A federal appeals court has handed Texas a win in the legal fight over the state’s new foreign land-ownership restrictions, tossing a Chinese student’s challenge on the grounds that he lacked standing. The ruling means Texas’ foreign land ban remains intact.
Senate Bill 17, passed by lawmakers this year and signed by Gov. Greg Abbott, restricts individuals from certain “designated countries” from acquiring real estate interests in Texas. Those designated countries are tied to recent U.S. intelligence threat assessments and currently include China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea, with authority for the governor to add more.
Under the statute, individuals “domiciled” in a designated country—meaning their true, fixed, and permanent home is there, and it is the place they intend to return to whenever absent—may not purchase or otherwise acquire various property interests in Texas. SB 17 also empowers Attorney General Ken Paxton to set procedures to review suspect transactions and, upon finding a violation, to refer cases for civil or criminal enforcement and divestment actions in court.
The case, Wang v. Paxton, was brought by Peng Wang, a Chinese citizen who is living in Texas on an F‑1 student visa and studying for a Master of Divinity in Fort Worth. Wang has lived in Texas for 16 years, leads worship at a local church, performs with area orchestras, and says he plans to keep renting in the Dallas-Fort Worth area while he seeks work as a worship pastor after graduation.
Backed by the Chinese American Legal Defense Alliance, Wang and other Chinese nationals on visas argued SB 17 is unconstitutional, claiming it violates the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause and Supremacy Clause as well as the Fair Housing Act by restricting their ability to rent or buy property in Texas because of their citizenship and national origin.
They sought a pre-enforcement injunction blocking all applications of the law before it took effect on September 1.
In August, U.S. District Judge Charles Eskridge dismissed the case for lack of jurisdiction, agreeing with Paxton’s office that SB 17, as written and interpreted by the state, does not apply to Wang or others similarly situated.
The court focused on the law’s “domicile” requirement, concluding that the plaintiffs, who had lived in Texas for years and intended to remain here, were not domiciled in China and therefore faced no restriction on acquiring Texas property under SB 17.
Eskridge also relied on repeated in‑court assurances from the attorney general that SB 17 “does not apply and cannot be applied” to these plaintiffs, which he said undercut any claim of a substantial threat of future enforcement. Without a concrete, imminent injury from the statute, the court held the plaintiffs lacked Article III standing and dismissed the suit before reaching any of their constitutional arguments.
On December 11, a unanimous Fifth Circuit panel affirmed the dismissal, with Judge Andrew Oldham writing that “SB 17 does not arguably proscribe Wang’s conduct because he has failed to allege that he is domiciled in China.” Citing the statute’s own definition, the panel said “domicile” turns on where a person’s true, fixed, and permanent home is, and where they intend to return whenever absent.
The court emphasized that Wang has lived in Texas for 16 years, built his life and social network here, and plans to stay in the Dallas-Fort Worth area to work as a pastor—while offering “no real plans to return to China” or even a potential address there. Under that record, the panel concluded China is not his permanent home, so he is not domiciled in a designated country and therefore not covered by SB 17’s ban.
Wang’s argument that his F‑1 visa requires him to leave the United States upon expiration—and so prevents him from being domiciled here—did not move the court. Judges noted that even if he must leave the U.S., nothing in the record shows an intent to return to China specifically; he “may move to Bolivia,” “Botswana,” or “Berlin,” but has not alleged plans to make China his permanent home again.
The panel also ruled that Wang failed a second prong of pre‑enforcement standing: showing a substantial threat that the law would actually be enforced against him. The opinion stressed that Paxton, the official charged with designing SB 17’s enforcement procedures, has “repeatedly stated that SB 17 does not apply and cannot be applied to Wang,” and that Wang could not identify any step the attorney general had taken to enforce the new law since it took effect.
Unlike First Amendment cases—in which courts often presume a credible threat of enforcement because of the chilling effect on speech—the Fifth Circuit said there is no similar presumption for Equal Protection or Supremacy Clause claims. With the state expressly disavowing any enforcement against Wang and no evidence of contrary action, the court held there was no concrete injury and thus no case or controversy under Article III.
By affirming dismissal on standing grounds, the Fifth Circuit left SB 17 fully in place and untested on the merits for now.
Conservative lawmakers who championed the measure have already hailed the decision as a “major win” for efforts to keep Texas land out of the hands of hostile foreign governments like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea.
The opinion also offers a roadmap for how Texas plans to apply the law, tying SB 17’s reach to the narrow concept of domicile in a designated country rather than simply a person’s citizenship.
At the same time, the ruling underscores that further litigation is likely: plaintiffs’ counsel has already filed a new case, Huang v. Paxton, with three different plaintiffs challenging SB 17, and other suits could attempt to bring plaintiffs who more clearly fit the statute’s “domicile” language.
For now, though, the state’s foreign land restrictions remain in effect, and the first major challenge has been turned away at the courthouse door.
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