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Students in the shadows
Illegal immigrants' children have right to education here, but they still face hurdles

BY JUAN ANTONIO LIZAMA
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Sep 3, 2005


Back to School

You could call them stealth students.

Their parents are in this country illegally. They have little documentation themselves -- no Social Security number, no official address, no billing information.

But they are part of the student population.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 that it is unconstitutional to deny a public education to illegal-immigrant children living in the U.S.

Parents who want to take advantage of that constitutional right sometimes face unusual hurdles.

For example, it is no problem for most families to provide proof of residence one of the staples of school-registration documentation. Just produce last month's electric bill. A pay stub with an address will do.

But if an illegal-immigrant family is living with another family, its likely they have no bill in their name. And if the family's working members get paid cash, which is often the case, there is no pay stub.

Carolina Velez has worked as a Richmond-area Hispanic school liaison with Refugee and Immigration Services, a nonprofit organization. She said that sometimes schools, working under provisions of federal law, will classify students living with another family as homeless.

The maneuver gets children registered for school. It also skews statistics for both the homeless and illegal immigrants.

The lack of a Social Security number can be a problem, but that, too, can be overcome.

Virginia law says that children who are without a Social Security number can enroll in Virginia schools and that parents have 90 days to provide a number. If the parents can't provide a Social Security number, they can request a waiver.

Illegal immigrants are not the only parents asking for waivers for their children, said Henrico County spokesman Mychael Dickerson. Parents from a wide spectrum of backgrounds refuse to provide their children's Social Security numbers because the parents fear identity theft.

Even so, Velez said, illegal immigrants sometimes don't have all their options explained. She recalled two instances at Richmond-area schools.

In each case a couple couldn't produce a Social Security number for their child after the 90-day grace period. In each case, the couple was told their child could not return to school until a number was provided.

In each case, the school systems had to be reminded of provisions of state law.

Some illegal immigrants are reluctant to send their children to school for a variety of reasons.

Kathleen Jackson, regional director for Refugee and Immigration Services, said some illegal-immigrant parents assume their children will be turned away from U.S. schools. She said she has to explain that children living in the U.S. are entitled to attend school. "It doesn't matter what their immigration standing is."

Jackson said some illegal immigrants won't send their children to school because they suspect school staff will report them to immigration officials.

"We have to tell them that schools really don't do that," she said.

A government agency supports her assertion.

In a 2004 report to Congress, the U.S. agency now known as the Government Accountability Office reported that school officials and staff members do not serve as de facto immigration officials.

Nevertheless, many illegal immigrants are reluctant to provide information or to discuss their status publicly. Besides the threat of legal difficulties, they also face the potential wrath of those advocating strict limits on immigration and zero tolerance of illegal immigrants.

The Times-Dispatch was unable to interview illegal immigrants for this article.

Data on school-age illegal immigrants is sketchy.

Schools in Virginia and across the country do not ask students for their legal status and keep no data on illegal-immigrant students.

The GAO reported that some states have acquired estimates of their illegal-immigrant school-age population from nongovernment sources.

The Urban Institute estimated in 2004 that 1.1 million school-age children were living in the U.S. illegally.

But the figures are vague, at best. Because there is no accurate count, the GAO concluded that it is not possible to develop a reliable cost estimate for educating illegal immigrants.