It's Sad This Case Got That Far, But It Was a Good Day for the Rule of Law in Texas

it's sad this case got as far as it did. Texas had a law on the books letting illegal aliens pay in-state tuition while plenty of American citizens from out of state paid more to attend their own country's public universities. That was never a close call. It took a Fifth Circuit ruling to say what should have been obvious from the start.

We don't celebrate lawsuits. We'd rather state legislatures just get this right the first time and not force federal courts to clean up messes that never needed making. But when a law treats people who broke immigration rules better than it treats citizens, somebody has to say so, and this time the court did.

What's frustrating is how long this kind of policy survives once it's passed. Texas isn't some fringe state experimenting with open borders rhetoric, yet this law sat there for years benefiting people with no legal right to be here, subsidized in part by taxpayers who followed the rules and got nothing extra for it. That's the actual scandal here, not the ruling that finally corrected it.

Good outcome, wrong path to get there. The right answer shouldn't need a federal appeals court to arrive at it. Next time, maybe lawmakers write the law straight instead of waiting for judges to fix it for them.