Morning Read: North Country schools ordered to avoid immigration questions
The Glens Falls Post-Star is reporting this morning that the state Education Department is ordering school districts to avoid questioning students or parents about their immigration status.
Practices cited by the report include asking for a student’s green card – as was done in two districts in the Rochester area – to requesting a Social Security number.
“At the time of registration, schools should avoid asking questions related to immigration status or that may reveal a child’s immigration status, such as asking for a Social Security number,” according to the Education Department.
The Education Department report was issued after the American Civil Liberties Union identified 163 school districts that appeared to be asking “for information that, the group said, could have been unlawfully barring or discouraging the enrollment of immigrant students.”
Here’s a link to the school districts identified by the ACLU as having problematic procedures. The list includes quite a few districts across the North Country, from Peru and Queensbury to Canton and Moriah.
Ridiculous. I had to provide copies of my kids Soc Security cards when registering. So if my last name was Gonzales I wouldn’t have to?
Avoiding the law is the same a breaking it.
“could have been unlawfully barring or discouraging the enrollment of immigrant students.”
change that to:
unlawfully barring … the enrollment of [illegal] immigrant students
I’m not aware of any public school in New York State that requires a student have a social security card to register
The schools need more students so they have an excuse to keep our taxes high.
So no id at all then? Becuase if you can’t ask for a social security number than you won’t be able to get anything else.
I checked, I was wrong about the Social Security card. My apologies.
We had to provide the Social Security Card AND Birth Certificate!
And let me get this straight- I have to provide ID to buy carburetor cleaner at Walmart, a lotto ticket, cigarettes, alcohol, ammunition, to enter certain public buildings, to say nothing of whats required at a doctors office, for a loan at a bank, or to register a car or purchase a firearm. And you want to tell me that providing ID for school registration is somehow “wrong”? No, this is a political decision based on a political theory, based on political correctness.
It’s just DUMB.
It is dumb and it is political and it causes a backlash against those being exploited. These are the kind of things that make the Arizona law which I think is not well thought out, popular. People are rightly ticked by these sorts of strange laws.
So essentially we have my tax dollars and my kids gong to public schools with people that we have no idea the identity of. I don’t care about immigration status, but you better have a proof of identification, Driver’s license, social security card, state ID card, passport, whatever.
How do they identify their students? I’m sure fingerprints would be out.
Maybe they just take their word for it.