Tennessee Republicans Are Pushing Bills Allowing Schools To Deny Enrollment To Undocumented Children

Tennessee Republicans, backed by the Heritage Foundation, are advancing legislation that would strip undocumented children of their constitutional right to a public education, a right enshrined since the 1982 Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe. The bills would not only allow schools to deny enrollment to undocumented students, but would transform teachers and administrators into immigration informants, surveilling the very children they are meant to protect.

The human cost is already visible. High school teacher Sam Singer reports that students are already asking "if they're still allowed to go to school,"  questions, she rightly notes, "that no child should ever have to ask." Her words cut to the heart of what this legislation truly represents: a state turning its back on children. "The expectation should be, of course, you're supposed to be here, you're a kid. This is where you belong."

Heritage Foundation rhetoric frames undocumented children as a financial burden, yet undocumented people contribute nearly $97 billion annually in federal, state, and local taxes, far exceeding the cost of their children's education. As immigration policy analyst Cassandra Zimmer-Wong bluntly states, the Heritage Foundation's argument "does not hold up to any kind of basic scrutiny."

The consequences of denying these children an education would be catastrophic and generational. Zimmer-Wong warns that it would "create an uneducated, potentially illiterate underclass of children and then adults in this country." Research estimates undocumented students would lose a collective $1 trillion in lifetime earnings, while the broader U.S. workforce would shrink by 450,000 workers in critical roles.

Most chillingly, this is not just an attack on immigrant children,  it is an attack on public education broadly. Thomas Saenz, who originally litigated Plyler, warns that "when a certain cohort of kids is allowed to be out of school, what happens next is that their siblings and friends don't go to school — and rapidly, no one goes to school."

Link: The Intercept