Undocumented Students Should Not Be Denied Enrollment In Schools, Says US Attorney General  Eric Holder

The departments of Justice and Education warned in a letter to public schools around the country on Thursday that federal law prohibits them from denying enrollment to undocumented students, citing recent reports of student enrollment practices that “chill or discourage the participation or lead to the exclusion of students based on their or their parents’ or guardians’ actual or perceived citizenship or immigration status.” The Associated Press reports that the Education Department said it was investigating 14 schools or districts for possible violations occurring over the past three years; four of the 17 complaints filed over that period were against a district in Kansas City.

“We are aware that many districts request a student’s social security number at enrollment for use as a student identification number,” wrote Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Education Secretary Arne Duncan in the letter. “A district may not deny enrollment to a student if he or she (or his or her parent or guardian) chooses not to provide a social security number.” They added that districts “may not bar a student … because he or she lacks a birth certificate or has records that indicate a foreign place of birth, such as a foreign birth certificate.”

"Such actions and policies not only harm innocent children, they also markedly weaken our nation ... by leaving young people unprepared and ill-equipped to succeed and contribute to what is, in many cases, the only home they have ever known,” Holder said in a statement, adding that his department would “vigilantly enforce the law to ensure the schoolhouse door remains open to all.” He also cited as precedent the 1982 case Phyler v. Doe, which found that barring enrollment to children living in the same state as a given district “imposes a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status.”