Arizona: $1.2 billion/year to educate children of illegal aliens

The Pew Hispanic Center says there are 125,000 to 145,000 children of illegal immigrants in Arizona public schools (elementary and secondary), and about half are U.S. citizens because they were born here. And:

The Pew estimate nearly equals the enrollment of the Scottsdale, Mesa and Chandler unified school districts combined.

More than one in nine Arizona students is an illegal immigrant or the child of an illegal immigrant, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

To educate these children, school finance experts in Arizona suggest taxpayers will spend as much as $1.2 billion this year alone.

They appear to have obtained that number by multiplying $8500 (upper limit of the estimate to educate one child per year) by about 140,000 (estimated population), or some other variation. They note that no one knows for sure how many such students there are because schools are forbidden to ask:

When children enroll in public school, their parents must show proof of residency but not a Social Security number. Many families bring Mexican birth certificates and transcripts from Mexican schools.

And, as part of our Useful Idiot Watch, Jennifer Kill, a 6th grade teacher at Lindbergh Elementary School in Mesa, has thoughts:

[She said] she has never asked if any of these students are illegal immigrants or the children of illegal immigrants. Her job is to teach children, not to guard the border... "As a teacher, you get the students that come to your door... You don't concern yourself with where they're from, what they look like... Do I think there are illegals taking time away? ...Not at all. It never crosses my mind."

I'm not a psychologist, and even if I were it would be difficult to do an analysis from such a distance. Perhaps she's just saying that because she wants to keep her job or because she doesn't want to be falsely called names. Or, perhaps she's just a useful idiot. I note also that she's not a DEA agent; if she knew of a drug ring at her school would she use that as a pretext to not report it or even speak out against it?

Immigration2007a · Sat, 02/17/2007 - 12:02 · · Importance: 1