Arizona's Next Target: 'Student' Amnesty'

http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/05/arizona-students-illegal-immigrants

Arizona's Next Target: 'Student' Amnesty?
— By Suzy Khimm
| Fri May. 14, 2010 1:12 PM PDT


Arizona’s anti-immigration crackdown is only getting started—and students are increasingly in the state’s sights. Having passed one of the nation’s harshest laws against illegal immigration and a separate law targeting ethnic studies, state legislators could soon take up a new bill that would zero in on illegal immigrant children within the public schools. The Daily Beast’s Dana Goldstein reports:

A new bill would require them to record and report to the state the number of illegal immigrant children in their student population, along with an estimation of the costs associated with educating those children.

If passed, SB 1097 would compel teachers and administrators to determine the legal status of students and their families, almost certainly discouraging enrollment and parental participation at school.

The students bill was passed by the Arizona state Senate on March 31 and is now pending before the House. Sponsoring the legislation is none other than GOP state senator Russell Pearce, the primary sponsor of the recent immigration bill. As Goldstein notes, Pearce had previously tried to push for legislation that aimed to deny citizenship status to children born to illegal immigrant parents. He also wrote a ballot 2006 initiative that "denied students the right to in-state college tuition or scholarships if they had been brought to the country illegally as children."


..more..

Russell Pearce is an ass.

I can't imagine any way that wouldn't be intrusive or just plain nasty.

On the other hand, we registered our kid for kindergarten last year. I looked up what we needed:
-- immunization records
-- proof of residency for the parents--utility bills, rental agreement, home mortgage documentation
-- last report card, if transferring from another district

And, finally:
"A student must provide a Social Security number, if one is available, and show proof of Identity (examples including birth certificate, passport, school report card, hospital birth record, or any other legal document that establishes identity) and proof of living in the District with his parent or guardian or a court-appointed adult. The names of students for whom no proof if identity has been submitted within 30 days of enrollment will be submitted to law enforcement officials as required by law."

This is reasonable: Establish that the parent/guardian is in-district, and then establish that (a) the kid is who we say her is, and (b) the kid "belongs" in some crucial sense to the grownup registering her.

I assume that the "no proof" provision handles kids who were kidnapped, since it's fairly easy for an illegal immigrant adult to establish proof of residency and not all the legal documents establishing identity and custody for the kid deal with proof that their residency is in accordance with US law.

However, it wouldn't be hard at all to tweak the regs to make it so that the identity papers required for a kid also demonstrate US citizenship or legal presence in the US.

I'm wondering why they're putting the teachers statement in there. So if a student who is here illegally slips through the screening process and I end up teaching her, am I liable? Am I expected to ask each student for an ID? I think that line of reasoning is ridiculous and this will be handled by the registration process.

Russell Pearce is fiercely opposed to public education. He was all for the "new" budget until he found out how much charter school money would be cut - then he wanted to start the whole process over to avoid that. Luckily the RW leadership for once told him to stuff it.