How Undocumented Students Are Turned Away From Public Schools
In the landmark 1982 decision in Plyler v Doe, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled all children are entitled to a public education, regardless of citizenship or immigration status. The fact that this is established law hasn’t stopped some states and school districts from imposing numerous obstacles that have prevented many undocumented students living in the United States (approximately 750,000) from registering for school. The scope of the efforts to block this fundamental right is the focus of a new report published by the Georgetown University Law Center’s Human Rights Institute and the Women’s Refugee Commission.
“U.S. law is clear on this point – no child in the United States should be excluded from public education,” said Mikaela Harris, a Georgetown Law student and co-author ofEnsuring Every Undocumented Student Succeeds, “What we found is that that doesn’t always play out in practice.”
The researchers spent one year examining the practices and policies in school districts in Georgia, New York, but most closely in North Carolina and Texas. They interviewed government and school officials and families with undocumented children to determine how some communities, according to the report, “have barred immigrant children from enrolling or meaningfully participating in school by creating intentional and unintentional barriers.” In some schools, students are turned away outright; in others, they are “discouraged” from enrolling.
But, as one social service provider told the researchers, “there is a fine line between discouraging and denying enrollment.”
The recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) raids to detain and deport families who crossed the border in 2014 has fostered a climate of fear and anxiety that has prevented many children from even attempting the school enrollment process.
The families who do make this effort routinely face a wall of obstacles, ranging from delays over complicated paperwork to being turned away from classrooms as the result of a districts’ arbitrary – and usually erroneous – interpretations of residency rules and state laws. Meanwhile, a lack of translation and interpretation services leave families helpless and uninformed about the enrollment process.
The researchers interviewed “Juan,” a 16-year-old who fled violence in Honduras to travel alone to Texas. Attempting to enroll, he was initially turned away by the school principal, who believed Juan would not pass the state test. Fortunately, the teenager had a community advocate by his side who could speak on his behalf. Juan was soon admitted, although he quickly discovered that the school was ill-equipped to provide the kind of one-on-one support he desperately needed.
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The reluctance to enroll undocumented students out of concern that they will drag down the school’s performance on statewide standardized tests is prevalent in some of the communities profiled in the report. One 17 year-old student recounted to the researchers that she was told that she could not start school until How Undocumented Students Are Turned Away From Public Schools - NEA Today:
