Jocelyn came to the United States when she was six years old, brought by a single mom who wanted her to go to school and have a better life than she did. Today, at age 14, Jocelyn is an honors student in Alabama, where she hopes to become the first in her family to graduate from high school, and to one day become a doctor. Jocelyn is striving to live the American Dream.
Thirty years ago, on June 15, 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court in Plyler v. Doe held that the Constitution guarantees all children, regardless of immigration status, equal access to a basic public education. This week on the ACLU Blog of Rights, we celebrate Plyler's legacy in today's struggles over access to education and immigrants' rights.
At issue in Plyler was a 1975 Texas law withholding funds to educate kids who were not "legally admitted" into the United States, and allowing school districts to deny them enrollment. Some school districts took up the invitation to kick their students out of school, while others--like the district in Tyler, Texas--decided to charge them tuition (in Tyler's case, a fee of $1000 per year). The fallout was immediate, as poor, Latino, and ESL students were driven from the classroom. The Mexican-American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) filed suit, and that case, which was consolidated with a similar lawsuit from Houston, ultimately went to the Supreme Court.
In a watershed decision, the Court struck down the law as violating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. As the Court recognized, education was crucial to preventing a permanent underclass of undocumented immigrants in the United States and ensuring immigrants' future membership in society. Citing Brown v. Board of Education, the Court recognized that "denying these children a basic education" would "deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions, and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our Nation."
Plyler's importance today cannot be understated. As Linda Greenhouse observed in the New York Times, but for Plyler, "public school systems all over the country would be checking papers and tossing away their undocumented students like so much playground litter." But although Plyler remains the law on the books, Latino and immigrant children continue to face barriers to the schoolhouse door.
As documented by the ACLU, schools in New York, New Jersey, Arizona, and elsewhere routinely inquire into immigration status in the school enrollment process. Alabama's anti-immigrant law goes even further, requiring public schools to determine the immigration status of children and many parents, and authorizing schools to report them to the immigration authorities. Alabama's law--which, like Arizona's infamous SB 1070, more broadly promotes rampant racial profiling of people presumed to be "foreign"--has wreaked havoc in Latino and immigrant communities, in many cases splitting up families, like Jocelyn's, as parents are forced to make impossible choices about whether to suffer harassment and discrimination, or leave the state they call home.
Plyler has also set the stage for today's battles over higher education, as immigrant youth fight to defend their ability to enroll in colleges and university; access in-state tuition and scholarships and financial aid; and secure passage of the DREAM Act's path to citizenship for immigrants who came to the United States as children and graduate from high school.
But Plyler's legacy extends beyond the classroom. Plyler--like many Supreme Court decisions before it--is also crucial today for its recognition that due process and equal protection apply to everyone in America--a principle that is central to combating anti-immigrant, racial profiling laws that discriminate so brutally against Latino and immigrant communities. As we await the Supreme Court's decision on Arizona SB 1070, we should also remember the Court's holding, 30 years ago, that the rights of all persons, including immigrants, are protected by the Constitution.
Jeff Biggers: Arizona's "Barrio Defense" Rises for SCOTUS Decision on SB 1070
Citing Brown v. Board of Education, the Court recognized that "denying these children a basic education" would "deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions,
I find it funny that illegal advocates always want to talk about THE LAW. But they always forget one law The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, Division C of Pub.L. 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009-546, enacted September 30, 1996
This act states that immigrants unlawfully present in the United States for 180 days but less than 365 days must remain outside the United States for three years unless they obtain a pardon. If they are in the United States for 365 days or more, they must stay outside the United States for ten years unless they obtain a waiver. If they return to the United States without the pardon, they may not apply for a waiver for a period of ten years.
Why dont you apply ALL LAWS to your "clients" not just the ones that benifit them at the expence of American people. Maybe when Jocelyn get deported she will become a lawyer and make her Country Of Origin a place her family can be proud of.
And the Constitution "constitutes" the United States of America. It applies to all actions of the government it constitutes and the relations of the people to that government. Various parts of the Constitution apply to citizens, residents, and foreign nationals, and to relationships between the United States and other countries.
Misrepresenting the Constitution of the United States is far more important, and so more serious, than misquoting Oscar Wilde.
But this part of HP serves an English-speaking audience. The people who posted this video should be sensitive to that. Some people might receive their message in a different way than they intended.
How did the superior race allow that to happen?
How did the superior race allow a black man to become the most powerful person on the planet?
How did the superior race allow the economy to tank?
How did the superior race allow people from another country come in and out breed you?
What Happen to the master race?
"These well-settled principles allow us to determine the proper level of deference to be afforded. § 21.031. Undocumented aliens cannot be treated as a suspect class, because their presence in this country in violation of federal law is not a "constitutional irrelevancy." Nor is education a fundamental right; a State need not justify by compelling necessity every variation in the manner in which education is provided to its population. See San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, supra, at 28-39."
Illegal immigrants are not a suspect class, as per SCOTUS. This issue is not undecided. Public education is not a fundamental right. Also, as per SCOTUS.
The decision in Plyler in 1977 was based on pragmatics. Illegal immigrants were breaking the law, and not being removed from States by the federal government. SCOTUS reasoned that since the States were stuck with them, they might as well be educated. When SCOTUS decides Arizona can act in ways that make illegal immigrants leave the State, it will naturally call into question the 1977 assumption in Plyler that States were stuck with illegal immigrants. Plyler could be reversed within a few years by SCOTUS.
"In Mexico reaching middle class isn't necessarily achieved through wage gains, but by combining family incomes and other factors like receiving remittances sent by workers abroad, leading to increased purchasing power for homes, television sets or vehicles."
How many Americans are NO longer Middle Class? How many Americans would love to get a new television or a new car?
The illegal aliens come to this country to work, they send their money home and their lifestyle improves greatly: Americans give them free welfare, free education, free medical care, free cell phones, free lunch and breakfast at school, free rental assistance: The Americans are reduced to poverty, but the citizens of Mexico have a MUCH BETTER LIFE.
Both parents in American families work and OUR kids are home alone and on the street, because we can't afford a sitter - our money is going to Mexico...
Furthermore, are you serious? The citizens of Mexico have a much better life? Have you been to Mexico? Yes, there is poverty in America and it is a problem that needs to be addressed, but that doesn't change the fact that the pervasiveness and the severity of poverty in Mexico is much much worse than it is here in the U.S. Again, that's not saying that the poverty we have here in the U.S. isn't an issue. It's just a gentle reminder not to gloss over the suffering of millions for your own political agenda.
The exorbitant amount of over $11 billion annually to provide FREE K-12 Education to over 900,000 illegal non-citizen students annually IS AFFECTING the lack of quality of education being provided to U.S. Citizen K-12 students.
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_17595084
And they don't even want to pay THAT -!
In the United States of American 14yr old Aliens are responsible for their own registration & being fingerprinted by the United States Citizenship & Immigration Service, USCIS.
Under current U.S. Immigration Law, at the age of 18 ~ you will be granted a 180 day grace period for you to return to the homeland of your citizenship to obtain U.S. Visa(s) necessary for your legal return & work authorization in the USA.
Please comply with USA Sovereign Immigration Laws ~ because, w/o a SSN issued to Legal Permanent Residents (LPR) a.k.a. Green Card holders, you will not pass the licensing requirement to practice medicine in the USA.
http://codes.lp.findlaw.com/uscode/8/12/II/VII/1302
Advanced notice of your requirements to acheived your American Dream ~ rather than be a disgruntled illegal, who's been able to thraut ICE's detection/deportation, with a college degree & then unable to use that college degree to gain employment and/or medical practice, crying fowl-play & demanding FREE U.S. Citizenship.
Also, By the time you turn the age of 16 & wanting to obtain a Driver's License ~ the REAL I.D. Act of 2005, will have taken effect in the USA requiring valid/legal U.S. Citizenship to obtain.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/REAL_ID_Act
Jocelyn ~ Please make it your priority to get on the right side of laws of the United States of America
I don't understand this simple idea, Mr. Romero suggests that these people cannot be removed from the country. ICE can fix that.
Illegals' savior, would be to vote for Romney ~ at least he is proposing voluntary "self-deportation" of illegal DREAMers, unauthorized to work in the USA