Thompson: Schools still need illegal immigrant count
Originally published August 12, 2008


By Meg Tully
News-Post Staff



A Frederick County Commissioner is reviving his attempt to force the Board of Education to take a count of undocumented immigrant students.
Commissioner John L. Thompson Jr. wants the state General Assembly to adopt a new state reporting requirement for the Board of Education.

The report, due March 1 every year, would include the number of students in Frederick County Public Schools whose lawful presence in the U.S. "cannot be reasonably documented."

Board of Education President Daryl Boffman said the school board would not take a count unless there is a state or federal directive.

"I don't know whether his actions are going to be successful or not, but I do know that as a system we do not need to be distracted from our purpose," Boffman said. "The illegal immigration issue is a federal issue, and unless we are directed to do so, we are going to continue with business as usual."

Thompson released his proposal Monday, asking the commissioners to add it to their 2009 legislative priorities.

It is similar to a failed proposal by Thompson this spring. That proposal threatened withdrawal of funding if the school board didn't compile a report for the Board of County Commissioners.

Only Thompson and Commissioner Charles Jenkins supported it.

The new proposal would not make the report a requirement for funding.

Thompson hopes the county could use the numbers to justify requests for more federal education funding, based on the idea that the federal government should be keeping illegal immigrants out of the schools.

"This is a drain on the government and it's primarily caused by the federal government's open border policy," Thompson said.

He wants to be able to tell federal leaders how much the county spends on educating illegal immigrants. If it costs $12,000 to educate a student and there are 1,000 undocumented students, that is more than a million dollars in funding, he said.

The new requirement would not prevent the schools from continuing to provide education to students without citizenship or immigration documents.

Jenkins also supports the new proposal.

"That the BoE receives over half of our budget and is not willing to help with this proposal is indicative of a liberal philosophy that we can continue to ask the legal, law abiding citizens to pick up the tab and fund the invasion of our own nation," Jenkins stated in an e-mail.

Frederick County Commissioners President Jan Gardner is requesting information from the Board of Education on whether the school board is legally allowed to ask its students about immigration status.

A ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court states that schools need to provide education to all students, regardless of immigration status, and there could be a similar requirement preventing the data collection, according to statements made by some school officials.

Thompson said he had never seen any specific citation that it would be illegal.

Gardner also questioned whether Thompson's strategy would work with the federal government in asking for more funds based on undocumented students.

She said the federal government already does not fulfill its legal obligations for special education funding.

"The possibility of getting any funding is zero," Gardner said. "I think that's really misleading to the public."


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