The border crisis bringing a mass influx of illegal migrants into communities has put a massive strain on public school systems across the country, lawmakers said this week.
The House Education and Workforce Committee‘s Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education held a hearing Tuesday highlighting many of the strains placed on the public school system by the massive number of illegal immigrants arriving at classrooms.
Since 2021, according to subcommittee chairman Rep. Aaron Bean (R-FL), Customs and Border Protection has encountered more than a half-million unaccompanied alien children, and 2023 saw more than three million illegal entries into the United States.
“K-12 schools — the subject of today’s hearing — are often the first to feel the impact of our open border,” Bean said in his opening statement. “The financial impact is staggering. Educating illegal immigrant children requires substantial resources, altering the learning environment for all students. Overcrowded classrooms, the need for new facilities, and strained student-to-teacher ratios are just some of the challenges.”
The Florida Republican noted that the aggregate cost of integrating illegal immigrant students into the school system at the current rate of border entry would cost more than $2 billion per year.
Bean also ran through a list of impact statistics, such as how New York transferred students to online learning in order to accommodate almost 2,000 illegal immigrants being housed in school gymnasiums. Austin, Texas, enrolled more than 400 migrant children, forcing teachers to conduct class in hallways and conference rooms. And Massachusetts took on more than 2,000 migrant students, leaving districts to scramble to find housing.
Mari Barke, Trustee of the Orange County, California, Board of Education, testified before the committee that her district was “at least doubling or tripling” the number of translators to accommodate a wide variety of languages, often at the expense of special needs programs.
Education advocacy group Parents Defending Education has filed open records requests with numerous school districts to find out how migrant students are straining public school systems, forcing staffing shortages, budget shortfalls, and the inability to find placement for migrant students.
“Elevated illegal immigration levels are straining school districts across the country from top to bottom — including but not limited to budgets, zoning, and facility usage,” Nicole Neily, Parents Defending Education president, told the Washington Examiner. “In 1982’s Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court found that states cannot deny students a free public education based on immigration status — but at the same time, it is very clear that the Biden Administration’s border policies are pushing states and localities to the breaking point.”
In the nation’s capital, according to an April 2023 report completed after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) began sending busloads of migrants to major cities, the D.C. school district’s Language Acquisition Division was “struggling to find available seats/school placements within 45 minutes of the temporary hotel sites.”
“There are pending Enrollment Reserve Requests for the schools that are in process,” the report from Parents Defending Education continued. “However, the number of families arriving in DC with children in need of immediate supports has increased more rapidly than anticipated by DHS or the Office of Migrant Services, making the need for the additional enrollment reserve more urgent.”
The report also included a graph showing most grades in D.C. schools were already beyond capacity prior to the wave of illegal immigration. Emails show that even in September of 2022, the Office of Elementary Schools said the “need is great” for English Language Learner staff because of the “influx of ELL students who do not speak English.”
A December 2022 chart showed D.C. schools had taken on 155 migrant students spread across four schools, with an additional 120 expected. By January 2023, an email from a staff member said the “enrollment reserve” for additional staff had been depleted, and a February chart showed an additional 225 students enrolled across four schools with no additional capacity.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order limiting asylum seekers beyond a certain threshold of illegal border crossings, which critics condemned as being politically expedient in an election year.
“The Biden administration is now attempting a desperate ploy to try to turn the narrative of his abysmal record on the border. His administration has ignored this crisis for four years, and America’s cities, schools in particular, have suffered because of it,” Parents Defending Education senior advisor Michele Exner said in a statement. “Local education resources have been strained, teachers have been asked to do the impossible, and has negatively impacted students. It’s insulting to families that this admin is trying to cover up their failures with this too little-far too late executive action.”
Denver Public Schools is another district struggling to respond to the border crisis.
As Denver’s schools struggle with similar staffing shortages, language issues, and enrollment caps as D.C., a policy aid in the city council’s office asked Denver Immigrant and Refugee Affairs Office director Atim Otii in November 2023 for an “expert on Latin America and Venezuela” to shed light on student behavior and disciplinary issues stemming from illegal immigrants’ different nationalities.
Reports from earlier this year showed Denver with a nearly $20 million budget shortfall because of the influx of illegal immigrants to the city.
The public school system in Las Cruces, New Mexico, has been having to respond to the border crisis for years, public records requests obtained by Parents Defending Education show, including hiring of new staff, re-appropriation of funding, and the creation of task forces, to respond not only to the migrant students, but also their parents.
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In 2019, the district hired a “Family and Community Support Facilitator for English Learners and Immigrant Students” in part to help facilitate providing “immigrant parents with ESL, GED, and computer skills classes.” In 2020, another special hire was made to accommodate illegal immigrants, called the “Student, Parent, and Family Facilitator for Translation and Interpretation and Community Outreach,” meant to offer further help for the families to use local resources.
According to a January 2024 board meeting in Las Cruces, several requests have been made to sap the student support budget in favor of funding illegal immigrants, including “internet services for immigrant families to have immediate access to technology.” Further Title III funding was requested by the school district, to the tune of $30,000, so that “all immigrant families will have internet enabled devices and training to support the use of their loaned technology.” A second $40,000 Title III funding request was made to hire staff.