Illegals In Schools: Robbing American Children

I was wondering when we would start hearing about the damage being done to school districts and American schoolchildren by Biden’s “newcomers.” Some healthcare systems are starting to collapse under the weight of massive numbers of foreign nationals who have not paid any premiums. American patients are paying for healthcare for illegals, and American children are being robbed of the education they deserve because resources are being used to educate foreign nationals.

500,000 ILLEGALS CROWDING INTO OUR SCHOOLS

Earlier this month, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing to examine both the tangible costs of mass illegal immigration on American schools and the intangible, but no less important, impact it is having on the quality of the education. “Wreaking havoc,” was the succinct and disturbing conclusion of Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL), who chairs the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education.

Rep. Bean estimates that about 500,000 school-age children have entered the United States illegally since Joe Biden opened our borders, and opened classrooms all across the country to foreigners.

“K-12 schools, the subject of today’s hearing, are often the first to feel the impact of our open border,” Bean said in his opening statement. “The financial impact is staggering. Educating illegal immigrant children requires substantial resources, altering the learning environment for all students. Overcrowded classrooms, the need for new facilities, and strained student-to-teacher ratios are just some of the challenges.”

Bean noted that the aggregate cost of integrating illegal alien students into school systems at the current rate of border entry would cost more than $2 billion per year.

FROM DENVER TO AUSTIN TO BLUE RIDGE

The committee heard from educators from all across the United States, all of whom reported that their school systems cannot provide the resources necessary to meet the needs of the illegal alien children, much less those of their American classmates. School officials told the committee that they are unable to prepare for the excess burdens that are being heaped upon them, as newly arriving illegal aliens often “show up overnight.”

"We heard [of] teaching in the hallways. We heard of massive use of resources to scramble to hire teachers that teach in foreign languages. In fact, one school district has over 17 different languages that they have had to hire for. That's just a vast draining of resources,” Bean said. His colleague, House Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-NC, echoed some of his comments. Foxx, whose Blue Ridge Parkway district is far-flung from Mexico, said every state is a border state given the current crisis.

"I’m very sorry for all of these children who are coming unaccompanied. They can’t find bilingual teachers. I’m from North Carolina, and it’s already hard enough to find any teachers, let alone teachers who can speak other languages," proclaimed Foxx.

Bean also ran through a list of impact statistics, such as how New York transferred students to online learning in order to accommodate almost 2,000 illegal immigrants being housed in school gymnasiums. Austin, Texas, enrolled more than 400 migrant children, forcing teachers to conduct class in hallways and conference rooms. And Massachusetts took on more than 2,000 migrant students, leaving districts to scramble to find housing.

A school trustee from Orange County, CA, testified before the committee that her district was “at least doubling or tripling” the number of translators to accommodate a wide variety of languages, often at the expense of special needs programs.

As Denver’s schools struggle with staffing shortages, language issues, and over enrollment, they are looking for an “expert on Latin America and Venezuela” to shed light on student behavior and disciplinary issues stemming from illegal immigrants’ different nationalities. Reports from earlier this year showed Denver with a nearly $20 million budget shortfall because of the influx of illegal immigrants to the city.

Bean also told the story of a teacher who recounted having a migrant student in her class who appeared to be in his 20s, while claiming to be 18 on his documentation. "It's just happening more and more. I think it is because everything's out of control. Enough. Let's fix this border. Let's get back to American schools doing what we do best, which is teaching our students math, reading and science."

PLAYING DEAF, DUMB & BLIND

Predictably, educators from sanctuary jurisdictions complained about lack of federal funding, but money alone cannot magically produce new teachers, administrators and service providers, proficient in dozens & dozens of languages, to meet the needs of kids showing up from all across the globe.

Not shockingly, Biden’s US Department of Education cannot provide a firm number. Under questioning at another hearing on May 7th, Secretary Miguel Cardona could not or would not provide numbers. Nor would he say whether there is a point at which the Biden Regime would agree that the numbers exceed our educational system’s ability to manage the influx.

Under a 1982 Supreme Court ruling, Plyler v. Doe, local schools are obligated to provide illegal alien children with a taxpayer-funded K-12 education. The cost is staggering. According to a FAIR report, the price tag for educating children of illegal aliens was $70.8 billion a year BEFORE Biden opened the borders. Based on Rep. Bean’s estimate of 500,000 new illegal aliens in U.S. public schools and the average per-child cost in a public school, the Biden’s influx has added at least $9.7 billion in new costs to taxpayers each school year for a total cost of over $80 billion.

SANCTUARY NEW YORK CITY CHEATS AMERICAN SCHOOLCHILDREN

Nowhere in the country is the impact being felt more acutely than in New York City, where the per-student cost for the school year just ending was about $38,000. The city had to accommodate 21,000 new migrant students when the school year began September 2023 (a figure that continues to grow as new illegal aliens show up), adding about $800 million to the tab.

The recent congressional hearings also focused on what the influx of illegal alien students is harming the education of their American classmates. For a variety of reasons, American students are lagging behind our economic competitors in educational attainment. In 2022, only 36 percent of American fourth-graders and 26 percent of eighth-graders were considered proficient in math. For reading comprehension proficiency the figures were 33 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

The problems in the American education system go much deeper than immigration, but the massive influx of illegal alien students who arrive with special educational needs can only exacerbate the situation. The impact of unchecked illegal immigration on our schools may not have the same headline-grabbing effect as crime or threats to national security, but in the long-term, it will play an outsized role in determining whether we remain a prosperous and competitive nation.