California School District Targets Non-Resident Immigrant Students
[Guest post by DRJ]
The school district in the border town of Calexico, California has adopted an interesting method to identify and expel non-resident Mexican students who attend Calexico schools:
“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. [Daniel] 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.”
Santillan says he has to have a “tough skin” to do the job, even though he is only enforcing school residency rules and not immigration laws. Apparently the community supports the effort:
“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.”
As long as the federal government refuses to enforce the immigration laws, local governments will fill the void. It would be much simpler, cost effective, and more humane if the federal government would do its job.
— DRJ
San Francisco follows home students in the competitive academic high school to catch suburban children using false addresses.
I have no problem with either of these measures.
Andrew J. Lazarus (bdbb6a) — 1/1/2008 @ 11:02 amIt is a good method and I like the fact they don’t assume immigration agent roles.
voiceofreason (d52499) — 1/1/2008 @ 11:33 amIt impacts the overall numbers by drying up the supply, just as hammering employers who hire illegal immigrants does.
Was there really a need for the reporter to not only identify the photographer by name, but also describe his vehicle, where he parks, and how often he does so?
Would that the AP were so thorough in reporting, say, William Jefferson’s (D-LA) story…
Pat R. (490a09) — 1/1/2008 @ 11:41 amContrast this story with the stories of illegal aliens who are self deporting. They are having to apply for mexican citizenship for the U.S. children so that their children can attend school in Mexico.
I wonder what would happen if the US children of Calexico all crossed the border the other way one day, and showed up at Mexican schools demanding to be educated?
Do you think the Mexicans would even let them in the door, much less start bilingual classes for them?
gahrie (56a0a8) — 1/1/2008 @ 12:22 pmThis is very unusual in that the children are not illegal immigrants–they are Mexican citizens living in Mexico but seeking schooling in the US. They cross daily.
To permit this is to take the open borders argument way too far.
ManlyDad (d62cf6) — 1/1/2008 @ 12:31 pmPat R…
Another Drew (8018ee) — 1/1/2008 @ 4:27 pmI don’t think the photographer is unknown to anyone in Calexico/Mexicali after doing this for two years. If you read the story, you would note how school children exiting the border crossing would cover their faces when the saw him so he would not be able to take their picture. The kids know who he is and what his job is – to keep them out of US schools, and in Mexico’s.
The SCOTUS case originating from Texas (I dont recall the name of the case) which held that school districts were required to provide a free public education for illegal immigrents may have been the correct legal decision. However, the rational used to reach that conclusion was very suspect. Essentially, the legal rational was that all individuals regardless of nationality or legal status had full rights and benefits of US citizenship.
Joe - Dallas (0f1e0a) — 1/1/2008 @ 4:44 pmThis is not a new situation and has been extensively covered by news organizations going back at least a decade. A Quick Google search provided these links to articles from various states and towns documenting this exact scenario. Over and over again.
http://www.apfn.net/MESSAGEBOARD/05-02-05/discussion.cgi.57.html
http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/11_03/bennett.shtml
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/042907dntswmexischools.1778bde.html
http://www.bloggernews.net/110496
http://accidentalblogger.typepad.com/accidental_blogger/2007/04/step_across_the.html
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0326/p01s02-ussc.html
When I was married to a grade school teacher in Chula Vista in 1992, she would tell me about classes where as many as 60% of her class didn’t speak English, and commuted from TJ every day. The school she worked at actually sent buses to the border to pick the kids up.
Just a few years ago, a new high school was built in San Ysidro, right on the Mexican border. The first class hadn’t even graduated from the school and already the school was too overcrowded to have room for the 4th year of students.
Another article from the San Diego Union Tribune reposts on some of the reasons for the overcrowding in 2004.
Same problem but never any real effort to correct the problems. Mostly just a token few ejections to calm the angry masses. The simple fact is that we are educating the children from Mexico at the cost of providing a substandard education to our own children.
Just one more reason to build a BIG FENCE and enforce our border laws.
BTW, a lot of people believe that we should provide education at U.S. schools free of charge for all American born children, regardless of where they live. I believe this is wrong. If you do not live in the district, you have no right to attend school there unless you are willing to pay the additional tuition to pay for your part of the building, maintenance and upkeep of the facilities.
Jay Curtis (8f6541) — 1/2/2008 @ 1:56 amAnother Drew,
I read the article, but I was unclear on my point apparently.
The reporter seems to have done his best to isolate the photographer from both sides of the border security issue — those in favor of stronger enforcement are generally conservative, and would likely be repelled by his leftist decor, and his activism on behalf of labor and illegal aliens — while those on the open borders side are likely to find his current employment worthy of scorn and various degrees of outrage.
The children aren’t likely to be a physical threat, barring a disgruntled uncle or cousin, or some gang member explaining in the gangbanger style how the photographer should seek other employment.
The reporter even pointed out an avenue of attack, the photographer’s bad knee.
An exceedingly thorough report — including information seemingly unrelated to the story if the story is actually about a school district enforcing its attendance boundaries.
Pat R. (490a09) — 1/2/2008 @ 9:08 amWhat would the author like the Federal Government to do about this problem? Does he want them to visit the schools and conduct interviews. As long as someone has a legal travel document to cross the border they will be admitted into the United States. Unfortunately, due to the rising cost of housing many people are taking advantage of low cost housing in Mexico. The people crossing the border every morning(early morning) with their U.S.citizen children feel they have the right to a public education in the U.S.(at no expense to them)no matter where they live.
John P. (913c14) — 1/4/2008 @ 4:54 amWell, they are wrong and breaking the law. If you do not live in the district, you have no right to attend school in the district. Once again, Mexicans expect a freebee from the US taxpayers.
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