Thread: School Aims to Catch Students from Mexico

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CALEXICO, Calif. (AP) _ Children are more apt to shield their faces than to smile when Daniel Santillan points his camera.

Santillan's photos aren't for any picture album or yearbook _ they help prove that Mexicans are illegally attending public schools in this California border community.

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.

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 by 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,'' said board President Enrique Alvarado of the Calexico Unified School District. ``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 children make the trek.

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 Sweetwater Union High School 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.

The 62-year-old Santillan (pronounced sahn-tee-YAHN) was hired in 2005. He is an unlikely enforcer. Posters of Cesar Chavez and Che Guevara adorn the walls of his ranch-style home. The Vietnam War veteran and labor activist is an outspoken advocate of amnesty for illegal immigrants and fills water jugs in the desert for Mexicans who trek across the border illegally.

He parks his old Toyota Echo at the border two or three mornings a week, often in a handicapped spot that his bad knees allow him to occupy. He photographs some of the hundreds of students who exit the inspection building and walk to class.

Some hide their faces when they see his 6-foot-5, 310-pound frame. Sometimes he follows students to school.

Many of the students know him. Others in town are not always sure what he is up to. A new police officer once ran his name through a database of sex offenders. A talk-radio host warned listeners that an odd-looking man at the border may be looking for children to kidnap.

Some students taunt him. Friends have called him a hypocrite. Santillan reminds them that he is only enforcing school residency rules, not immigration laws. Still, he says, ``You've got to have hell of a tough skin.''

The California native also visits addresses listed on student enrollment forms, knocking on doors as late as 9 p.m. and introducing himself in Spanish.

One crisp December morning, he went to three homes before dawn, carrying a clipboard with several pages of students suspected of living in Mexico. A woman who opened her door at 6:30 a.m. said her niece no longer lives with her. At another home, a woman said her niece moved last month.

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 Mexican residents attending Calexico's schools.

``It's a continual struggle,'' Rivera said. ``You have people who are determined to continue sending their kids over here.''

Why don't the schools just require a valid US birth certificate and social security # when you first register the child to go to the school? Do the illegals just show up, alone, on the class room doorstep and get in? Is there no registration process the parents go thru when enrolling the children? I don't have kids so I don't how it works but it seems like there should be an easier, more effective way.

Here in FL our property taxes have sky rocketed and 70% of the tax bill goes to the school district to accomodate more students, I have a pretty good hunch that's not the legal population growth going up so fast. Legal citizens to have to sell their homes because of the high tax in many cases.

Just what language are they teaching these children in? Surely these illegals don't speak English.

Originally Posted by bchapp

Why don't the schools just require a valid US birth certificate and social security # when you first register the child to go to the school? Do the illegals just show up, alone, on the class room doorstep and get in? Is there no registration process the parents go thru when enrolling the children? I don't have kids so I don't how it works but it seems like there should be an easier, more effective way.

Here in FL our property taxes have sky rocketed and 70% of the tax bill goes to the school district to accomodate more students, I have a pretty good hunch that's not the legal population growth going up so fast. Legal citizens to have to sell their homes because of the high tax in many cases.

As I recall in 1986, the liberal SCOTUS mandated that all children, even illegal alien children be given access to our socialized government education system. That has been interpreted over the years to prohibit schools from asking for birth certificates and Social Security numbers of parents or guardians. Socialized government education administrators are permitted to ask for proof of address only. And if a child says her aunt is her guardian and that aunt lives inside the school district, a simple utility bill must be accepted. Absurd ain't it?

Ya' gotta' sympathize with the kids but our government education system is on the verge of bankruptcy and sucks anyway. Taxpayer funded education for illegal aliens is far and away the largest cost of permitting this assault on our sovereignty. Nothing could be more appropriate than to prove these kids are coming across unfettered and illegally, to complete the bankruptcy and finish us off. Everyone must know they're not doing this without adult supervision. Seems to me these kids are awfully young to be taught advanced cheating. Maybe it's just the Mexican way. But the Latino community seems to have awakened to the fact that Mexico is not a race. It's a mere nation and as such, it has no more right to steal our resources than Australia, Iran, Japan or China.

I was in the office at our local high school and while there some people who spoke very little English tried to enroll a 23 yr old woman as a sophmore claiming that she was 18 yrs old. They told the lady, "She is 18."

I was able to watch the whole thing. FORTUNATLEY the office worker said that the dates on the documents INDICATE that she is 23 years old, NOT 18 years old!!!

She told them that there is a cut off age for attending the public high school. She directed them to go to an adult school.

The office lady was quite adamant in letting them know that ADULTS are not allowed to attend school on campus with kids. She was just as or even more angry than I was. Neither of us could believe it. They knew where the adult high school was, but it was obvious they wanted her to get her diploma from the regular high school and lying was an acceptable way for them to accomplish it. After they left, the office lady said that she just knew that they knew good and well where the adult high school was and she said, as soon as I told them, they knew right where it was. She asked me, "Did you notice that?" I said, "I couldn't hear that part, but I realized exactly what was going on."

She was not happy, nor was I because they clearly had scam documents and ATTEMPTED to pull the wool over on her and more importantly our minor children, and high schoolers are minors.

YES. Better documentation is needed.

Imagine how the parents would feel knowing that 23 yr olds were roaming our high school corridors with 15, 16, 17 and 18 yr olds.

Not good. Not good at all. And I bet it's happening.

Don't forget, birth certificates won't help because even illegal aliens are entitled to free education thanks to the Supreme Court. It doesn't matter if the kid is born here, Mexico, Greece, or on the Moon.

I wish they would do this in San Diego. Every single school day the walk-over border crossing at TJ/San Ysidro is jam packed with people, masses of them kids, who immediately jump onto S.D. Unified School District buses, all lined up and waiting for them.

But go figure, on school holidays the number of kids crossing over is down by about 99.5%. Gee, I wonder why that would be. After all, according to the B.S. spewn by the local school districts, there's no way thousands of kids from Mexihole are coming over from TJ to go to U.S. taxpayer funded schools, even if they are given tax dollars based on the number of kids in class, regardless of their residency or legal status.

Gimme a break. Everyone in San Diego knows hordes of little Mexi-rugrats cross over and go to CA schools for free, not to mention get free breakfasts and lunches, bilingual teaching, lessons in Mexican history, etc. Now some middle and high schools have even eliminated marching band and orchestra and replaced them with Mariachi bands, complete with the outfits with the tassely balls and mega-sized sombreros, giant guitars and everything. I saw a story a local news station did on the Mariachi classes then being newly offered and they asked a teenaged kid what he thought of it, and he couldn't answer the woman reporter, HE DIDN'T KNOW A SINGLE WORD OF ENGLISH!

Originally Posted by reptile09

I wish they would do this in San Diego. Every single school day the walk-over border crossing at TJ/San Ysidro is jam packed with people, masses of them kids, who immediately jump onto S.D. Unified School District buses, all lined up and waiting for them.

But go figure, on school holidays the number of kids crossing over is down by about 99.5%. Gee, I wonder why that would be. After all, according to the B.S. spewn by the local school districts, there's no way thousands of kids from Mexihole are coming over from TJ to go to U.S. taxpayer funded schools, even if they are given tax dollars based on the number of kids in class, regardless of their residency or legal status.

Gimme a break. Everyone in San Diego knows hordes of little Mexi-rugrats cross over and go to CA schools for free, not to mention get free breakfasts and lunches, bilingual teaching, lessons in Mexican history, etc. Now some middle and high schools have even eliminated marching band and orchestra and replaced them with Mariachi bands, complete with the outfits with the tassely balls and mega-sized sombreros, giant guitars and everything. I saw a story a local news station did on the Mariachi classes then being newly offered and they asked a teenaged kid what he thought of it, and he couldn't answer the woman reporter, HE DIDN'T KNOW A SINGLE WORD OF ENGLISH!

How is this even being gotten away with? Kids sneaking in to go to school because their parents have them doing it, is one thing. When an entire school district is in a conspiracy to facilitate something so blatantly against the law, that's something else completely.

I also wouldn't be surprised if there is something else behind it beyond Reconquistas stacking school boards, administrations, and public offices who are making sure Mexico is extended beyond it's borders per their agenda. Since schools are funded per kid, it's not too much of a leap to assume that certain people are no doubt lining their pockets with money intended for the schools.

Originally Posted by bchapp

Why don't the schools just require a valid US birth certificate and social security # when you first register the child to go to the school? Do the illegals just show up, alone, on the class room doorstep and get in? Is there no registration process the parents go thru when enrolling the children? I don't have kids so I don't how it works but it seems like there should be an easier, more effective way.

Here in FL our property taxes have sky rocketed and 70% of the tax bill goes to the school district to accomodate more students, I have a pretty good hunch that's not the legal population growth going up so fast. Legal citizens to have to sell their homes because of the high tax in many cases.

Schools do require birth certificates, foreign or domestic, and that is just for proof of age. It's also well known that Mexican birth certificates can show any birthdate the parents require, thanks to corruption and fraud.

What the school is doing is not wrong, it's done everywhere in the US to everyone, regardless of legal status in the country.

What will happen when all taxpayers decide to move out of certain towns and there are no longer enough taxpayers to support the school with their tax dollars? Will the illegals pay the school taxes? THAT I'd like to see!

The district where my kids go requires a birth certificate, ID for the parent who is registering, and immunization records. They "ask for" a SSN but there was a lawsuit by some illegal aliens last year because another local district required SSN's for kids to register. The court ruled that the school cannot make anyone supply a SSN. So when I enrolled my kids, I refused to give them social security numbers. I figure if the illegal alien criminals don't have to follow that rule, then neither do I. I wonder how many other districts require shot records to enroll the kids?