Kevin Fobbs
PTA parents must fight illegal alien educational spending
By Kevin Fobbs
PTA parents: welcome to America 2006. Your child wants to play football or play in the school band or on the soccer team. Well you already know you have to dig a little deeper into your wallet due to school budget cuts. While the cost to parents handling out cash in order to keep their children in these extra curricular activities keeps going up, another part of state educational budget is actually exploding because those dollars are being diverted to educating illegal alien children because of an ill-conceived and little known 1982 U.S. Supreme Court Case called Plyer v. Doe.
What would a poll of parents in small towns, urban or rural elementary schools, middle schools or high school meeting rooms across America's Heartland find? What do you think they would answer if asked about having to pay out of pocket for more school programs for their kids while normal tax dollars go toward skyrocketing educational opportunities for illegal aliens? Illegal aliens — people who are in this country ILLEGALLY but whose children our tax dollars are supporting.
Until the U.S. Supreme Court decision is overturned it may not even matter.
The Supreme Court Plyer v. Doe decision created a U.S. Constitutional Equal Protection right for illegal aliens that is not found in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By fabricating a right for illegal aliens — the court's own language eliminated — a right of our own children's equal protection which is now being obliterated. The U.S. Supreme Court held "The deprivation of public education is not like the deprivation of some other governmental benefit. Public education has a pivotal role in maintaining the fabric of our society and in sustaining our political and cultural heritage; the deprivation of education takes an inestimable toll on the social, economic, intellectual, and psychological well-being of the individual, and poses an obstacle to individual achievement"
Does it not stand to reason that the Plyer v. Doe decision has caused grievous harm to American children in what the U.S. Supreme Court said would be the exact result if public education dollars were withheld from illegal alien children?
After 24 years with illegal aliens and their children (whose numbers are growing exponentially) crushing our state and local education budgets we must correct this misdirected and misapplied constitutional decision by the U.S. Supreme Court by going to the heart of the Plyer v. Doe decision. It seems clear that a new call to arms should be blaring loudly in PTA meetings everywhere that are dotting the landscape of our nation.
America, it must happen now because the economic impact of this decision is staggering! Billions of educational dollars from local school programs are stealing opportunity from American kids and their families and it is simply not just. According to the Federation for Immigration Reform, "The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs states nearly $12 billion annually, and when the children born here to illegal aliens are added, the costs more than doubles to $28.6 billion."
For example, children of illegal immigrants in California — who represent nearly 15% of the kindergarten through 12th grade public school students — are costing PTA parents and other taxpayers $2.2 billion annually to educate illegal immigrant students in those grades. That's enough to pay the salaries of 41,764 teachers or 14% of California's teachers!
Our American educational budget is not simply on a slippery slope it is in an avalanche from the crush of paying for illegal alien children. The educational budget deficit free fall has to stop and the knee jerk budget give-away bonanza has to cease.
That is not the American way nor is it the American Dream that our children should be forced to accept. True, we are a nation built upon immigrants — people who came here legally and are proud to have sacrificed much to do so. They abided by the rules so that the nectar of the American Dream would be that much sweeter, that much more meaningful, and that much more satisfying. The legal immigrant followed the rules and proudly swore allegiance to his or her new nation. Many legal immigrants fought against all odds in many ways, came to this country to escape crushing poverty, and to make a better life for themselves and their families. And they did it legally.
The noble concept of the American Dream has been hijacked in plain view of every American who takes the time to see that our laws that protect legal citizens should be stretched and compromised to fit the illegal alien who boldly crosses the border with his pregnant wife and children in tow who does not understand — or care — that there is a double standard in play.
This double standard allows the illegal alien from Mexico to be fed, clothed, educated, employed and even defended because our nation of laws and rules don't apply to him and his fellow Mexican illegals. The exception, of course, is if the immigrant has the misfortune to be originating illegally from countries like Haiti, China, Africa, India, Italy, or any other nation.
But this protected class of illegals gladly expects our nation to use its city budgets to take money away from our kids' classrooms, take housing dollars away from our own poor. This double standard is not fair to our own hard-working single-parent households who live from paycheck to paycheck and who also have a dream, yes, a legitimate American Dream backed by the Constitution and guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. American citizens understand that if their American-born or legally naturalized son or daughter studies hard enough, works hard enough, and keeps his or her grades high that he may have the opportunity to go to college or to a trade school or own and build a small business. The protection of this dream is why we have immigration laws designed to accommodate only a certain number of immigrants from other countries.
The solution is in Section One of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." It must be fully litigated now.
In addition the U.S. Supreme Court must overturn the 1982 U.S. Plyer v. Doe decision. The outcome will allow for the renewed preservation of America's educational integrity. The new result in Plyer v. Doe would erase the Burger Court surrender of the U.S. Constitution to political correctness at the expense of American children's educational future.
© Kevin Fobbs
PTA parents: welcome to America 2006. Your child wants to play football or play in the school band or on the soccer team. Well you already know you have to dig a little deeper into your wallet due to school budget cuts. While the cost to parents handling out cash in order to keep their children in these extra curricular activities keeps going up, another part of state educational budget is actually exploding because those dollars are being diverted to educating illegal alien children because of an ill-conceived and little known 1982 U.S. Supreme Court Case called Plyer v. Doe.
What would a poll of parents in small towns, urban or rural elementary schools, middle schools or high school meeting rooms across America's Heartland find? What do you think they would answer if asked about having to pay out of pocket for more school programs for their kids while normal tax dollars go toward skyrocketing educational opportunities for illegal aliens? Illegal aliens — people who are in this country ILLEGALLY but whose children our tax dollars are supporting.
Until the U.S. Supreme Court decision is overturned it may not even matter.
The Supreme Court Plyer v. Doe decision created a U.S. Constitutional Equal Protection right for illegal aliens that is not found in the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. By fabricating a right for illegal aliens — the court's own language eliminated — a right of our own children's equal protection which is now being obliterated. The U.S. Supreme Court held "The deprivation of public education is not like the deprivation of some other governmental benefit. Public education has a pivotal role in maintaining the fabric of our society and in sustaining our political and cultural heritage; the deprivation of education takes an inestimable toll on the social, economic, intellectual, and psychological well-being of the individual, and poses an obstacle to individual achievement"
Does it not stand to reason that the Plyer v. Doe decision has caused grievous harm to American children in what the U.S. Supreme Court said would be the exact result if public education dollars were withheld from illegal alien children?
After 24 years with illegal aliens and their children (whose numbers are growing exponentially) crushing our state and local education budgets we must correct this misdirected and misapplied constitutional decision by the U.S. Supreme Court by going to the heart of the Plyer v. Doe decision. It seems clear that a new call to arms should be blaring loudly in PTA meetings everywhere that are dotting the landscape of our nation.
America, it must happen now because the economic impact of this decision is staggering! Billions of educational dollars from local school programs are stealing opportunity from American kids and their families and it is simply not just. According to the Federation for Immigration Reform, "The total K-12 school expenditure for illegal immigrants costs states nearly $12 billion annually, and when the children born here to illegal aliens are added, the costs more than doubles to $28.6 billion."
For example, children of illegal immigrants in California — who represent nearly 15% of the kindergarten through 12th grade public school students — are costing PTA parents and other taxpayers $2.2 billion annually to educate illegal immigrant students in those grades. That's enough to pay the salaries of 41,764 teachers or 14% of California's teachers!
Our American educational budget is not simply on a slippery slope it is in an avalanche from the crush of paying for illegal alien children. The educational budget deficit free fall has to stop and the knee jerk budget give-away bonanza has to cease.
That is not the American way nor is it the American Dream that our children should be forced to accept. True, we are a nation built upon immigrants — people who came here legally and are proud to have sacrificed much to do so. They abided by the rules so that the nectar of the American Dream would be that much sweeter, that much more meaningful, and that much more satisfying. The legal immigrant followed the rules and proudly swore allegiance to his or her new nation. Many legal immigrants fought against all odds in many ways, came to this country to escape crushing poverty, and to make a better life for themselves and their families. And they did it legally.
The noble concept of the American Dream has been hijacked in plain view of every American who takes the time to see that our laws that protect legal citizens should be stretched and compromised to fit the illegal alien who boldly crosses the border with his pregnant wife and children in tow who does not understand — or care — that there is a double standard in play.
This double standard allows the illegal alien from Mexico to be fed, clothed, educated, employed and even defended because our nation of laws and rules don't apply to him and his fellow Mexican illegals. The exception, of course, is if the immigrant has the misfortune to be originating illegally from countries like Haiti, China, Africa, India, Italy, or any other nation.
But this protected class of illegals gladly expects our nation to use its city budgets to take money away from our kids' classrooms, take housing dollars away from our own poor. This double standard is not fair to our own hard-working single-parent households who live from paycheck to paycheck and who also have a dream, yes, a legitimate American Dream backed by the Constitution and guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. American citizens understand that if their American-born or legally naturalized son or daughter studies hard enough, works hard enough, and keeps his or her grades high that he may have the opportunity to go to college or to a trade school or own and build a small business. The protection of this dream is why we have immigration laws designed to accommodate only a certain number of immigrants from other countries.
The solution is in Section One of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment, which states: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside." It must be fully litigated now.
In addition the U.S. Supreme Court must overturn the 1982 U.S. Plyer v. Doe decision. The outcome will allow for the renewed preservation of America's educational integrity. The new result in Plyer v. Doe would erase the Burger Court surrender of the U.S. Constitution to political correctness at the expense of American children's educational future.
© Kevin Fobbs
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