Illegal immigration/HB 1804
I attended a session this afternoon at Sandy Garrett’s leadership conference, an annual gathering of educators, that dealt with how the anti-illegal immigration law that passed this session will affect schools.
To educators’ relief, the answer appears to be: not much. So says Teresa Rose, an attorney with the Center for Education Law in Oklahoma City.
Rose said it was her understanding that legislators mitigated the bill’s effects on schools. It does apply to school districts as it does to other employers by requiring them to verify the immigration status of employees; that shouldn’t be a surprise.
Regarding students, however, things are different. Schools can’t ask about immigration status and must offer education regardless. This has been around for some time and stems from court decisions.
Rose said schools that issued ID cards or other documents could continue to do so, and didn’t have to verify immigration status, but had to ensure language was clearly printed on the front of cards that specified they were to be used only for that campus, district, building, etc., and not as a legal form of ID.
A section of the law that deals with bus and other forms of transportation is contravened because schools can’t check immigration status. If a school can’t check status, there’s no way it can know whether an illegal immigrant is riding the bus, the reasoning goes.
“The way (the law) impacts you as school districts is pretty limited,” Rose said.
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