Top DOJ Official Hints That Department and Texas AG Worked Together To End Texas Dream Act in 'Six Hours'

The Department of Justice coordinated with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to kill the Texas Dream Act— a bill that allowed certain undocumented college students to pay in-state tuition— "in six hours," a top official said in a recent Republican gathering.

The Texas Dream Act let undocumented students who graduated from a Texas High School and met other residency requirements to pay for in-state tuition at Texas colleges and universities. The bill was an avenue for thousands of undocumented students to afford higher education.

But all of that ended on June 4, when the Justice Department sued Texas over the bill and then quickly filed a joint motion with Texas asking a judge to declare the law unconstitutional and permanently enjoin the state from enforcing the law. The judge approved the motion on the same day.

The speed of the case raised many eyebrows across the Lone Star State, and ultimately inspired immigration and human rights advocates to seek the invalidation of the ruling on Tuesday, arguing that the DOJ and Paxton's office "colluded to secure an agreed injunction" and engaged in improper "legal choreography" to obtain their desired outcome.

"The United States did not even have to serve its lawsuit; Texas was ready and waiting," court documents state. "The United States filed an executive waiver of service, Dkt. 5, and hours later, on the same day the Complaint was filed, the Parties filed a Joint Motion for Consent Judgement."

Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli did not seem to deny those allegations during a recent speaking engagement at the Republican Attorney General Association a day after the court victory.

"So just yesterday, we had filed a lawsuit against Texas, had a consent decree the same day, or consent judgement, and it got granted hours later," Kambli told participants, according to audio obtained by NBC News. "And what it did was, because we were able to have that line of communication and talk in advance, a statute that's been a problem for the state for 24 years, we got rid of it in six hours."

Kambli, who previously worked for Kansas Attorney General Kris Koback, added that the Justice Department has "good relationships" with state attorneys general, which allows it to "get things done."

Kambli also said the second Trump administration "is learning how to be offensive-minded," according to the audio.

"I think that was the biggest critique the first time around in the first Trump administration— there are a lot of missed opportunities to wield federal government power for the things that we value that just never happened," Kambli said. "But this time we've brought in a lot of people from the state AG world that have done that kind of litigation, know how to do it and have been doing it."

The allegations come days after Texas Higher Education Commissioner Wynn Rosser sent a letter to college and university presidents in the state asking them to identify which attending students were undocumented. The letter did not provide guidelines on how institutions handle the identification process or who would have access to the information.

It also indicated that the process would need to be completed before the end of summer so undocumented students can be "charged non-resident tuition" for the fall semester.