Harold Meyerson, editor-at-large of The American Prospect, has advised Texas Republicans to deny access to public schooling to undocumented children. The Supreme Court decided the issue more than four decades ago; maybe today’s conservative Court might overturn that ruling.
The Don’s consigliere tells Texas Republicans to end undocumented children’s access to public schools.
Last week, Stephen Miller—Don Trump’s wartime consigliere—met with Texas’s Republican legislators and asked them why they hadn’t passed a bill that banned undocumented children from public schools.
At first glance, the answer to that question might be that in 1982, the Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe that states were legally required to pay for the elementary school education of children regardless of their immigration status. But, as Tom Oliverson, the chairman of the Texas House Republican Caucus, told The New York Times yesterday, “There’s a lot of people that believe that that ruling has some pretty faulty logic associated with it.”
Well, sure. The Supreme Court clearly had a bias in favor of a generally well-educated public, able to perform the range of jobs and tasks that a functioning nation tends to require. That a bias in favor of a well-educated public has seldom infected Texas Republicans, Fox News, the MAGA movement, or Stephen Miller and his Don goes without saying. Indeed, a well-educated public inherently poses a long-term threat to authoritarians and authoritarian wannabes, inasmuch as such a public may wish to have a say in many public policies.
Miller’s current offensive against immigrant children should come as no surprise. He was the force behind the separation of small immigrant children from their parents during the Don’s first term. As well, one Miller biographer has documented how the teenage Miller once cut off his friendship with a Latino pal because, he told said pal, he’d realized he didn’t want to be friends with a Latino. (I know this goes beyond mere immigrant hatred, but it seems illustrative of Miller’s larger mindset.)
This war on immigrant children is not without precedent. In 1994, California voters enacted Proposition 187, which denied public services—including the right to attend K-12 schools—to undocumented children. Plyler v. Doe was one reason why federal courts almost immediately struck down 187 as unconstitutional, but Miller and many Texas Republicans seem bent on trying it again.
In the weeks before 1994’s Election Day, Los Angeles high school students, both documented and undocumented, foreign-born and U.S.-born, began demonstrating against 187 and in favor of—O, the horror—continuing their education. At first, a few demonstrated on their campuses, and as the movement grew, they began amassing by the thousands across Southern California. Some politically sentient unions, disproportionately Latino-led, began offering those students the chance to work phone banks and walk precincts against 187 in the closing days of the campaign; many jumped at the chance. For some, this was their entry into politics: Two of the march’s organizers became, years later, Speakers of the California Assembly. (I covered all this for the L.A. Weekly.)
One question that 187’s supporters never answered was what the undocumented children and teens would be doing during the hours when schools were in session. Hanging at home, compelling their moms and dads to miss work? Roaming the streets? Expressing the normal reactions of young people whom the state had effectively told to go fuck themselves?
Thanks to Plyler v. Doe, these were questions that nobody had to answer. But Texas Republicans routinely act in ways every bit as sociopathic as Miller. They may be hoping that if they codify Miller’s war on the school-aged, they can at least find some Trump-appointed judge who’ll rule that Plyler was decided in error. Until or unless some higher court overrules that decision, they’d then be able to answer those questions in a distinctly Texas Republican way: They’d be empowered to loose the Rangers, or ICE, the Border Patrol, or any gun-carrying white Texan, on Latino kids on the streets or in stores or at home during school days. Not only would rough beasts be deploying to Bethlehem, but, to Miller’s particular delight, entire children’s ceremonies of innocence would be drowned. Look for those particulars in the next Republican platform.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The racist right wants to test Plyer v Doe in The Supreme Court because they believe they can overturn it and send the responsibility to the states as they did with women’s reproductive health. I was teaching ESL before Plyer. To its credit New York offered ESL to students long before Plyer, but I can recall receiving an immigrant student from New Jersey that had been refused entrance to a public school. She had been staying at home learning absolutely nothing for a year and a half. What a waste! Immigrants pay for services in this country through sale tax and rent, part of which the landlord uses to pay for the property taxes. Overturning Plyer v. Doe will serve no purpose other than to punish children that have no agency in the decisions their parents made. If the courts do overturn Plyer, the net result would be to create a permanent underclass.
Educated parents are more likely to produce educated children. In looking on social media the other day, I saw that the high school legal debate team won the county title. I recognized the last name of one of the students. She was the daughter of one of my former newcomers who now holds a good job and contributes to society. Education unlike the economy actually can trickle down to the next generation. Overturning Plyer would be counterproductive to our country and would most likely result in a spike in crime and increased incarceration.
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What sort of evil bastard carries out such an attack ON CHILDREN?
Scum.
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