http://www.channel2000.com/news/stories/news-990820-091200.html
Schools To Bill For Noncitizen Students?
Activists Outraged By Anaheim School Board Resolution
KCBS TalkBack! Bill Foreign Countries For Illegal Students?
ANAHEIM, Calif., Updated 12:35 p.m. August 20, 1999 -- The board of the Anaheim Union High School District wants to bill foreign countries for the cost of education illegal immigrants.
The school board passed the resolution by a 4-1 vote last night, but Latino activists are already vowing to fight the effort, reported CBS 2 News' Mary Grady.
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| Ranting 'Hispanic' activist that was identified on the air as being one Josie Montoya. The AUHSD board members offered to have her arrested. |
"We should not alienate others simply because of their status or legality," one person said at the school board meeting. "Who cares if my tax money goes to educate illegal immigrants? I'm helping a fellow human being."
The measure asks the Immigration and Naturalization Service to count the number of illegal students in the district and find out their origin, said Grady. Money spent by the district educate those noncitizens would be reimbursed by the federal government, who would then seek to recover the costs from the immigrants' native countries.
The resolution was sponsored by board President Harald Martin, an Anaheim police officer who raised the hackles of activists when, during a May 27 board meeting, he proposed sending Mexico a bill for $50 million.
"We've joked about sending him a thank-you note, because the more he opens his mouth and sticks his foot in it, the more angry the community gets," Josie Montoya of United Neighborhoods told news wires.
Montoya, a member of a coalition opposed to the idea endorsed at the board meeting, called last night's vote a milestone in the fight against anti-immigrant discrimination in Anaheim.
"For us, it's just the beginning," she said. "Now we can fight them. We've talked about recall, a school boycott, a lot of possibilities."
The district estimates there are more than 5,000 undocumented children in their schools. If the resolution is enforced, the school board said it would have enough money to expand programs that would benefit all students.
"No child in the Anaheim Union High School District will be stigmatized," board member Dr. Alexandra Cornado promised. "They will not be thrown out of schools."
An INS spokesman told CBS 2 News it's unlikely this proposal will ever be enforced. Regardless, community activists are threatening to sue the district if they even try.
About 200 people attended last night's meeting.
