Thread: Students warned to prove Texas residence or leave

Students warned to prove Texas residence or leave

By MICHELLE ROBERTS, The Associated Press
12:15 p.m. September 21, 2009

DEL RIO, Texas — Students living in northern Mexico have skirted residency requirements to attend U.S. public schools for generations, but when the superintendent in one Texas border town got word that about 400 school-age children were crossing the international bridge each day with backpacks but no student visas, he figured he had to do something.

The community is connected by a bridge to Ciudad Acuna, Mexico, and like most border cities, the towns operate in tandem, with U.S. citizens and green cardholders living, working and shopping on both sides. All of it is legal, but public school attendance by children living in Mexico is another issue.

"We had several van loads (with Mexican license plates) pulling up at the schools and kids getting out. It's like 'C'mon, it's obvious what's going on,'" said Kelt Cooper, superintendent of the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District.

He directed district officials to stake out the bridge and warn students they could face expulsion if they don't prove they live in the district – a move that's brought complaints from civil rights groups and support from anti-immigrant proponents.

"We have a law. We have a policy. We follow it," said Cooper, whose spent most of his life near the border and is uncomfortable with attempts to make him a cause celebre for either side of the immigration debate. "I'm just doing my job."

Like parents elsewhere who send their children to a better school across town, some parents living in northern Mexico send their children to American public schools believing they are safer and offer better education. Many also hope a U.S. education will provide better access to American colleges and universities.

Immigration status isn't an issue in these cases. A decades-old Supreme Court ruling prevents school officials from even asking about citizenship. Regardless, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials, students who use the bridge enter the U.S. legally because they are U.S. citizens, permanent residents with green cards or Mexicans with student visas. Those visas are used by Mexican students who pay tuition, primarily at parochial schools.

But for tuition-free public school attendance, state law requires students to live in the district – a rule that many officials don't rigidly enforce. Some are uncomfortable with following the letter of the law because doing so could deny U.S. citizen children access to public schools. Also, turning away students cost the districts money.

Texas schools get funding for each student. Statewide, it works out to about $9,400 per student, primarily from local property taxes and state supplements designed to balance rich and poor school districts. Additional grants from the federal government for low-income and special education students account for about $920 per student. Cooper estimates his district of 10,000 students would lose $2.7 million if 400 students were expelled.

At the start of this school year, Cooper's district asked that Border Patrol agents count students crossing the bridge one weekday. Agency spokesman Rick Pauza said 550 students crossed, about 150 of them had student visas. The rest, Cooper said, are probably attending one of his schools.

School officials staking out the bridge handed out letters that warned parents they would be required to show proof they lived in the district. Within a few days, most parents offered documentation, meaning their children won't be expelled.

Cesar Casillas, who was picking up his 9-year-old nephew at Lamar Elementary School last week, said some parents were scrambling to find apartments in Del Rio, about 130 miles west of San Antonio. He disagrees with what the district is doing.

"These kids have all the rights to an American school," said Casillas, a 49-year-old who grew up in Del Rio.

It's a common argument, though legally, it has little weight.

"Citizenship doesn't give you the right to attend school. Residency does," said Elena Castro, assistant superintendent at California's Calexico Unified School District.

Several years ago, her district strictly enforced requirements that every student annually document residency. The district tried posting a photographer to snap students at the crossing but has since stopped that because it was difficult to identify the students, Castro said.

David Hinojosa, an attorney for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said he's concerned about students being singled out because they were on an international bridge before school.

Cooper, who conducted similar port-of-entry checks several years ago when he led the district in Nogales, Ariz., said no Del Rio students have been expelled so far.

Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, said Cooper's bridge stakeout prevented parents from taking advantage of a "duty-free education."

"It's very obvious the parents are cheating the system. The kids are getting quality education without contributing," he said.

Texas Education Agency officials know that most border communities have some students surreptitiously commuting from homes in Mexico, but there's been no recent effort to count them, said spokeswoman Debbie Ratcliffe.

"It does cost us to educate these children, but we also get a benefit because we know they are likely to impact our economy in some way," said Ratcliffe, noting that many will work in the U.S. as adults.

One of Texas' largest school districts, which is in El Paso, checks residency when students enroll, but spokeswoman Berenice Zubia said officials don't look for students at the international crossings that come from nearby Ciudad Juarez, Mexico.

Some parents in Del Rio say they're not taking any chances their children could be expelled.

Minerva Garcia, 50, hoped to move to her family's home in Ciudad Acuna to save money.

"If the students are willing to get up early to get across, it shouldn't be held against them," said Garcia, as she waited to pick up her 5-year-old and 8-year-old from school. "But I'm not going now."
––––
Associated Press Writer Alicia A. Caldwell contributed to this story from El Paso, Texas.

http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/ ... dex=169696

[quote]"These kids have all the rights to an American school," said Casillas, a 49-year-old who grew up in Del Rio.
[/quote]
Well, dipso. What about all the rights of the kids in Somalia or Ajerbaijan or the rest of the world? Or is it only because they are Mexican?

American taxpayers fund the school district and the amount they get from the state directly correlates with attendance numbers.

Once again, illegal activity driving up cost. Send Mexico the bill!!!!!!

Dixie

Sorry, I am more concerned about my family: my children and grandchildren receiving their education, ability to provide for their families, their security and not supporting ILLEGALS and their anchors via our taxes.

Cesar Casillas, who was picking up his 9-year-old nephew at Lamar Elementary School last week, said some parents were scrambling to find apartments in Del Rio, about 130 miles west of San Antonio. He disagrees with what the district is doing.

"These kids have all the rights to an American school," said Casillas, a 49-year-old who grew up in Del Rio.




These kids have a "right" to NOTHING paid for by the American taxpayer.

But American schoolchildren DO have rights......and that's to be educated at a high standard within their own school districts.

They would do well to get that through their thick heads once and for all,

The unmitigated gall and arrogance displayed by Mexican nationals and their fan base knows no bounds.

I wonder how many of these people scamming the school system are also scamming the government for cash assistance, food stamps, and free medical too?

In fact, that's probably where they were able to come up with addresses so fast to "prove" residency for the school district.....they're the ones they provide for their welfare fraud

if they are students of mexican parents. live in mexico.
they DO NOT deserve the right to an american education
and especially at taxpayers expense.

i wonder how its going to be if these parents rent an apt or house
so they can get an education. especially if the students name has already
been shown that they actually live in mexico and are not US citizens

So who is going out and check the residence status of these illegals. And is ICE checking the border out, too?

Some California border school districts did this back in 2007.

School Aims to Catch Students from Mexico

by Associated Press (December 29th, 2007 @ 1:13pm)

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.''

http://ktar.com/?nid=6&sid=687224

"It does cost us to educate these children, but we also get a benefit because we know they are likely to impact our economy in some way," said Ratcliffe, noting that many will work in the U.S. as adults.

But they will not be permitted to work here LEGALLY unless they are U.S.
citizens! E-verify must be used for all employees. We have to make that happen.

AZ. has done this too.

AZ. Schools call roll at a border crossing

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-70452-cale ... l+students