California bed wetters decry Alabama’s reasonable, conservative immigration restrictions.
While Alabama and other states are putting barriers to the education of immigrant children, California celebrates Latino Heritage Month by passing the California Dream Act, which will ensure that all deserving students get the opportunity to pursue higher education and be productive members of society. Alabama’s recent court ruling to uphold significant portions of Alabama’s immigration law seems shamelessly un-American. (She means un-Mexican.–Ed.) In light of reports that Latino students are vanishing from public schools in the wake of the ruling, we think it is timely to remind people why we celebrate Latino Heritage Month.
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While proponents of current anti-immigrant state laws claim the measures do not prohibit undocumented children from attending school, the effect is that it does keep them at home. It does, in effect, deny them their right to a public education. Education officials in Alabama say that scores of immigrant families have withdrawn their children or kept them home after the court ruling. And several districts with large immigrant enrollments reported a sudden exodus of children of Latino parents. Anti-immigrant state laws cannot do indirectly what they are forbidden to do directly: deny undocumented children, many of whom are Latino, a public education.