Stop Using Schools to Enforce Immigration Laws

U.S. public schools are not branch offices of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. That’s the message the Obama administration sent out in a letter [2] to the nation’s school districts last week. According to NPR: [3]

“The letter comes amid reports that schools may be checking the immigration status of students trying to enroll, and reminds districts they are federally prohibited from barring elementary or secondary students on the basis of citizenship status.

"Moreover, districts may not request information with the purpose or result of denying access to public schools on the basis of race, color or national origin," said the letter, which was signed by officials from the [Department of Education’s] Office of Civil Rights and the Department of Justice.

"We put this letter out now because we know school districts are in the process of planning for the next school year, and wanted to make sure they had this in hand," said Department of Education spokesman Justin Hamilton. "We were concerned about the number of reports that we've received and heard about, and felt it was necessary to make it clear that this has been the law of the land since Ronald Reagan was president."

The DOE’s Office of Civil Rights is investigating three complaints against three school districts. It’s also evaluating another complaint filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) [4] against the Durham County, N.C., school district. That complaint states one girl enrolling at a Durham high school was asked for her passport and visa. She was told that if she didn't have one, she must be an “illegal alien.”

It’s bad enough that some teachers and administrators show hostility toward immigrants through bigoted comments or lessons [5]. But as last week’s letter makes plain, efforts to deny those students enrollment “contravene Federal law.” One in five U.S. students are the children of at least one immigrant parent. And immigrants, no matter what their status, are paying the taxes that fund schools. So it benefits no one to keep these children ignorant or deny them services.

There is something perverse about educators trying to deprive any student of an education. Schools can and should be places where teachers help all students—including immigrants—as much as possible. And schools should be places where teachers work to debunk myths about immigration [6], not promote them. 

Some helpful Teaching Tolerance resources on immigration can be found here [7] and here [8].

Price is managing editor of Teaching Tolerance.