Is cruelty part of the White House strategy for mass deportation? Sometimes it appears so, and a case in point is the legal ambush to deny in-state tuition to the so-called Dreamers.
These are the adults who were brought to the U.S. illegally while they were children. Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, championed a 2001 state law that granted those children the in-state tuition rate at state colleges rather than the higher rate charged to non-residents.
The students must have lived in the state for at least three years prior to graduating from high school and a year before enrolling in college to qualify. The idea is to make it easier for these children to attend college since noncitizens don’t qualify for federal loans. Their future economic contributions could more than pay for the tuition subsidy. Some two dozen states have followed the Texas example.
Immigration restrictionists claim the tuition break encourages illegal migration and results in undocumented students taking the admissions slots of citizens. But Dreamers have to meet the same admission standards as state residents, and the tuition discount encourages assimilation and academic achievement. Do they really think child migrants have rushed across the border so they can pay a lower cost to attend a Texas public college?
Enter the Trump Department of Justice, which recently sued Texas to block the tuition break. DOJ claims the Texas program violates a 1996 law that says “an alien who is not lawfully present . . . shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State . . . for any postsecondary education benefit” unless U.S. citizens from other states are eligible for the same benefit.
No President has sought to enforce this law, and one reason is it likely violates the Constitution’s anti-commandeering doctrine. That’s the principle that the federal government cannot compel states to take or not take certain actions. The Supreme Court in 2018 cited these grounds to strike down a federal law that barred states from legalizing sports gambling.
Rather than defend the law, Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton immediately struck a settlement with DOJ to enjoin the tuition law, which was blessed the same day by a federal court. This rapid-fire “sue and settle” ploy—a longtime tactic of the environmental left—prevented third parties from intervening in court to defend the law.
What an awful precedent. The next Democratic President could use a similar trick to reverse laws or voter-approved initiatives they dislike in states with Democratic governors. Messrs. Abbott and Paxton like to talk about federalism and state prerogatives, but they folded here without a whimper. In doing so they overrode the state Legislature, which passed the law and has failed to repeal it despite attempts by restrictionists.
The White House goal seems to be to make Dreamers feel unwelcome and limit their opportunity so they leave the country voluntarily. But many of these young adults have no recollection about the country their parents migrated from as they’ve spent most of their lives here. Mark this down as another example of how the new right imitates the old left’s anti-democratic power plays.
