Frederick Commissioner Lennie Thompson Revives Efforst to Count Illegal Immigrant Students At Schools
Of course, all the hate-mongers are up in arms. But Frederick County Commissioner John L. “Lennie” Thompson has renewed his call for Frederick County Public Schools to release the numbers of students who are illegal immigrants.
Commissioner John L. Thompson Jr. wants the state General Assembly to adopt a new state reporting requirement for the Board of Education.
The report, due March 1 every year, would include the number of students in Frederick County Public Schools whose lawful presence in the U.S. “cannot be reasonably documented.”
Board of Education President Daryl Boffman said the school board would not take a count unless there is a state or federal directive.
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“I don’t know whether his actions are going to be successful or not, but I do know that as a system we do not need to be distracted from our purpose,” Boffman said. “The illegal immigration issue is a federal issue, and unless we are directed to do so, we are going to continue with business as usual.”
Thompson released his proposal Monday, asking the commissioners to add it to their 2009 legislative priorities.
It is similar to a failed proposal by Thompson this spring. That proposal threatened withdrawal of funding if the school board didn’t compile a report for the Board of County Commissioners.
Only Thompson and Commissioner Charles Jenkins supported it.
The new proposal would not make the report a requirement for funding.
Okay, so last spring everyone was worried about the budget being hijacked on this issue, now the school budget won’t be.
Here’s is the problem. According to the Supreme Court in Plyler v. Doe, U.S. schools cannot prohibit the children of illegal aliens from receiving an education on the public dime. I don’t agree with it, but fine. that doesn’t mean that the schools should have to turn a blind eye to the numbers of illegal immigrant students in their facility. The children are more than likely innocent in their parent’s flaunting of federal law, and I can see that holding them accountable is unfair. However, in any given county in Maryland, half or more of teh county’s budget goes to education and if there is a large portion of illegal immigrants in teh schools, it increases the tax burden on legal immigrants and citizens.
Thompson is not proposing that these children be denied an education, no sane person would. Thompson may want the money so as to bill the federal government (not that Frederick would be paid) for providing the service. What ever the motivation, the fact is that the schools probably already know this information as undocumented aliens are probably not producing a birth certificate or other identity papers for their child. We collect all kinds of demographic data, what makes this one so bad that we dare not request it.
