YOUR TAX DOLLAR$ AT WORK!
BIPARTISAN SCAMS ACROSS THE BORDERS
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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."
Most feel that they had to earn citizenship the old fashioned way by standing in line.
That giving it away for free will cause illegals to have little or no respect for what it takes to be a citizen.
John Mccaniac, President Bush, Kennedy and others need to get clued into how real Hispanic citizens feel about this Shamnesty business.
You can call me Ray or you can call me Jay but you dosen’t have to call me a mercenary.
Glad he’s on the job.
Just 500 illegal students attending our local schools at an average cost of $10,000 per year per each student is $5,000,000 being plucked out of one of the poorest school systems in one of the poorest cities in one of the poorest counties in California.
Not fair to us tax payers.
If anyone thinks weeding out these illegals is unfair then pass a federal law to spread the education cost to other states like Florida with money to burn.
To tell you the truth people in this area have had it up to their eyeballs with bending over backwards to appease law breakers and bleeding hearts.
You and I wonder at the very same thing. When I have the time, I'm going to read the decision and see on what basis this conclusion was reached.
I’m sorry, it’s late, but I don’t understand why you posted that to me. I think the guy is a mercenary (and a hypocrite) since he thinks its fine for illegals to come over here, but he’s willing to out them to the school district for money.
susie
I’ve got a scoop for you. The country is already bankrupt. Unfortunately, most Americans aren’t savvy enough to have figured that out...yet.
Okey, dokey glad he’s stopping those walking across every morning but what about those already here?
Comment:
I have several friends (Hispanic) who work at the Border Patrol and a couple of them think that some type of conditional amnesty for illegals is something they have mixed feelings about.
Yet they go to work everyday and make arrests of illegals coming across the border.
Just this last week they were involved in a major drug bust and found a van full of Chinese (17) illegals.
I do not or would not call them mercenaries for doing what they are sworn under the law to uphold and that is protecting the border.
I also do not think they are hypocrites for working for the Border Patrol.
This man mentioned in the article who I happen to have seen down at the border crossing is doing a job for the school.
These children crossing the border to attend school live in Mexicali and their Mexican citizen parents pay no taxes in this school district or county.
It matters not if they are anchor babies or illegals, the fact is that their United States school education is not paid for in any form or manner.
When I enrolled my children in this school district I had to show two forms of identification that I actually lived here, condo lease and utility bill.
The problem I have with what you wrote is with the attitude and tone of your comment stated in the prior post classifying him as mercenary.
For me that speaks volumes as to why getting a consensus tough strong handle on illegal immigration is an almost impossible job.
Clearing up the illegal mess is not going to be an easy job and would be best left to those who do not have a queasy stomach about upholding the laws currently on the books.
I would have thought that you folks over there in Florida would have some of the same kinds of problems with illegal immigrants, drugs, prostitution and thievery.
Not only special paths...but the school districts have school buses waiting at the border to pick the illegals up.
Hi, wintertime. Still working out the kinks. SoftballMom sent me an updated copy of the names last night - several people have asked to be added or dropped over the past couple of days.
They probably have Border Crossing Cards (BCC). We have issued 7 million of them to Mexicans to facilitate daily entry into the US. They are essentially multiple entry visas.
“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.”
Yikes. Cesar Chavez AND Che Gevara posters on his walls?
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Second, it appears from your windy and confusing post that you believe I’m for illegal immigration (if that’s not the case, could you please just post a short version of what it is you think you disagree with me about?) If that IS what you think, you could not be further from the truth.
However, if you are just using my posts to make your own points, fine. I will stop posting back and interrupting you.
susie
Why would you assume they would be the most sympathetic? The most sympathetic groups would be the illegals themselves and the left.
If I were going to make an assumption, it would be my guess that most legal immigrants would be against the illegals considering all the hoops they had to jump through to get here legally.
By the way a majority of that school boards members,school administration and teachers last names reads like a Mexican phone directory.
The mans job is to keep Mexican citizens from stealing my tax money to educate their children.
Now you want to cover your butt with righteous indignation by claiming close ties to Texas as though being from Texas allows you a free pass to disparage at will and it makes things OK.
I simply pointed out to you that the job of fixing the immigration problem is made much tougher by bleeding hearts who constantly harangue those who's job it is to keep the illegals from cheating.
As for lecturing or telling you anything, I doubt seriously that is possible since you claim to know it all.
If you think my posts may be to hard then your probably correct.
For many of us living here on the border and experiencing the battle first hand,immigration is more than just a cause celeb.
I feel like I’m talking to a wall. I get the impression from your posts that you think I’m for illegal immigration, however you are apparently unwilling to write a short post that is clear. So, adios.
susie
[Every day along the 1,952-mile border, children from Mexico cross into the United States and attend public schools]
This is really a bunch of crap - pardon my English!!
Very nice posting devolve!
Our schools require proof of residency for districting purposes. Because I live in a upper-middle class area in a fairly expensive city we do not have many illegals (none that I know of), they simply can’t afford the area.
I’m not surprised about the lack of school entry requirements (citizenship) but I am surprised the supreme’s made such a ridiculous and hypocritical ruling (illegal behavior rewarded with “rights”).
My son attended school in England for a short period of time. We had to prove our residency and provide proof we were in the country legally. The schools there are more advanced and he was able to catch up in the short time we were there. They did not subject us to any entry requirements, possibly because he was only a 1st year student.
Comment:
I never said one way or the other whether I thought you were for or against illegal immigration.
I was pointing out and making reference to your bleating heart comment about the man being a mercenary for the school board.
Same kinds of feel good comments I hear from San Fransicko liberals about water boarding and Americas security.
I hope this clears up any misunderstanding.
Fred 08.
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