Thread: Calif. illegal immigrants ask for school records

Calif. illegal immigrants ask for school records

ktul.com
The Associated Press
Updated: Sep 17, 2012 2:50 PM EDT

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Thousands of illegal immigrants have inundated the nation's second-largest school district with requests for copies of records that might qualify them for the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, the district said Monday.

Under the program, people who are 30 or younger will be allowed to stay in the United States and work for up to two years if they prove they've lived in this country continuously since June 2007.

Applications can be renewed every two years.

An estimated 200,000 current and former students in the Los Angeles Unified School District might be eligible for the federal program, said Lydia Ramos, a special assistant to Superintendent John Deasy.

"We looked at the birth years that this program covers and there were about 200,000 students that listed another country of origin," Ramos said. "We have probably the highest number of students who would be eligible for this."

The Board of Education last week ordered that all current requests be handled within 35 days and future ones within seven days.

"I feel like doors are opening up for me," said 17-year-old Bell High School senior Saul Berrera, who was 10 when his mother brought him to the United States from El Salvador.

The school district already had a backlog of at least 2,300 requests for transcripts or diplomas before Aug. 15, the first day applicants for the Obama program could submit forms to the federal government, the Los Angeles Times (lat.ms/QTKDF reported.

"We are being inundated," Bell High School Principal Rafael Balderas said, adding his school was two weeks behind in providing documents. The school received about 200 requests for transcripts last year, but that total had been exceeded by July.

District officials notified schools on Friday that applicants can make requests online or fill out forms at schools for forwarding to the district's central office.

"We're doing this to relieve individual school sites from having to complete these when they already have reduced resources," Ramos said.

Records will be provided for free or at nominal cost. The federal government charges applicants $465 for each deferred action request.

Officials say there's a sense of urgency among applicants who worry about their window closing should Obama fail to win re-election in November.

"There are political considerations for some families," Ramos said.

The financially strapped school district expects to spend at least $200,000 in staff costs as well as an undetermined amount of overtime for employees who have worked to improve the records request system.

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"An estimated 200,000 current and former students in the Los Angeles Unified School District might be eligible for the federal program, said Lydia Ramos, a special assistant to Superintendent John Deasy."

This is just in Los Angeles. All these kids will be having children of their own. Think of all the anchor babies that will be coming along. This is Not good!

September 18, 2012
Judicial Watch

President Obama’s controversial plan to spare nearly 1 million young illegal immigrants from deportation is costing a major public school system already suffering through a budget crisis hundreds of thousands of dollars.

It’s also created a “bureaucratic nightmare” for the large urban district, according to a local news report. Here is why; under Obama’s “deferred action process,” announced in June, illegal aliens 30 and younger can remain in the U.S. and obtain work permits if they entered the country as children (“through no fault of their own,” as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano loves to say).

Applicants must prove they have lived in the U.S. continuously since 2007 so they are rushing to obtain school records that confirm it. In the case of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD), an estimated 200,000 current and former students are eligible for Obama’s special amnesty program and they are flooding schools throughout the sprawling district to get documents.

This is “creating a backlog and new challenges for the nation’s second-largest school system,” according to the local newspaper story published this week. It’s also costing the district at least $200,000 in staff expenses since the Board of Education took action last week to help expedite the process. All records requested to comply with the federal amnesty program must be handled within 35 days, according to the directive.

Some principals have made it a priority, ordering already overwhelmed and scarce clerical staff to provide documents within 72 hours of a request. This is because officials understand the sense of urgency among applicants, the news story says, who worry about their window closing should Obama fail to win reelection in November.

While this particular story focused on just one cash-strapped public school system, this is surely occurring in others throughout the nation. In fact, a publication dedicated to covering education wrote a piece last month confirming that “school records will be among the key documents that young undocumented immigrants must submit in their requests for deferred action.”

Preparing for the deluge, educators asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) how “official” school records must be, the story says. The answer, according to DHS officials, is that there is no fixed requirement and that the agency handling the deferred action requests—U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services—is prepared to accept any documents that schools provide to applicants.

Just a few weeks ago DHS officials complained that illegal immigrants are exploiting the new deferred action program because no proof is required and amnesty is being granted based solely on individuals’ claims. In fact, the DHS officials revealed that federal immigration officers have been ordered by the Obama Administration to release illegal immigrants arrested for violent crimes as long as they claim to be “dreamers” who came to the U.S. as children and are being allowed to remain in the country under the new policy.

School Dist. Spends $200k to Comply With Obama Amnesty | Judicial Watch