MD:Battle Over Illegal Alien School Children Continues
Battle over immigrant schoolchildren continues
Frederick commissioner wants to bill federal government for cost of educating illegal immigrants
by Margarita Raycheva | Staff Writer
The battle over illegal immigration continues in Frederick County this week, with the latest iteration involving school children who are in the country illegally.
At issue is whether or not the Frederick Board of County Commissioners can ask the Frederick Board of Education to count the number of students who cannot document their immigration status.
The county school board has refused, so commissioners have asked the Maryland State Board of Education if school systems can collect that kind of information.
The school system — which hired the law firm of Knight, Manzi, Nussbaum and LaPlaca in Prince George's County to represent it on this matter — last week asked the state board to either disregard the commissioners' request or state that school systems cannot legally ask students to provide documents for information proving their immigration status.
"These matters are clearly outside the jurisdiction of the state board," wrote Andrew W. Nussbaum in a response to the state board dated Nov. 24.
He asked the state board to dismiss the request because it would require the Maryland State Board of Education to interpret issues governed by federal and immigration law.
"It would be a ‘regulation of immigration' that would force school officials to act as immigration agents," Nussbaum wrote. "… It would restrict education funding to those students who could ‘support' the ‘proposition' that they are ‘legal;' and it would directly conflict with the federal immigration law and procedures."
Last spring, Commissioner John "Lennie" Thompson Jr. (R) unsuccessfully proposed that the county withhold money from the school system unless it reported the exact number of students who are in the country illegally.
Thompson wants to know the number to determine how much the school system spends educating illegal immigrants. His hope is that the federal government could reimburse the county for that amount.
Frederick County Public Schools spent $10,157 per child in 2006-07, the most recent year for which figures are available.
"I don't want to know the identity of these students, I don't want to know anything else, I just want the bulk number," he said.
School system officials, however, said they cannot legally ask students to prove their immigration status. They pointed to the 1982 Plyler v. Doe case in Texas, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that municipalities must pay to educate all their residents regardless of their immigration status.
"Bottom line for us, as educators is: Every child deserves an opportunity to fulfill their potential, and in our country public education offers that opportunity, no matter what the parents' citizenship status might be," Marita Loose, spokeswoman for the school system, said in an e-mail to The Gazette on Monday. "Children should not be penalized for possible misconduct of their parents."
This fall, however, commissioners unanimously voted to ask the Maryland State Board of Education to determine if a school system can require students to provide information and documents proving they are not illegal. County commissioners said they just wanted information on the issue. At the time, some of them acknowledged the fact that their questions may be outside the jurisdiction of the Maryland State Board of Education.
However, Thompson who proposed the action, said the issue was related to state educational laws and was not outside the state board's jurisdiction.
He said that if Frederick County schools can ask students to fill in information about their country of origin and their race on their report cards, they can also ask for a birth certificate, citizenship papers or any other documents proving that a student is in the country legally.
"The Board of Education is siding with these who are in the country illegally," he said. "I'm not saying don't educate them, I'm just saying count them."
Thompson said he was concerned that the school system is now using taxpayers' dollars to hire an attorney to "advocate for the rights of illegal immigrants."
He said he plans to file a Freedom of Information Act request in January in order to find out how much the school system spent on hiring an outside firm to handle the issue in front of the Maryland State Board of Education.
Thompson, who is an attorney, said he drafted the commissioners' petition to the state board for free, so the county did not spent taxpayers' money.
Thompson also pointed out that the state board can choose not to respond to the commissioners' initial petition. If that happens, he said he would address his questions to federal officials.
Neither Nussbaum nor Loose were available on Wednesday to comment on the issue.
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