Federal agents caught 132,000 illegal immigrants at the southern border in May — the highest single-month total in more than a decade.
These eye-popping numbers weren’t an aberration. So far in 2019, the Border Patrol has apprehended more than 300,000 illegal immigrants — a 140% increase from this time last year. Roughly 30,000 were unaccompanied children. Tens of thousands more were children who crossed the border with adult relatives or human traffickers. Due to loopholes in U.S. asylum and immigration laws, agents had to release most of these kids into the interior United States.
That has placed an enormous burden on public schools, which already spend $60 billion each year to feed and educate immigrants’ children. Our schools are already underfunded and overcrowded — they can’t handle this flood of foreign pupils.
It’s time for Congress to tamp down immigration levels so that every American child can receive a quality education.
More than 45 million immigrants live in the United States today. That accounts for close to 14% of the overall U.S. population. An estimated 22 million live here illegally. Not surprisingly, the number of immigrant children residing in America is also on the rise. Today, 25% of public school students come from immigrant households. That’s up from just 7% in 1980.
This rapid increase has strained America’s beleaguered schools, which literally don’t have room for all these students. One in three public schools currently utilizes trailers and other portable classrooms to manage student overflow. Enrollment is expected to increase another 4.5% over the next five years, as America lets in millions more legal and illegal immigrants.
Schools don’t have enough funding to build more classrooms. In fact, their capital expenditures haven’t recovered to the levels prevalent before the Great Recession.
Educating immigrant students costs schools even more than educating Americans. That’s because many immigrant children speak limited English if they know the language at all. One in six kindergartners and one in ten public school students overall has Limited English Proficiency (LEP). This forces schools to allocate funds towards English-as-a-second language programs, which teach these newcomers basic English skills.
Taxpayers bear the brunt of the education burden, particularly since immigrants aren’t paying taxes commensurate with their children’s education needs. Each year, LEP students cost schools roughly $59 billion.
When schools are forced to spend ever-increasing sums on language programs, it means they have less money available for extracurricular activities, such as arts, books, and new technology.
Consider what’s happening in Nashville, Tennessee. One in three public school students now speaks a primary language other than English — with over 120 languages spoken overall. After spending on English-as-a-second-language programs skyrocketed in 2017, school officials cut back on textbooks and science equipment. Teachers struggled to tailor lesson plans to large classes with varying English comprehension levels.
Also look to Montgomery County, Maryland. An influx of immigrants over the past decade increased the suburban school district’s spending on English-as-a-second-language programs by over 50%. As school officials redirected resources, the quality of other educational programming fell. This included cuts to arts funding and classroom technology. Graduation rates also dropped.
Students in Boston fare no better. More than a third of public school enrollees require English-as-a-second-language classes, generating a budget burden in excess of $13.5 million in 2016. In response to these escalating expenses, school officials moved to roll back music programs and slash funding for extracurricular activities. Thousands of students, parents, and teachers have held “walk-ins” to convey their frustration with the new status quo.
These trends are only set to worsen. If Congress fails to tighten legal immigration limits and enforce our existing laws to prevent illegal aliens, immigration will drive 96% of U.S. school-age population growth over the next fifty years.
Scaling back legal migration and cracking down on illegal immigration would ensure that every child can access a high-quality public education.
Lou Di Leonardo, who lives in Fairfax County, Virginia, served as a founding member of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
