In Tennessee, controversial bills allowing Tennessee school districts to deny enrollment to illegal alien students have taken another step toward becoming law.
The bills – House Bill 793 and Senate Bill 836 – would give permission to Tennessee schools to verify children are citizens or have legal immigrant or visa status before enrolling them. Schools could then deny enrollment to the children who cannot prove their status or charge them tuition.
The two versions differ in one key respect: the House bill makes it optional to check student immigration status. In the Senate version, immigration status checks would be mandatory in Tennessee’s more than 1,700 public schools and all public charter schools.
The bills’ sponsors argued the legislation is needed to both quantify the number of illegal alien students attending Tennessee schools and to protect the state’s limited financial resources. Opponents claim the bill violates constitutional protections, particularly the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court ruling Plyler v. Doe, which guarantees access to public education regardless of immigration status.
On both sides of the aisle, passions ran high. State Rep. John Ray Clemmons, a Democrat, slammed the bill and repeated clichés like, “Our country has a broken immigration system” and that the bill is about “punishing innocent children.”
Republican State Rep. Monty Fritts countered, “We’re not talking about immigrants, we’re talking about illegals. There’s a distinct difference. There is no greater act of rebellion in these U.S. than illegally coming across that border.”
In June 2024, the Federation of American Immigration Reform wrote that under Plyler v. Doe, local schools are obligated to provide illegal alien children with a taxpayer-funded K-12 education.
The cost is staggering.
The nation’s price tag for educating illegal aliens’ children in 2022 was $70.8 billion. The data preceded the historic illegal immigrant surge that began in 2021 when President Joe Biden took office.
Using Florida Rep. Aaron Bean’s conservative estimate of 500,000 new illegal aliens in U.S. public schools, the recent influx has added at least $9.7 billion in additional taxpayer costs.
Parents’ frustration with the ever-expanding illegal aliens’ enrollment is understandable. Every teacher minute spent with a non-English-speaking student, some of whom come in and out of the classroom depending on their parents’ work obligations, is one less moment spent with a citizen pupil.
The Nation’s Report Card, which showed sharp declines in reading and math scores for 9-year-olds, is attributable to, at least in part, the steady arrival of non-English-speaking pupils.
Plyler v. Doe must take into consideration the nation’s current population levels. In 1982, the year SCOTUS handed down its ruling, the U.S. had 232 million residents, including roughly 16 million legal and illegal immigrants. A Center for Immigration Studies analysis showed that the government’s January 2025 Current Population Survey fixed the foreign-born or legal and illegal immigrant population at 53.3 million and 15.8% of the total U.S. population — both new record highs.
Unlike border statistics, the survey measures the number of immigrants in the country, which is what determines their impact on society. Without adjusting for those the survey missed, the estimated illegal immigrant population accounted for 5.4 million, or two-thirds of the 8.3 million increase in the foreign-born population since January 2021.
The Center for Immigration Studies’ best estimate is 11.5 to 12.5 million legal and illegal immigrants settled in the country in the past four years.
Given the dramatic illegal immigration surge over the past 40 years, a request to reevaluate Plyler v. Doe is a modest proposal.
States spend billions to educate limited English proficiency students, while the children of American citizens get less of their teachers’ attention.
In the meantime, while the Plyler v. Doe review plays out in the courts, the federal government, which writes and approves immigration law, should pay for states’ illegal aliens’ education, an unfunded mandate.
On limited English proficiency programs, Congress contributes barely 1% of the cost, despite the federal requirement for states to educate the children of illegal aliens.
Congress’ indifference to citizen children’s diluted education while it funds an ongoing illegal immigrant surge into already overcrowded classrooms represents yet another America last policy.
Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years. His column is distributed by Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.
