Narrowing federal and state policies are fueling uncertainty about life after graduation for “unauthorized” immigrant students in high school, according to a new analysis from the Migration Policy Institute.
For instance, most of today’s high-schoolers cannot qualify for the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which delays the deportation of people without documentation who came to the U.S. as children. Under DACA’s age and residency requirements, the Migration Policy Institute said that no one under the age of 18 could qualify as of 2025 — even if new applicants were still being accepted.
Meanwhile, some states have recently rolled back policies that allowed unauthorized immigrant students to pay in-state tuition at public colleges and universities. Texas, for instance, reversed course on a 24-year-old policy in 2025 in a move expected to affect tens of thousands of students.
“Unauthorized immigrant students face a complex set of challenges that threatens their ability to complete high school and raises questions about what comes next after graduation,” said Jeanne Batalova, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, in a Feb. 3 statement.
To better understand the size of the U.S. graduating student population affected by these policy changes, the Migration Policy Institute partnered with demographers at Pennsylvania State University and Temple University to analyze U.S. Census Bureau data.
Here are key figures from the report.
