Furthermore, how the hell did these “children” get into school without a Social Security number? Strange huh? Well, they were certainly breaking the law to get one!
You are correct that "Law is Law!", and the FEDERAL LAW is that states MUST provide education without proof of citizenship, residency, or any other documentation of immigration status.
It is a FEDERAL law which came about from a review of the 14th Amendment of the Constitution.
Plyler vs. Doe
1982
- A Summary -
In 1982, the Supreme Court rules in Plyler v. Doe , 457 U.S. 202 (1982), that public schools were prohibited from denying immigrant students access to a public education. The Court stated that undocumented children have the same right to a free public education as U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Undocumented immigrant students are obligated, as are all other students, to attend school until they reach the age mandated by state law.
Public schools and school personnel are prohibited under Plyler from adopting policies or taking actions that would deny students access to education based on their immigration status.
Based on the Supreme Court's ruling, public school districts should consider the following practices in working with ELL students:
School officials may not require children to prove they are in this country legally by asking for documents such as green cards, citizenship papers, etc. They may only require proof that the child lives within the school district attendance zone, just as they might for any other child.
Schools should be careful of unintentional attempts to document students' legal status which lead to the possible "chilling" of their Plyler rights.
The following school practices are prohibited:
Barring access to a student on the basis of legal status or alleged legal status.
Treating students disparately for residency determination purposes on the basis of their undocumented status.
Inquiring about a student's immigration status, including requiring documentation of a student's legal status at initial registration or at any other time.
Making inquiries from a student or his/her parents which may expose their legal status.
Federal Program Requirements - Federal education programs may ask for information from parents and students to determine if students are eligible for various programs, such as Emergency Immigrant Education. If that is the case, schools should ask for voluntary information from parents and students or find alternative ways of identifying and documenting the eligibility of students. However, schools are not required to check or document the immigrant status of each student in the school or of those students who may be eligible for such programs. The regulations do not require alien registration numbers or documentation of immigration status.
Social Security Numbers - Schools should not require students to apply for Social Security numbers. If schools decide to pass out Social Security registration forms to assist the Social Security Administration, they must tell parents and students, in appropriate languages, that the application forms are merely a service and it is up to the parents and students whether the applications are actually filed. They should stress that schools will not monitor the filing of these applications. Additionally, schools should not require any student to supply a social security number.
School Lunch Programs - In order to qualify for Free or Reduced Lunch Programs, all applicants are required to furnish either of the two following types of information:
Social Security numbers of all household members over the age of 21, should they have one
For all household members above the age of 21 who do not have a Social Security number, an indication of the application that he or she does not possess one.
If a student or household members over the age of 21 do not have a Social Security number, "none" should be written in that space or another identifying number could be assigned by the school.
Parents and students should be reminded that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) prohibits any outside agency, including the Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS), from getting this information without obtaining permission from the student's parents or a valid court order.
School lunch programs are interested in determining household income, not in determining a student's legal status.
Communication with INS - Any communication to INS initiated by a school or school official concerning a specific student is prohibited. If parents and/or students have questions about their immigration status, school personnel should refer them to legal service organizations, immigrant rights organizations, or local immigration attorneys. They should not advise immigrants to go directly to INS offices without first getting proper advice from an attorney or immigrant rights advocate.
Requests for information by INS - School personnel are prohibited from cooperating with INS in any way that may jeopardize an immigrant students' right of access (with the exception of the administration of F-1 and J-1 visas). INS requests for information can only be released upon the presentation of a valid subpoena. All school personnel should be advised of this policy. If a subpoena is presented, it may be advisable to check with an attorney to properly check into the validity of the subpoena.
Requests by INS to enter a school - School personnel should not cooperate with INS in any manner that jeopardizes immigrant students and their right of access. The school principal should meet with INS officials in the front office with a credible witness present, deny the INS officials consent, and request to see a legal warrant. If a warrant is presented, the principal should determine that it:
Lists the school by its correct name and address
Lists students by name
Be signed by a judge
Be less than ten days old
Be served by an INS officer with proper identification.
To protect other students in the school, the principal should bring the INS officials to the office and request that they remain there while the named student(s) is brought to them. The principal should immediately inform the Superintendent and school attorney.
School District Personnel should always consult an attorney to clarify their duties and responsibilities under Plyler. This document is intended solely for guidance.
Source:
"Immigrant Students: Their Legal Right of Access to Public Schools. A Guide for Advocates and Educators" by John Willshire Carrera, Esq. National Coalition of Advocates for Students. Boston MA http://www.americanpatrol.com/REFERENCE/PlylerVDoeSummary.html
Are they here legally? No? Do you choose to support illegal aliens over your fellow Americans?
No way round that little hurdle.
The first LAW they broke says if they come here without following our rules, they are here illegally. Lets address that one FIRST.
So ... why ARE you supporting illegal aliens over Americans on a Conservative website? Are you a citizen?
Their right to a public education is K-12, not college which is the issue here. But you knew that.
Thanks for posting that article. We are screwed even worse than I thought.
With that on the books it looks like our most aggressive enemy is our public school system and the anti-American union teachers and administrators within it.
This is nothing more than “aiding and abetting” criminals in their crimes. No wonder why in a town such as mine here in South Texas illegal criminals are allowed to flourish and procreate at will.
You have answered that question.
Education? Well, now you know why Perry is so Gung-HO about hugging and kissing illegal children and giving them a free education plus a helping hand to go to college on our dimes.
The more I hear about him, them more I loathe him. He has certainly come out of the closet on this one.
The "constitutional right" of illegal aliens to public schooling at Americans' expense is one of the many "implied rights" Brennan discovered, hidden deep between the Constitution's inky lines.
He manufactured this novel entitlement in his opinion for narrow a 5-4 majority in Plyler v. Doe. Plyler has wreaked havoc on public education (and school finances) ever since.
The Court's one-vote majority reached its desired result largely by side-stepping the actual wording of the 14th Amendment and by making assumptions that were both irrelevant to a legal analysis of the Equal Protection Clause and insupportably favorable to illegal aliens.
The Court treated it as a given that most or all of these illegal alien children would wind up staying in the United States and eventually becoming legal residents. That they should be, well, deported was never seriously considered.
Neither was the fact that, as citizens of another country, all presumably had a right to whatever education their homelands provide.
After noting–truthfully but pointlessly–that an illegal alien is a "person," Justice Brennan got on with rationalizing his contention that guaranteeing the equal protection of the laws to illegal aliens requires Americans to school their children for free.
But Brennan had a problem to dispose of: While the 14th Amendment's Due Process Clause [iii] is unqualified, the Equal Protection Clause applies to "any person within [a State's] jurisdiction."
To attain his desired result, Brennan tossed aside the limiting language about jurisdiction as meaningless—the same way the Federal government misconstrues the 14th Amendment's Citizenship Clause [iv] to grant U.S. citizenship to illegal aliens' U.S.-born children. Thus he maintained that the "Equal Protection Clause was intended to work nothing less than the abolition of all caste-based and invidious class-based legislation." [v]
In support Brennan quoted the 14th Amendment's Congressional ratification debates. But he buried their context: These debates were all about prohibiting legal discrimination against freed slaves–Americans, not foreigners whose very presence in a state is a crime. To equate the two is insulting to the former slaves and their descendents.
Here is the quote Brennan thought most important, Ohio Representative John Bingham's questions to the House:
Is it not essential to the unity of the people that the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? Is it not essential to the unity of the Government and the unity of the people that all persons, whether citizens or strangers, within this land, shall have equal protection in every State in this Union in the rights of life and liberty and property? [vi] )
Only a sophist like Brennan could find here support for the notion that a state is constitutionally required to provide taxpayer-funded services–unrelated to protecting life, liberty and property–to people who are breaking the law by staying in it.
The Equal Protection Clause does provide a guarantee that, for example, a citizen of Louisiana in Texas is as protected against denials of life, liberty and property–enjoys the same due process of Texas and Federal law–as a Texan. The same would be true of a Mexican national in Texas.
However, even if one believes the 14th Amendment incorporates all of the amendments in the Bill of Rights, applying them against the states as well as the Federal government, the Equal Protection Clause still does not extend to discretionary benefits offered by a state—such as 12 years of very expensive schooling, provided free.
Even Justice Brennan admitted "public education is not a "right" granted to individuals by the Constitution."
Federal law explicitly forbids just what Texas did. “An alien who is not lawfully present in the United States,” declares Section 505 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA), “shall not be eligible on the basis of residence within a State . . . for any postsecondary education benefit unless a citizen or national of the United States is eligible for such a benefit (in no less an amount, duration, and scope) without regard to whether the citizen or national is such a resident.”
Notwithstanding this federal ban on in-state illegal-alien tuition policies, neither the Bush nor Obama administration has ever objected to such policies on supremacy-clause grounds. Even without this legislative ban, in-state tuition is far more intrusive a grab of federal lawmaking power than Arizona’s maligned SB 1070 (which officially authorizes the state’s police officers to check the immigration status of people they stop on legitimate law-enforcement grounds and whom they reasonably suspect of being in the country illegally). SB 1070 merely enforces existing federal laws. Texas’s law not only contradicts federal law, it creates precisely the patchwork of conflicting state immigration policies (i.e., amnesties in some states, not in others) which the supremacy clause is supposed to prevent.
The Texas attorney general’s effort to justify the state’s amnesty in the face of IIRIRA’s Section 505 almost laughably dodges the preemption issue with the meager argument that the “terms ‘postsecondary education benefit’ and ‘residence’ are not defined in the federal law.” His desperate defense is a reminder that once you start justifying law-breaking, however ostensibly compassionate your intentions (and one needs to ask here what position pro-amnesty Republicans would take on illegal immigration if they weren’t eager to court the Hispanic vote), you are led into further and further betrayals of the rule of law.