Source: ACLU of Arizona
For Immediate Release:
Wednesday, April 29, 2009

PHOENIX – The American Civil Liberties Union of Arizona criticized remarks Pima County Sheriff Clarence Dupnik made yesterday suggesting he wants Arizona schools to start asking students if they are in the country legally.

Dupnik initially made comments at a Senate hearing in Phoenix on April 20th and re-affirmed his statements at a recent news conference in Tucson.  According to news reports, he said that if the children of illegal immigrants weren't able to get a free education here, perhaps fewer illegal immigrants would settle in Tucson. His sentiments were echoed by several other high-ranking law enforcement officials in the state, including Yuma County Sheriff Ralph Ogden and Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and even the holder of the highest office in this state, Governor Jan Brewer.

“Any public policy that strips students of their right to a basic education – solely because of their immigration status – would be contrary to our American values of fundamental fairness and equality for all,” said ACLU of Arizona Executive Director Alessandra Soler Meetze.  “This type of rhetoric simply fuels xenophobia and underscores some politicians’ willingness to pursue an anti-immigrant agenda at the expense of school districts and taxpayers, who would ultimately have to foot the legal bill for defending such policies in court.”  

According to the ACLU, even a state or local policy requiring schools to collect information related to immigration status would go against an Arizona Attorney General legal opinion from 1978 that prohibits school officials from asking about immigration status and would contradict the Supreme Court’s 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe.

In its historic decision, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Texas law that permitted schools to refuse enrollment to a class of Mexican-American children who could not prove legal status.  There were two significant holdings in that case: that undocumented immigrants are among those “persons” entitled to fair treatment and that society as a whole is harmed when entire segments of the population are denied a basic education. 

The reasons cited by Dupnik for excluding these children from school were already rejected by the court in Plyler and there is no reason to think the court would reach a different result if faced with the question again, the ACLU said.

“Public education has a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of our society,” the court wrote. “We cannot ignore the significant social costs borne by our Nation when select groups are denied the means to absorb the values and skills upon which our social order rests.”  Furthermore, “legislation directing the onus of a parent's misconduct against his children does not comport with fundamental conceptions of justice.”

“Teachers and school districts should not be in the business of determining immigration status, which, as we all know, can be an extremely complex inquiry,” added Meetze. “There is no mechanism for school officials to receive the specialized training that federal officers  receive to make these determinations, not to mention the serious privacy concerns that this practice should raise for families with school-aged children and the substantial legal liability that school districts would face for erroneous determinations.”

Dupnik cited crime committed by undocumented immigrants and the high costs of educating immigrant children as reasons to inquire about immigration status. However, studies have found that immigrants are actually less likely to commit crimes than their native-born counterparts.  And an analysis by the Arizona Republic found that undocumented immigrants are not charged with crimes any more or less than any other segment of the population in Maricopa County. Immigrants also contribute more to government coffers than they use in social services.  The Udall Center at the University of Arizona found that the fiscal costs of immigrants, starting with education, totaled $1.41 billion in 2004, which, balanced against $1.64 billion in state tax revenue attributable to immigrants as workers, resulted in a fiscal gain of $222.6 million.