Fairfax County and Illegal Immigrants vs United States Army

Yesterday morning while driving to work I heard a news story that just about caused me to have an aneurysm. This story would have likely killed several people as my super sized Grand Cherokee SUV sped down RT 66 out of control with a brain dead man at the wheel. Luckily for myself and the other commuting motorists I was able to control my rage enough to prevent said aneurysm and eventually arrive at work safely.

What nearly caused this catastrophe you ask? Well, it was the news that the Fairfax County School Board is threatening the Department of the Army and the Pentagon with a lawsuit. Driving this whole situation is the Base Realignment and Closing (BRAC) process. Essentially, due to base closures and unit moves from the 2005 BRAC process, an influx of troops and family members into the Fairfax County area is beginning this year and continuing into 2011. Where the dispute lies is in the number of children that influx will create. The Army is claiming approximately 265 new students will enroll in the school district while the county is claiming the number could be as high as 3,200 children.

I see nothing wrong with asking the government to cover its fair share of usage for the children that influx into the school system. After all the parents of these new students will not be paying the same taxes, (specifically real estate and property tax). So what made me so outraged about this issue you might ask? The reason for my ire and my steadily rising blood pressure dear reader is due to the entanglement of a complicating issue in this matter. Simply put, Fairfax County considers itself a sanctuary county and acts accordingly. That is, the county does not cooperate with illegal immigration authorities, they do not make efforts to assist in enforcing United States immigration laws, they do not permit police officers to verify the citizenship of criminals and persons of interest, and they allow children of illegal immigrants to attend schools in Fairfax County.

In fairness, Fairfax County is in fact mandated by a 1982 Supreme Court decision wherein the Court ruled in Plyler vs. Doe [457 U.S. 202 (1982)] that undocumented children and young adults have the same right to attend public primary and secondary schools as do U.S. citizens and permanent residents. Further, like other children, undocumented students are required under state laws to attend school until they reach a legally mandated age. As a result of the Plyler ruling, school systems may not:

1. deny admission to a student during initial enrollment or at any other time on the basis of undocumented status
2. treat a student differently to determine residency
3. engage in any practices to chill the right of access to school
4. require students or parents to disclose or document their immigration status
5. make inquiries of students or parents that may expose their undocumented status
6. require social security numbers from all students, as this may expose undocumented status
7. students without social security numbers should be assigned a number generated by the school
8. adults without social security numbers who are applying for a free lunch and/or breakfast program for a student need only state on the application that they do not have a social security number
9. the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) prohibits schools from providing any outside agency including the Immigration and Naturalization Service with any information from a child's school file that would expose the student's undocumented status without first getting permission from the student's parents.

Yet, while the precedent of the court may require them to accommodate and educate the children of illegal immigrants, it is another matter all together to establish yourself as a sanctuary county, as described by the statements below: (as taken from the Washington Post Tuesday, October 23, 2007)

Board of Supervisors Chairman Gerald E. Connolly (D) said yesterday that under no circumstances would he follow the lead of Prince William County and push for legislation to cut off services to illegal immigrants or authorize police to check the immigration status of suspects, measures he described as election season demagoguery.

"I can just tell you Fairfax County is not going to go the route of some of our neighbors," Connolly, who is seeking a second term as chairman Nov. 6, said during a meeting with Washington Post reporters and editors. "We're not going to demagogue. We're not going to essentially roll back the welcome mat. . . . That's not why I ran for office and that isn't who we are, and we're not going to do that."

and then to sue the military during a time of war for more money that is entirely unwarranted.

This is yet another issue on which the liberal wing of the political process gets it wrong. Once again we see that those who are breaking the laws are given more deference, at least in Fairfax County, than those people in our military (and the military itself) who are defending the highest law in the land; The Constitution.