Alabama immigration law doubles Latino student absentee rate, targets Supreme Court ruling

In the weeks since Alabama's hotly contested law requiring public schools to track immigration status went into effect, school attendance in the state has been erratic and withdrawals have spiked. But the authors of the measure, one of a bundle of provisions designed to crack down on illegal immigration, insist the intent wasn't to drive students from schools.

They have bigger plans.

Michael M. Hethmon, general counsel for the Immigration Reform Law Institute and author of the provision, told the New York Times the law was designed to target a 1982 Supreme Court decision that deemed turning illegal immigrants away from public schools unconstitutional. In the case, Plyler v. Doe, judges shot down a Texas statute that denied education funding to illegal immigrants because it would impose "a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable" for their immigration status. The court also noted the state had not presented evidence to prove providing free education to illegal immigrants was causing substantial harm.

Alabama's law, which has been temporarily blocked, is designed to gather this evidence, Hethmon said.

"The toughest question has been obtaining reliable — and I mean reliable for peer-reviewed research purposes — censuses of the number of illegal alien students enrolled in school districts," he said. "That information could be compared with other sorts of performance or resource allocation issues."

Under the provision, Alabama primary and secondary schools are charged with ascertaining the immigration status of incoming students using a birth certificate or other official document. Schools are then required to record the information and pass it on to the State Board of Education, which will prepare an annual report and "contract with reputable scholars and research institutions" to determine the costs of educating illegal immigrants — fiscal and otherwise.

Since the 1987 ruling, several laws attempting to deny illegal immigrants access to education have been overturned. Alabama's measure is different, Hethmon said, because no one is actually barred from attending school and the data is not passed on to law enforcement.

Critics aren't buying the argument.

The week after the law went into effect, the absentee rate for Hispanic children doubled, Politico reported. Following reports of increased race-related bullying, Justice Department officials in Alabama recently started monitoring schools.