Where Immigration Reform Meets Education

Now that Congress is wheeling back around to immigration reform, I wanted to point to a piece in the LA Times from last week and offer some reminders and context.

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As noted previously, this spring's immigration debates have been harder for education reporters and others to latch onto because they don't directly address schoolhouse issues (services to undocumented kids, langauge of instruction, etc.) like in the past.

And yet, the proposals will affect immigrant kids and the schools that serve them, notes the LA Times: "Illegal immigrants whose children are legal residents by birth fear seeing their families split up if some in Congress get their way." (The Great Divide of Citizenship via CJC).

I've also heard about renewed fears among parents about coming to school with their kids, and teachers newly worried about liability for serving kids and parents whose immigration status is unknown.

My latest immigration reform article in Scholastic Administor isn't out yet, but in it you'd reminded that just under 5 million of the nation’s children have undocumented parents, according to a recent report from the Pew Hispanic Center. However, two thirds of those children -- over 3 million -- were born in the US and are thus citizens despite their parents’ citizenship status.