documentation. Individual institutions must decide.

Privacy and FERPA concerns

The new link between Texas colleges and USCIS has quickly become one of the most controversial elements of the policy shift.

• Immigration lawyers and student advocates warn that allowing universities to share student information with a federal immigration agency could deter eligible applicants who fear that contact with immigration authorities might endanger them or their families.
• Danny Woodward, an attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, warned that using USCIS to verify eligibility may clash with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the federal law protecting student records.
• Critics argue schools could violate FERPA by sending personally identifiable information to a federal immigration database without clear, informed consent.

Allowing institutions to check immigration status with USCIS risks chilling effects on applicants and may run afoul of FERPA protections.

Confusion over who counts as “lawfully present”

The court’s order appears to leave in-state tuition available to certain non-citizens, including:

• People with Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)
• People with Temporary Protected Status (TPS)
• Those granted parole into the country
• Others federal law recognizes as having some form of lawful presence

These groups, on paper, should remain eligible if they also meet Texas residency rules (for example, graduating from a Texas high school and living in the state for a set number of years).

However, guidance from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board has deepened confusion:

• The Board’s guidance states DACA recipients are not considered lawfully present under the case law and federal orders cited, meaning they would be ineligible for in-state tuition on that basis.
• This stance appears to conflict with earlier statements and long-standing practice in Texas, where DACA recipients had generally been treated as eligible if they met residency criteria.
• As reported by VisaVerge.com, this sharp shift has left many DACA students unsure whether to trust information from college financial aid offices, lawyers, or community groups.

Campus-level missteps and policy whiplash

The confusion has produced inconsistent campus responses and rapid reversals:

• Blinn College initially announced DACA students would have to pay out-of-state tuition, then later reversed that position after review.
• Laredo College initially denied in-state tuition to DACA recipients, then also reversed course.

These rapid changes underline how unclear the definition of lawful presence remains in practice, even for administrators trying to comply with the law.

Practical consequences for students and families

For students, clarity (or the lack of it) can determine whether they attend a local university or abandon college altogether.

• In-state tuition at Texas public universities typically costs a fraction of non-resident rates.
• Losing in-state status can increase the cost of a four-year degree by tens of thousands of dollars, putting higher education out of reach for many mixed-status and low-income families.

Advocates report that some students whose families have lived in Texas for more than a decade are weighing options such as:

• Enrolling part-time,
• Delaying college, or
• Moving to other states that still offer in-state tuition to long-term residents regardless of immigration status.

Institutional uncertainty and potential unequal treatment

The Coordinating Board has not provided a single, detailed definition of lawful presence for all institutions. Instead, it has:

• Told colleges and universities to consult their own legal counsel when deciding who qualifies.

Consequences of this approach:

• Increased fear of unequal treatment across the state.
• Some campuses may interpret lawful presence more strictly, others more flexibly.
• Front-line staff in financial aid and admissions offices are left to explain shifting rules to worried families while avoiding legal errors that could draw federal scrutiny.

Operational challenges for colleges

Colleges must now build internal procedures to check immigration status without violating legal limits.

Potential approaches and their risks:

• Rely on documentation students already have (work permits, approval notices, entry documents).
  • Risk: inconsistent decisions across cases.
• Use direct electronic checks with USCIS in difficult or borderline cases.
  • Risk: fuels privacy concerns and possible FERPA complaints.

Each approach has trade-offs between consistency, legality, and student privacy.

Political and national implications

The political stakes remain high:

• The Texas Dream Act had been a flashpoint—praised for rewarding students raised in Texas, criticized for allegedly encouraging illegal immigration.
• The federal court ruling settled the legal fight for now but did not end the broader debate over whether young people without permanent status should be eligible for resident tuition.
• State lawmakers, higher education officials, and advocacy groups are signaling potential efforts to either restore access or tighten controls further.

Nationally:

• Other states that adopted in-state tuition for undocumented students are watching closely.
• Legal experts warn that if other courts adopt a similar reading of IIRIRA, similar programs elsewhere could be at risk.
• The federal government under President Biden has not rewritten IIRIRA or created a nationwide standard to resolve the dispute, leaving a patchwork system across states.

What this means now

For now, non-U.S. citizen students in Texas who hope to qualify for in-state tuition face a more complicated and uncertain path than in the past two decades. They must:

1. Prove they meet traditional residency requirements.
2. Demonstrate they fall within a category the state and federal governments consider lawfully present.
3. Accept that their information may be checked against federal immigration records.

As universities begin applying the new rules for the Fall 2025 academic year, the full impact on enrollment, student debt, and the state’s future workforce will become clearer in classrooms and financial aid offices across Texas—one application at a time.