Cost of educating illegals is targeted

Two groups of legislators Wednesday said they're fed up with a lack of federal action to curb illegal immigration.

Utah spent up to $85.4 million in a single year educating undocumented immigrants, and now lawmakers want the feds to pay up. Lawmakers have also charged a group with finding a way to ensure that employers don't hire undocumented immigrants.

The federal immigration debate came to a crashing halt late last month when U.S. senators failed to gain the support needed to move to a vote on a bill that would have given most of the nation's 12 million immigrants a way to earn legal status. It also would have addressed issues such as border security and work site enforcement, and created a new guest worker program.

Activists on both sides of the issue now predict that frustration over Congress' apparent failure for the second year in a row to reach an accord on immigration could translate to action that state lawmakers have been reluctant to take in the past.

The Education Interim Committee voted to seek federal reimbursement for the costs related to federal "failed immigration policy" that leaves states to shoulder the burden of educating children of undocumented residents.

The committee voted to send a letter, with a copy of the state's audit, to the U.S. Department of Education, immigration officials and Utah's congressional delegation, seeking the reimbursement.

"I doubt they'll pay it, but I think it's important they hear ... the impact on this state and their inability to deal with this issue," said Rep. Stephen Urquhart, R-St. George. "They once again have proven inept in dealing with it ... while they continue to do nothing on this, fail to deliver results, we pay the price for that."

A May report from the legislative auditor general estimated that the state spent between $55 million and $85.4 million educating undocumented schoolchildren in the 2005-06 school year. That's about 2 percent of the $3.1 billion state education budget.

Public schools are required by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling to educate all children and are even barred from asking a student's immigration status.

The audit did not include children who are U.S. citizens but whose parents are undocumented. Some questioned if those children should have been included in the cost analysis.

"One hundred percent of our income tax goes to public education," said committee chairwoman Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem. "Undocumented workers do not pay income tax unless they have a Social Security number that doesn't belong to them."

However, others noted that the audit looks only at costs of education, not revenue that undocumented workers bring to the state.