Money quote(s):
"American states had never felt impelled to look for evidence of enrolled children’s U.S. “legal status”. One reason was probably because if there were illegal immigrant children in school, their small numbers did not seem to justify the effort. That seems no longer so."
Local school districts are much more concerned about truancy by school-age children than by their immigration status. And I believe this can reasonably, until quite recently, be extended to the individual states. It's a case of conflicting priorities: local school districts (and states) should not tolerate the fostering of a generation of un-schooled children. That's not their mission.
"(I)n allowing non-U.S. resident children in school, the U.S. has big-heartedly and accidentally ended up doing at least partly what Justice Brennan thought that ruling would prevent. Leaving aside that enrolling them could encourage illegal parents “to root” themselves in the country as they could not otherwise if their children could not be schooled, larger collateral damage that was unforeseen has been those children’s enrollment a decade on creates the tragic “imagined American” teen illegal. Have we not heard far too much about kids who had been through school and mistakenly THOUGHT they were U.S. citizens, only suddenly to discover they are not…when they tried to obtain a driving licence, apply to college or seek a job?
That is where the desire on the part of many for a “Dream Act” comes from. But any such “Dream Act” too is worrying precisely for yet another issue it would also create. And no one seems to be be thinking ahead on that either, but yours truly raised it previously.
The U.S. should be asking: if they are to be schooled, what can be done to prevent the arising of children who come to think they are U.S. citizens when they are not? And if we are genuinely to assist those now trapped of no fault of their own, if all illegally present children are now perhaps to be granted anmesty to do so, how are we possibly to stop millions more parents from entering with young children illegally and hoping for the same outcome for their own kids eventually?"
Although citizenship laws aren't really written this way, most real Americans know in their heart-of-hearts that being an American is much less about the circumstances of a person's birth than about their commitment to American values. That's something that legislators just can't craft into law, no matter how much they might try. They are, after all, lawyers (most of them) so they approach the question of nationality in a legalistic fashion.
"Immigration is rarely able to be dealt with in policy isolation. It is not just about schooling. Anyone pushing (liberals especially) also for universal health cover in the U.S., would, if it ever came about, certainly have to confront then how to cope with non-residents? If you admire European universal systems, understand they “work” because they are limited. Break your leg in Britain as an American tourist, and you had better have travel insurance or lots of cash at the ready, because the British National Health Service (NHS) treats “for free” ONLY legal UK residents." (Emphasis in original text. - CAA.)
10/4
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