{"id":47069,"date":"2026-03-06T12:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=47069"},"modified":"2026-03-06T12:20:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T20:20:08","slug":"tennessee-wants-to-let-schools-ban-immigrant-kids-threatening-to-end-public-education-as-we-know-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/03\/06\/tennessee-wants-to-let-schools-ban-immigrant-kids-threatening-to-end-public-education-as-we-know-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennessee Wants to Let Schools Ban Immigrant Kids, Threatening to \u201cEnd Public Education as We Know It\u201d\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Tennessee bill would take the right to education away from undocumented children. The Heritage Foundation is pushing it in other states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jessica Washington<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

March 4 2026 (TheIntercept.com)<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Children<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Children attend a meeting of the Education K-12 subcommittee in the Tennessee legislature on March 11, 2025, in Nashville. A bill to restrict undocumented kids’ access to education was tabled last year \u2014 and is now up for consideration again. Photo: George Walker IV\/AP<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Tennessee Republicans are<\/strong> pushing forward with a bill that could force undocumented children out of public education and turn school administrators into immigration informants against their own students, making Tennessee the frontier of an effort led by the Heritage Foundation to fundamentally injure the right to public education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state\u2019s proposed \u201ctrigger laws,\u201d which will be heard in committee on Wednesday, are direct challenges to Plyler v. Doe, a narrowly decided 1982 Supreme Court case<\/a> that enshrined the right to a free K\u201312 public education regardless of immigration status. The parallel bills would also likely violate federal statutes that codify the same right. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025<\/a>, has officially called on other states to pass similar laws challenging Plyler, <\/em>situating Tennessee\u2019s push as among the first in a broader national effort to overturn the decision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIllegal aliens should not be eligible for federal, state, or local government benefits, including through their children,\u201d wrote Lora Ries, the director of Heritage\u2019s Border Security and Immigration Center, in a February 17 post<\/a>, \u201cbecause the receipt of such benefits facilitates longer unlawful residence in the United States and takes resources from American citizens and lawful immigrants.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So far, six states<\/a> \u2014 Texas, Oklahoma, Idaho, Indiana, New Jersey, and Tennessee \u2014 have introduced bills that would violate Plyler. If passed, their implementation could force a challenge at the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Educators and immigration advocates told The Intercept that if Tennessee and other states were to get Plyler overturned and enact legislation to track and potentially expel undocumented children from public school, it would \u201cend public education as we know it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis feels like a credible threat,\u201d said Cassandra Zimmer-Wong, an immigration policy analyst at the Niskanen Center. \u201cThe ramifications of this are huge \u2026 denying children carte-blanche education would create an uneducated, potentially illiterate underclass of children and then adults in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, the Tennessee state legislature introduced a bill<\/a>, H.B. 793, that would allow schools to refuse to enroll students<\/a> who cannot prove \u201clawful presence\u201d in the United States or charge them tuition, but it was tabled due to concerns about potential federal funding losses because the law violated federal statutes. The bill would also require schools to report the number of students who enroll without a birth certificate. The Tennessee Senate version would allow schools to choose to deny enrollment to undocumented students only if they are unable to pay. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, the bill is back \u2014 and scheduled<\/a> for a state House Finance, Ways, and Means Subcommittee hearing on Wednesday. A companion bill, which would require schools and other entities that receive state funding, like hospitals, to report to the government on recipients\u2019 immigration status, moved out of committee last week. The second bill is also scheduled to be heard<\/a> by the House State & Local Government Committee on Wednesday. It can only be enacted if H.B. 793 passes and Plyler is overturned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sam Singer, a high school teacher who teaches English language learners in Tennessee, said she\u2019s had \u201cnumerous students\u201d who\u2019ve heard of the bills ask if they\u2019re still allowed to go to school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re questions that no child should ever have to ask, much less come to school and wonder about,\u201d said Singer. \u201cThe expectation should be, of course, you\u2019re supposed to be here, you\u2019re a kid. This is where you belong.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

School should be a \u201csafe space\u201d for children, said Singer, \u201cwhere you can trust that teachers are here to help you become your best self as you grow into the young adult you want to be.\u201d Instead, the bills would effectively turn school administrators and teachers into immigration agents.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Across the state border<\/strong> in Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has said<\/a> that he would seek to overturn Plyler for years. U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican Texas congressman now running for attorney general, has called for the 1982 ruling to be overturned as well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor illegal alien children, the Supreme Court said we have to fund education for them. The fact of the matter is that it is a massive tax burden on the people of Texas,\u201d Roy said in an interview<\/a> last week. \u201cI don\u2019t believe that the Constitution requires that the state of Texas should fund it, and we should make a new precedent by taking it to court.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Texas state legislature previously introduced two bills challenging Plyler<\/a>. The first bill would allow public schools to charge undocumented children<\/a> to attend, and the latter bill would require proof of citizenship<\/a> to enroll in public school. Both of those bills have stalled, but Krystal G\u00f3mez, managing attorney for the Texas Immigration Law Council, said she expects more challenges to Plyler in the next legislative session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cIt used to be that we had a federal government in the Department of Education that didn\u2019t seem interested in it, and was able to sort of put this to kibosh and have like a backstop to states that got a little out of hand in trying to create these chilling effects or overturn Plyler outright,\u201d said Gomez. \u201cWe don\u2019t have that now. So it\u2019s sort of the wild, wild West, and whatever sad, terrible thing that a state can dream up, they can probably get away with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Department of Education did not respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Texas, immigrant student attendance has already declined dramatically since the start of Trump\u2019s immigration enforcement ramp-up. The Houston school district lost nearly 4,000 immigrant students this year<\/a>, a decline of roughly 22 percent of the school district\u2019s immigrant population. It\u2019s unclear how many of those students left the United States willingly, or were deported, and how many children still living in Houston are simply too afraid to return to classrooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stress of constant raids weighs on many of the immigrant children still attending school, said Klara Aizupitis, 34, a high school English teacher in Terlingua, Texas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019re living under the constant threat of either being picked up and deported or your parents or your siblings being picked up and deported,\u201d said Aizupitis. \u201cThat stress is going to have an impact on, certainly, academic performance, but also your ability to manage your emotions in everyday life.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cYou\u2019re living under the constant threat of either being picked up and deported or your parents or siblings being picked up and deported.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Further eroding protections for immigrant students would devastate the border community where Aizupitis teaches. \u201cWe do really have a shared culture, on both sides of the [Rio Grande] river,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The district\u2019s funding is based on average daily attendance, so losing undocumented students would \u201cthreaten the existence of our school district,\u201d said Aizupitis. \u201cMoreover, it would threaten the existence of our entire community.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

An estimate from FWD<\/a>, a criminal justice and immigration policy organization, found that undocumented students would lose a collective $1 trillion \u2014 or 600,000 individually \u2014 in lifetime income if they were denied access to public education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Heritage frequently suggests that undocumented students represent a substantial burden on taxpayers, arguing in a statement to The Intercept that \u201cunaccompanied alien children<\/a> sent to states cost them hundreds of millions of dollars for one year of public education.\u201d But according to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented people in the U.S. pay nearly $97 billion in federal, state, and local taxes annually<\/a>. Tax contributions from undocumented people far outweigh the financial burden of K\u201312 education for undocumented children. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Heritage Foundation\u2019s argument, said Zimmer-Wong, \u201cdoes not hold up to any kind of basic scrutiny.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The FWD report found that educating undocumented students provides $633 billion<\/a> more money in state and local income tax contributions than the cost of their education. The report also found that, if Plyler were overturned, the U.S. workforce would decrease by 450,000 workers in critical jobs that require at least a high school or college education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

None of that accounts for the expense of implementing a widespread immigration surveillance system in schools. \u201cIt would be extremely costly,\u201d said Lisa Sherman Luna, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition Votes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schools would have to acquire \u201cnew software, new computers, new administrative processes and staff\u201d to track and determine the immigration status of the tens of thousands of children within any given school district, not just students who are undocumented, she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Become a member<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Heritage Foundation reports notes the burden placed on schools, [from undocumented children],\u201d said Ignacia Rodriguez Kmec, policy council at the National Immigration Law Center, \u201cyet their solution is for school personnel to become essentially DHS and TSA agents, verifying, reviewing documents, and recording immigration status.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cTheir solution is for school personnel to become essentially DHS and TSA agents.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The Heritage Foundation pushed back on criticism of its plan, telling The Intercept that undocumented children would still have the option to receive an education \u2014 if they paid tuition, self-deported, or left the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are the consequences for the decision the parent or student made to break our law. American taxpayers should not have to pay for law breaking. Nor can American taxpayers afford it,\u201d Ries wrote in a statement to The Intercept.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which originally litigated Plyler, said that he doesn\u2019t believe the Supreme Court will allow these bills to be implemented. Because the bills would violate federal statutes, they would run up against the supremacy clause of the Constitution, Saenz pointed out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, if the courts were to look favorably on a challenge to Plyler and its corresponding federal statutes, Saenz said, the consequences would be devastating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt would have the impact of ending public education as we know it, because when a certain cohort of kids is allowed to be out of school, what happens next is that their siblings and friends don\u2019t go to school,\u201d Saenz said, \u201cand rapidly, no one goes to school.\u201d Share<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donate<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Contact the author:<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Washington<\/a>jessica.washington@theintercept.com<\/a>@jessica_m_wash<\/a>on X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Tennessee bill would take the right to education away from undocumented children. The Heritage Foundation is pushing it in other states. Jessica Washington March 4 2026 (TheIntercept.com) Children attend a meeting of the Education K-12 subcommittee in the Tennessee legislature on March 11, 2025, in Nashville. A bill to… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47069"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47069"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47069\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47070,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47069\/revisions\/47070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47069"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47069"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47069"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}