Republicans say they will still push education based on legal status
Source: NPR
May 1, 2025 5:00 AM ET
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — After weeks of protests and strained debate, Tennessee's Republican supermajority hit pause on a bill that would have let public K-12 schools deny enrollment to children without legal immigration status. But the lawmakers pushing the measure say they aren't done.
Republicans across the country had hoped to trigger a lawsuit challenging the law that would bring the issue back to the U.S. Supreme Court, similar to how a state law in Mississippi led to the court overturning federal abortion rights in 2022. The Supreme Court established the right to an education for all students, regardless of immigration status in a 1982 ruling in Plyler v. Doe.
A nationwide plan
The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank that wrote the blueprint for the Trump administration's Project 2025 policies, called on states last year to pass bills challenging Plyler v. Doe. "Unchecked illegal migration over the past three years has possibly cost the public education system billions of dollars," The Heritage Foundation wrote in a 2024 brief. "Large influxes of non-English-speaking children also has a negative effect on the classroom."
Similar arguments concerning the cost of education have played out in state legislatures across the country. While states don't collect data on the number of students without legal status in the classroom, Republicans have pointed to the rising number of English learners in public schools, although estimates from the advocacy group EdTrust show that the majority of those students are citizens.
Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/01/nx-s1-5382375/immigration-schools-republicans-tennessee-plyler
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