Gov. Greg Abbott wants to try to reinstate the 1975 Texas law that withheld state funds from school districts for children who were not “legally accepted” in the United States.
In an interview with Joe Pags’ radio show on Wednesday, Abbott said he would “revive” a legal challenge to the law, which the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in 1982.
“The challenges facing our public systems are enormous,” Abbott said, citing Plyler v. Doe, the decision that overturned Texas law. “I think we will resurrect this case and challenge this issue again, because the costs are extraordinary and the times are different from the time when Plyler v. Doe was released many years ago.
In this case, the court ruled that “education plays a key role in maintaining the structure of our society” and detaining it from the children of undocumented immigrants in the country “is not in line with fundamental concepts of justice.” People who live without documents in the country remain people “in every ordinary sense of the word” and thus have the same basic rights as everyone else in the country.
READ MORE: Abbott transports first group of immigrants to DC, arriving in front of Fox News headquarters
The plaintiffs in the Plyler case, four families who lost access to education under Texas law, were represented by the Mexican-American Legal Protection and Education Foundation.
“Greg Abbott has once again distinguished himself as one of our most irresponsible and desperate politicians,” said Thomas A. Saenz, president and chief adviser to MALDEF. Plyler’s decision, he said, was firmly established by the court and also approved by Congress.
Republican-appointed judges now have a strong majority in the judiciary, and conservative elected officials like Abbott are pushing for an advantage to change federal policy. The governor’s remarks on Wednesday came shortly after the expiration of a draft Supreme Court opinion showing five of the nine judges ready to overturn Rowe v. Wade, the remarkable 1973 ruling establishing a constitutional right to abortion.
The Institute for Migration Policy, a non-partisan group that studies migration around the world, estimates that 1.7 million undocumented people live in Texas, including 116,000 enrolled in schools. The total student population is 5.4 million, so those without documentation make up approximately 2 percent.
In an interview Wednesday, Pags said there are a large number of children who take classes to learn English as a second language at his child’s school.
“You know you’re not ethnocentric, and neither do I, we love Latinos, we love everyone,” said Pags, who is conservative. “But we are talking about dollars from state taxes, dollars from public property tax, which will be taught to children aged 5, 6, 7, 10 who do not even have corrective English skills. It’s a real burden on communities. “
Public opinion polls show that immigration and border security are among the top political priorities for Texans – especially Republicans – and Abbott has made them a priority during his rule.
The state is pouring billions of dollars into border security and Operation Lone Star, where Texas National Guard troops are patrolling the border and detaining immigrants and refugees. Abbott often spoke of the need to stop the flow of drugs into the country, although the amount of drugs seized at the border through the operation is minimal, and critics have accused the governor of participating in a political theater with no tangible political goals.
Abbott also set up buses to transport migrants from Texas to Washington, a policy he promoted during a radio interview Wednesday. The White House and some of the migrants themselves thanked Abbott for the free trip across the country, as many intended to go to Washington anyway or find it easier to access services from there.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki on Thursday called Abbott’s comments harmful. “We are talking about – let me repeat this – the denial of public education to children, including immigrants in this country,” she said. “It’s not a mass point of view.”
A governor’s spokeswoman did not respond to an email asking for more details about the governor’s comments on Wednesday.
Rodolfo Rosales Jr., state director of the Texas League of United Latin American Citizens, said it was difficult to estimate the actual number of undocumented people because they often “live in the shadows” and avoid any official figures.
“I don’t think the governor is really in touch and out of line, and I think his whole attack on the redskins is so glaring,” Rosales said. “These young immigrant children do not take away from other children in Texas schools.”
edward.mckinley@chron.com
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