Trump Should Kill Illegal Aliens’ “Right” to Free Education in the US
The new Trump administration is detaining and deporting illegal aliens and has started a process to hopefully end automatic birthright citizenship.
However, there is another problem that should also be mitigated: The “right” of illegal alien children to attend U.S. public schools, at American taxpayer expense.
In 1982, Plyler v. Doe and a companion case struck down a Texas law which denied funds for the education of illegal alien students as well as a school district’s attempt to charge tuition to illegals.
Ever since, it has not been possible to deny education of illegal alien children from kindergarten to high school.
This costs a lot of taxpayer money and has further legitimized the presence of illegal aliens in our society.
Call it ‘illegal alien privilege.’
But could that policy be reversed? Or at least chipped away?
A recent article in Education Week deals with this very issue. It’s entitled, “Oklahoma Takes Step to Require Parents to Provide Schools Proof of Citizenship.”
The piece was written by Ileana Najarro, “a reporter for Education Week covering race and opportunity in schools across the country.” Another article by the same author is entitled, “How Schools Can Navigate Trump’s Immigration Policies”
Here’s how she starts the article:
Parents enrolling students in Oklahoma schools will have to provide their child’s proof of citizenship or legal immigration status under a proposed rule unanimously approved by the state’s board of education on Jan. 28. The rule, which must now go to the state’s Republican-controlled legislature and GOP governor, marks what legal experts and immigration advocates call one of the latest efforts to undermine and potentially overturn the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe that grants undocumented students the constitutional right to a free, public education. Such actions come at a time when President Donald Trump is prioritizing immigration enforcement across the country with a slew of executive orders and policy changes that impact K-12 schools.
The proposed Oklahoma rule wouldn’t require that illegal alien kids be removed from school, just that they be identified as illegals. But that’s enough to enrage the open borders crowd. After all, it could be a stepping stone to ending the policy.
Oklahoma is not the only state working on this issue, says the author:
Earlier this month, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee introduced a bill that would require parents of undocumented students to “be charged tuition and fees in the same manner as tuition and fees are charged to pupils who do not reside in the county.”
That’s the same thing a Texas school district was trying to do in the Plyler v. Doe case.
A proposal in the state of Indiana goes the whole way:
[C]onservative state lawmakers in Indiana introduced a bill that would deny public school enrollment to undocumented students.
Wow!
Back to Oklahoma:
The Oklahoma rule, championed by Ryan Walters, the state’s superintendent of public instruction, requires school districts to collect the number of enrolled undocumented students and then submit those totals to the Oklahoma State Department of Education. Walters argued in the Tuesday board meeting that the data collection would not prohibit student enrollment but would assist districts in knowing how to allocate resources to serve students, including English-language acquisition services to students federally entitled to such supports.
The National Immigration Law Center is opposed to the Oklahoma proposal, arguing,“All children have a constitutional right to equal access to education regardless of their citizenship or immigration status.”
Calling it a “constitutional right” doesn’t make it so.
An illegal alien minor’s “right” to an education is just another ridiculous policy originating from a misinterpretation of the Constitution – like automatic birthright citizenship.
In this new era of Trump 2.0, the time is ripe for the elimination of such misbegotten policies.
