For Immediate Release: June 5, 2025
Contact: Fermin Vasquez at fermin.vasquez@thedream.us
Washington, DC – Key voices have been swift to criticize the details and harmful effects of yesterday’s coordinated announcements from the Department of Justice and the State of Texas that has the effect of ending in-state tuition access for Texas Dreamers. Among those commenting and criticizing include:
- Don Graham, co-founder of TheDream.US to the Texas Tribune on the economic implications: “‘It’ll mean that some of the brightest young students in the country, some of the most motivated, will be denied an opportunity for higher education … it’ll hurt the workforce, it’ll hurt the economy.’ Hundreds of Texas students who have been awarded a [TheDream.US] scholarship went into nursing and education, professions that are struggling with shortages. Recent economic analysis from the American Immigration Council suggests rescinding in-state tuition for undocumented students in the state could cost Texas more than $460 million a year from lost wages and spending power.”
- Gaby Pacheco, TheDream.US President and CEO: “Since it was signed into law by Republican Governor Rick Perry in 2001, the Texas Dream Act in-state tuition policy has provided higher education opportunities, economic mobility, and hope to thousands of Texas Dreamers,” said TheDream.US President and CEO Gaby Pacheco. “And as our statistics and stories of Texas TheDream.US Scholars make clear, expanding opportunities for Dreamers has strengthened all of Texas in the process.” Watch Gaby’s message to TheDream.US Scholars and Alumni HERE.
- Monica Andrade, an attorney and Director of State Policy and Legal Strategy at the Presidents’ Alliance of Higher Education and Immigration: “The Texas Dream Act has opened the doors of opportunity for over two decades, helping thousands of Texas students pursue higher education and contribute to the state’s economy. To see it dismantled overnight, through a rushed lawsuit and a quiet legal “settlement,” is devastating. This backdoor maneuver stripped students of a future without giving them, educators, business leaders, or communities a say. It is not just harmful to undocumented students who have grown up in Texas. It weakens the economic future of Texas and the nation.”
- Judith Cruz, assistant director for the Houston region for EdTrust in Texas told the Texas Tribune: “This policy has been instrumental in providing access to higher education for all Texas students, regardless of immigration status, and dismantling it would not only harm these students but al ooo so undermine the economic and social fabric of our state,”
- Ahilan Arulanantham, professor at the UCLA School of Law and co-director of the law school’s Center for Immigration Law and Policy to Inside Higher Ed: “After California, Texas enrolls the second most undocumented students of any state, with 57,000 enrolled in Texas colleges and universities, according to the Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration. ‘This would make higher education unaffordable for thousands and thousands of young Texans who have been through the public school system in Texas,’ Arulanantham said. ‘Texas has a huge number of long-term undocumented youth who can either be integrated into the state economy or be shut out of higher education.’”
- Legal scholar Steve Vladeck noted the legal “collusion” on display between Department of Justice and the State of Texas: “Within a span of just over six hours, (1) the federal government sued Texas challenging a state law under which undocumented immigrants who reside in Texas are eligible for in-state tuition at Texas’s colleges and universities; (2) Texas agreed to “settle” the lawsuit by consenting to a judgment under which the state would be permanently enjoined from enforcing the law because it violates the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution (ostensibly because it is preempted by federal law); and (3) the consent judgment was approved by the district judge—Judge Reed O’Connor, who had a 100% chance of having this case assigned to him, since it was filed by the federal government in … the Wichita Falls Division of the Northern District of Texas.” Vladeck also pointed to the recent failure to rescind in-state tuition in the Texas legislature and noted, “a collusive lawsuit by the United States against a state shouldn’t be a backdoor when the democratic process has already declined to intervene.It’s all a stain on the federal courts—one that, in this case, comes at the literal expense of as many as 20,000 Texans who have been living in the United States since they were children. Everyone involved in this sham proceeding ought to be ashamed of themselves—and, if given the chance, the Fifth Circuit shouldn’t let it stand. I’m not holding my breath.”
Read the reaction statement from TheDream.US and The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration after yesterday’s announcement HERE
Read recent testimony from TheDream.US and The Presidents’ Alliance on Higher Education and Immigration in support of Texas in-state tuition policy: HERE
TheDream.US is the nation’s largest college and career success program for undocumented immigrant students, having provided more than 10,000 college scholarships to Dreamers attending over 80 partner colleges in 21 states and Washington, DC. We believe everyone, regardless of where they were born, should have equitable access to a college education, a meaningful career, and opportunities to contribute to the communities they call home. For more information on TheDream.US, visit www.thedream.us
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