Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s next controversial policy is about undocumented immigrant schoolchildren. Abbott wants to reinstate a state law from 1975 that withholds state funds from school districts for children who were not “legally admitted” into the country.
Abbott said that he will “resurrect” a legal challenge over the law, which the Supreme Court declared to be unconstitutional in 1982.
The case, Plyler v. Doe, overturned the Texas law. Abbott said he believes that the issue should be raised again.
In the referenced case, the court ruled that “education has a fundamental role in maintaining the fabric of our society.” Therefore, withholding education from the children of immigrants who did not have paperwork does not comport with the fundamental conceptions of justice in the U.S.
The Supreme Court ruling said that people without documentation in the U.S. still remain people in any ordinary sense of the term, and therefore they should be guaranteed basic human rights.
In the Plyler case, four families lost access to education under the Texas law and were then represented by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, known as MALDEF.
The president of MALDEF, Thomas Saenz, said that Abbott has once more distinguished himself as one of the most irresponsible and desperate politicians in the country.
The Plyler decision is firmly established by the Supreme Court and has also been fully endorsed by Congress.
But the Supreme Court now contains mostly justices that were appointed by Republican presidents, massively stacking the court to be conservative.
Conservative elected officials, including Abbott, have been massively emboldened by the conservative-leaning court.
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