Dallas ISD to enroll U.S.-born kids without birth certificates
Dallas ISD to enroll U.S.-born kids without birth certificates
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Staff photo by JIM TUTTLE/Staff Photographer
Thomas Jefferson High School principal Sandi Massey (right) talks to members of the school's JROTC program in the school’s hallway. Massey brings in a speaker for an assembly every six weeks as part North Dallas school’s Master Leadership Class.
By DIANNE SOLÍS dsolis@dallasnews.com
Staff Writer
Published: 11 August 2015 10:54 PM
Updated: 12 August 2015 06:32 AM
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Dallas ISD officials are working around potential snags in the student enrollment process for U.S.-born children of noncitizen parents.
As of June 1, Dallas County stopped issuing birth certificates for children whose parents use foreign consular cards for identification.
The county cited requests by the state and U.S. Department of Homeland Security in making the change.
The school district asks for birth certificates in the enrollment process. But Dallas ISD spokesman André Riley said children will not be turned away if they don’t have them.
“Our commitment is to provide a quality education for each student,” Riley said in an email. “Dallas ISD has not, and will not, withdraw a student that does not have the required information on file.”
Riley said the school district asks for a birth certificate to confirm the student’s parents and the age of the child. He said the district will give parents 30 days to obtain the birth certificate and after that will accept alternative documents. Alternatives include a baptism certificate or a hospital birth record, said DISD trustee Miguel Solis.
The first day of school is Aug. 24, and enrollment began Monday.
Dallas ISD has a student intake center at the shuttered Bonham Elementary School to assist immigrant and refugee students and the U.S.-born children of immigrants and refugees. Amanda Clymer, the center’s director, said Tuesday that she has seen no problems with birth certificates.
“We are a public school system and serve all students regardless of their national origin or immigration status,” Clymer said.
“Immigration is not our job. Our job is to educate.”
For years, Dallas County accepted matrículas as acceptable ID for obtaining birth certificates. The Texas Department of State Health Services, however, doesn’t accept them, said Austin-based spokesman Chris Van Deusen.
Dallas County changed the process in June in response to a request by Homeland Security and the state health department, Dallas County Clerk John Warren said in an email.
The Texas Administrative Code’s list of primary documents for obtaining a birth certificate doesn’t include consular IDs. But a list of secondary documents, for those without primary documents, includes a “foreign identification with identifiable photo of applicant.”
Van Deusen said consular identification doesn’t qualify under the code “because it is not a secure ID.”
Solis, however, said matrículas should be accepted by counties.
“The fact is that the state’s interpretation is actively denying United States citizens access to their birth certificate — and that needs to change,” he said. “The state should not force counties to implement a policy that in practice leaves U.S. citizens without access to their birth certificates.”
Nearly two dozen Texas-born children and their immigrant parents, who are in the U.S. unlawfully, are suing the Texas Department of State Health Services. They allege the state withheld birth certificates in violation of the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause and the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution.
The Texas Civil Rights Project and Texas RioGrande Legal Aid brought the lawsuit in May. Last month, the state asked that the suit be dismissed. Among the state’s arguments was that it has state sovereign immunity under the 11th Amendment and can’t be sued.
In a legal response last week, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said: “Under defendants’ current policies and regulations, the acceptable identification required to obtain birth certificates in Texas is so strictly limited as to be unavailable to a large percentage of undocumented parents.”
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