Posted on 12/31/2007 12:34:53 PM PST by happinesswithoutpeace
Children are more likely to shield their faces than to smile when Daniel Santillan points his camera.
Santillan's photos aren't for any picture album or yearbook _ they help prove that Mexican youngsters are illegally attending public schools in this California border community.
With too many students and too few classrooms, Calexico school officials took the unusual step of hiring someone to photograph children and document the offenders. Santillan snaps pictures at the city's downtown border crossing and shares the images with school principals, who use them as evidence to kick out those living in Mexico.
Since he started the job two years ago, the number of students in the Calexico school system has fallen 5 percent, from 9,600 to 9,100, while the city's population grew about 3 percent.
"The community asked us to do this, and we responded," school board President Enrique Alvarado said. "Once it starts to affect you personally, when your daughter gets bumped to another school, then our residents start complaining."
Every day along the 1,952-mile border, children from Mexico cross into the United States and attend public schools. No one keeps statistics on how many.
Citizenship isn't the issue for school officials; district residency is.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled illegal immigrants have a right to an education, so schools don't ask about immigration status. But citizens and illegal immigrants alike can't falsely claim residency in a school district.
Enforcement of residency requirements varies widely along the border. Some schools do little to verify where children live beyond checking leases or utility bills, while others dispatch officials to homes when suspicions are raised.
Jesus Gandara, superintendent of the Sweetwater district, with 44,000 students along San Diego's border with Mexico, said tracking children at the border goes too far. "If you do that, you're playing immigration agent," he said.
The El Paso Independent School District in Texas sends employees to homes when suspicions are raised. But spokesman Luis Villalobos said photographing students at the border would be a monumental, unproductive effort.
That's not the thinking in Calexico, a city 120 miles east of San Diego that has seen its population double to 38,000 since 1990. A steel fence along the border separates Calexico from Mexicali, an industrial city of about 750,000 that sends shoppers and farm laborers to California.
Calexico's rapid growth outstripped school resources, resulting in overcrowding and prompting demands that Mexican interlopers be ousted. Taxpayers complained their children were bused across town because neighborhood schools were full, even after Calexico voters approved a $30 million construction measure in 2004. Portable classrooms proliferated.
The 62-year-old Santillan (pronounced sahn-tee-YAHN) was hired in 2005. He is an unlikely enforcer. Posters of Cesar Chavez and Che Guevara adorn the walls of his ranch-style home. The Vietnam War veteran and labor activist is an outspoken advocate of amnesty for illegal immigrants and fills water jugs in the desert for Mexicans who trek across the border illegally.
He parks his old Toyota Echo at the border two or three mornings a week, often in a handicapped spot that his bad knees allow him to occupy. He photographs some of the hundreds of students who exit the inspection building and walk to class.
Some hide their faces when they see his 6-foot-5, 310-pound frame. Sometimes he follows students to school.
Many of the students know him. Others in town are not always sure what he is up to. A new police officer once ran his name through a database of sex offenders. A talk-radio host warned listeners that an odd-looking man at the border might be looking for children to kidnap.
Some students taunt him. Friends have called him a hypocrite. Santillan reminds them that he is only enforcing school residency rules, not immigration laws. Still, he says, "You've got to have hell of a tough skin."
The California native also visits addresses listed on student enrollment forms, knocking on doors as late as 9 p.m. and introducing himself in Spanish.
One crisp December morning, he went to three homes before dawn, carrying a clipboard with several pages of students suspected of living in Mexico. A woman who opened her door at 6:30 a.m. said her niece no longer lives with her. At another home, a woman said her niece moved last month.
Many Calexico residents support the crackdown.
Fernando Torres, a former mayor, was upset when the district said his grandchildren would have to transfer because there was no room in their neighborhood school. "It's not right" for U.S. taxpayers to build classrooms for Mexican residents, he said. The district eventually relented.
School board member Eduardo Rivera estimates there are still 250 to 400 students from Mexico attending Calexico's schools.
"It's a continual struggle," Rivera said. "You have people who are determined to continue sending their kids over here."
WTF?
I would agree with the hypocrite label. He doesn't have a problem with people breaking immigration laws, but he is willing to enforce school district *rules*.
susie
I think maybe mercenary would be a better word, since he does it for money.
susie
Yeah, when you actually read it it makes your head want to explode....
susie
If you don't live near Canada or Mexico and you want a feel for what happens, try the Tri-Cities area of Johnson City, TN, etc. The liquor laws are different and the border between two of the towns runs down the middle of a street.
KCMO and KanKan is a tad different than that, but mostly because KCMO is much larger. On the other hand KanKan is sinking into the mud.
Amnesty = clemency?
Run for office, make that your campaign slogan, why don’t you?
OK, maybe you don’t want to try for elected office. Send that slogan to McCain, perhaps he hasn’t thought of it yet.
Yeppers, hypocrite. Santillan is all for illegal immigration until it hits HIS pocketbook.
Case law reference?
How does this guy know who is or who is not illegal?
I would be pissed if he was video taping my child just because they are dark complected.
What I’ve noticed is that the legal Hispanic immigrants are the least sympathetic to illegals.
I don’t get it, if this guy is watching these kids cross the border every morning to go to our schools, why isn’t the border patrol stopping them?
This is stupid. Where is our BP? Where do they think a group of kids wearing backpacks are going?
As a nation, we are royally screwed. We might as well accept that fact, and get over it. (Unless somebody comes up with a better idea.)
Why? Does the Mexican government have pictures of the justices in compromising positions?
Well JOUR schools are on OUR land, so we weel send our keeds to jour schools! /s
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled illegal immigrants have a right to an education,
They have a right to eat too so let’s allow them to shop at our markets free of charge. They should have a right to running water, heat, air so let’s give them free utilities and if there are none the U.S. should be responsible for building facilities in Mexico that would allow this.
Folks on this forum often demand that schools ask for proof of citizenship not realizing that school officials can be sued for that.
The federal government has done a good job of tying up the hands of schools. Any illegal can walk through the door, demand education, even special education if needed, transportation to and from school, 2 meals a day, all at the tax payer expense.
Illegals tend to be quite savvy about their so-called rights and quite good at demanding them
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled illegal immigrants have a right to an education....
how about an education in mexico where they come from!!!!!!!
ping
One more reason, California is going bankrupt.
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