PHOENIX — Arizona’s top education official is opposed to a new Trump administration directive allowing immigration officials to pursue students in schools.
“People would stop sending their kids to school’’ due to fear, Republican Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne told Capitol Media Services. Anyway, he said, even if a child was brought to this country illegally, “it’s not their fault.’’
Horne said the directive undermines a 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that the state cannot refuse to educate children regardless of the legal status of the parents or the students themselves.
On Tuesday, Trump’s acting director of the Department of Homeland Security voided a 2021 policy enacted by the department’s prior director that made enforcement of immigration laws off limits in certain “sensitive locations.’’ These included health-care facilities, religious institutions, playgrounds and schools.
“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,’’ a department spokesman said. “The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.’’
This comes on the heels of Trump’s separate executive order directing federal agencies to no longer recognize birthright citizenship, which, on a prospective basis, would deny legal status to the children of those not here legally — making them subject to arrest and deportation themselves.
Horne said he’s not convinced that, despite the new directive, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement will now start showing up at schools.
“If they’re going to arrest anybody, it’s the parents, not the kids,’’ he said.
But Horne said it’s not good policy. Still, he said there may be little that schools can do if ICE agents show up at their doors.
Tom Horne, Arizona superintendent of public instruction.
“I don’t know how they would stop them if they wanted to go in,’’ he said. “There’s a supremacy clause in the Constitution. You don’t want to resist the federal government.’’
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, also says having immigration agents show up at schools is a bad idea.
“The attorney general disagrees that ICE should be operating on school campuses, let alone hospitals or churches,’’ said Mayes’ press aide Richie Taylor. “There are myriad other ways that federal immigration law can be enforced without disrupting the work of medical professionals or scaring children who are just trying to receive an education.’’
Taylor, speaking for Mayes, advised school officials to “first, consult with their legal counsel before moving forward with anything.” Schools should also be “communicating with parents about these possibilities,” he said.
Mayes previously said she will take on the Trump administration when she believes it is acting in ways that are unconstitutional or illegal. That most recently occurred Tuesday when she joined with other states to oppose the president’s directive to federal agencies to no longer recognize birthright citizenship.
But Richie said Mayes might not pursue a challenge to the new policy allowing ICE raids in places the Biden administration had considered off limits.
“I think it’s going to depend on how it is enforced,’’ he said.
Crucial in all of this, Horne said, is the 1982 case of Plyler v. Doe about the rights of all children — regardless of legal status — to get a public education.
That stemmed from a 1975 Texas law withholding state funds for education of people who were not “legally admitted’’ into the United States. It also authorized local school districts to deny enrollment to those students.
In that case, the justices said the law ran afoul of the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution, which says no state shall “deny any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.’’
“Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is surely a ‘person’ in any ordinary sense of that term,’’ wrote Justice William Brennan for the majority. “Aliens, even aliens whose presence in this country is unlawful, have long been recognized as ‘persons’ guaranteed due process of law by the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments.’’
That ruling, however, didn’t stop some Arizona lawmakers from seeking to provoke a challenge of their own. In 2009, then-Sen. Russell Pearce proposed requiring public schools to ask parents to provide documents showing their children were in the country legally.
The Mesa Republican insisted he wasn’t trying to keep those children out of school — at least not initially. Instead, he said, the state was trying to get information so it could calculate the cost on Arizona taxpayers.
But Pearce admitted one goal was to challenge the 1982 Supreme Court ruling.
“To take Plyler v. Doe on, you have to have the data,’’ he said. His measure cleared the Senate Education Committee but died when it was held in the Rules Committee, which reviews legislation for constitutionality.
