“Immigration Policy by Court Order: The Adverse Effects of Plyler v. Doe”
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House Judiciary Subcommittee on Constitution and Limited Government U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSpeaker 1
Based on Texas average per person spending of $13,900, just one year of public education of these alien children costs Texans $1,300,000,000. Nationwide, the cost to help alien schoolchildren, legal immigrant minors, and refugees learn English through limited English proficiency programs in American schools is $78,000,000,000 annually, according to a 2022 study. All the while, the American taxpayers were left with the bill to pay for the education. The financial costs of Plyler are undoubtedly staggering, clearly representing a significant burden on localities. But it isn't just fiscal costs we should be worried about.
Our nation's classrooms routinely deal with illegal alien students, many of whom know little to no English and may struggle with other learning disabilities. For example, a 2017 study by the Annie Cassie Foundation revealed that immigrant children, legal or illegal, had lower reading and math proficiency scores compared to their American born classmates. The study found that among fourth-grade children from immigrant families, only 8 percent scored at or above the proficiency level. In math, proficiency rates are even worse. Such data should prompt a broader discussion about the demands placed on schools and educators who must use limited resources meant for American students by American taxpayers to help immigrant children achieve proficiency standards.
In the small community of Charleroi, Pennsylvania, if I pronounced that right. Charleroi. An influx of illegal well, I mean, it's Pennsylvania, so it's closer than it is to Austin. An influx of illegal alien nations led to a complete disruption of the educational environment. In the 2021 school year alone, the number of non English speaking students skyrocketed from 12 to 220 in a district of only 1,450 students.
Teachers had to pause in the middle of lessons to translate using phone apps, leaving one wondering if she was hindering the learning of the American students. Today, this small industrial town spends $400,000 annually on five staff members dedicated to non-English speaking aliens. Similarly, in a single year, Maryland saw more than 2,200 unaccompanied minors arrive, posing burdens on the school administrators. In Miami Dade County, public schools report spending $1,959 more per child for immigrant children and are reliant on community partnerships. I could go on with examples of this absurdity across the country.
Ironically, writing for the majority opinion for Plyler, Justice Brennan wrote that such policies allowing illegal aliens access to public schools could likely lead to, quote, the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime. Fast forward 40 years, the American students, teachers, and taxpayers are living with the unmitigated consequences of that ruling. State governments and Congress have restricted legal aliens from accessing SNAP, Medicaid, in-state tuition, among other benefits in the past. It can certainly deny access to their public classrooms. Unelected federal judges should not interfere with rulings based on personal policy preferences not rooted in the Constitution.
In fact, my legislation, H.R. 6225, the PAWS Act, would freeze immigration until the federal government fixes long-standing illegal immigration problems ranging from birthright citizenship to issues such as the one we're discussing today under V. Doe. It's time we meet the moment to overturn Plylar v. Doe. It's time for congress and the courts to address the glaring fairies of this court decision, and finally alleviate Texans and Americans alike from this burden.
And with that, I will recognize the ranking member for her opening statement.
Speaker 2
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Fifty years ago, Texas passed a law seeking to ban children who were not legally admitted to the country from public schools and to defund their education. The state argued that this ban was necessary to preserve its resources for educating its lawful residents, and argued that these children were not persons under our constitution. The Supreme Court disagreed. In 1982, the court struck down the Texas statute in Plyler versus Doe, rejecting the argument that children did not count as persons entitled to equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.
The court also found Texas' economic arguments to be unconvincing, and the exclusion of undocumented children from public schools an unlikely and ineffective way to achieve the true underlying objective of addressing and ultimately repelling an influx of undocumented immigrants. Even conservative Chief Justice Burger, while rejecting the majority's reasoning, wrote, quote, it is senseless for an enlightened society to deprive any children, including illegal aliens, of an elementary education, end quote, and agreed that, quote, it would be folly and wrong to tolerate creation of a segment of society made up of illiterate persons. He also noted that, quote, the long-range cost of excluding any children from our public schools may well outweigh the costs of educating them, end quote. For a generation, the issue was deemed settled, but bigotry and bad ideas die hard. Now at the urging of the Trump White House, the authors of project 2025, and their allies, Texas and a few other states seek once again to enshrine bigotry and bad ideas into law.
To do so, they've mounted a coordinated effort to overturn Pliler v. Doe, making the same arguments that the court previously rejected. But if anything, the intervening years have put to rest the argument that the public education of undocumented children imposes a net economic burden on the states or somehow harms public education and services offered to lawful residents. In fact, the overwhelming majority of credible studies from both conservative and mainstream entities, including the Congressional Budget Office, have consistently found that the net economic impact of immigration is overwhelmingly positive. Most recently, the congressional budget office issued a finding that immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, generated a 14,500,000,000,000, that's trillion with a t, fiscal surplus over the last twenty years. When one compares the tax contributions of those immigrants to the limited, very limited public benefits that they consume.
Even in Texas, the purported subject of this hearing, the net fiscal impact of immigration during the 40 year pylor period, including the cost of public education, has a net of $93,000,000,000 to the benefit of the state. In addition, we now have decades of data showing the public health, developmental, civic, humanitarian, and social impacts of providing public education to immigrant children regardless of their legal status. No matter the rhetoric coming from the other side of the aisle, the fact is that our Republican colleagues have brought us here today to advocate for kicking kids out of school. Reversing Pliler versus Doe would mean that children as young as kindergarten and through high school would be denied a basic education, left out of society, and held back from reaching their potential and meaningfully contributing to America. This isn't just terrible education policy.
It's extremely harmful to vulnerable children. It's also bad for our country's health, workforce, and economy. The Supreme Court's decision in Plyler versus Doe guaranteed equal access to free public K through 12 education for all children living in the United States regardless of their immigration status. The court recognized in Pliler that education provides the basic tools by which individuals might lead economically productive lives to the benefit of us all. And in the 44 years since, the children who've benefited from these protections, including some who have since become citizens and legal permanent residents, have grown up to contribute immensely to our country.
A report by fwd.us found that Plylar beneficiaries have driven economic growth by paying over 633,000,000,000 more in state and local taxes than their public education's cost, preventing over 700,000 US citizen children from falling into poverty, increasing GDP by 2,710,000,000,000 over their lifetimes. These are, again, the accomplishments of the Plyler beneficiaries. They've strengthened the workforce with over 1,000,000 people filling US jobs, and they've reduced health care costs by at least $28,000,000,000 since 1982. Additionally, other students have found that having immigrant children in K through 12 classrooms improved the academic outcomes for their US-born classmates, lifting up entire communities. Public schools are a crucial part of our social fabric.
They're places where kids can learn, make friends, dream about their futures, and develop the skills they need to contribute to those futures and our society. Robbing some children of that foundation would wind up hurting all children and America as a whole. It's a cruel attempt to senselessly punish undocumented children for their parents' decisions, choices they had no role in. And it's all based on a false assertion that giving undocumented children a public education is a burden on taxpayers. It bears a dangerous similarity to other attempts to exclude children, including children with disabilities, from public education.
According to a June 2024 analysis from Niskanen Center, the tax revenue from undocumented workers alone covers the annual cost of educating undocumented children. Of course, the effort is part of an ill-conceived effort to end immigration to this country, a country that is famously one formed by immigrants. But it's also part of a larger war on children being prosecuted by this White House. A right-wing effort to kick kids out of school is just another facet in the ongoing war that is being waged against American children, particularly the effort to undermine public education. President Trump and congressional Republicans won big ugly bill, ripped health care and food away from millions of kids when enacting the biggest cuts to Medicaid, CHIP, and SNAP in our history.
This administration is attempting to undermine and erode vaccine science at a time when measles and other preventable infectious disease outbreaks have killed American children. And Republicans have made callous cuts to childhood cancer research, denying families the hope of a cure. This administration has decimated the Department of Education, gone after funding for early childhood education programs like Head Start, frozen access to billions of dollars in funding for child care and family assistance, and cut funding for community violence prevention. ICE is now targeting schools, previously protected areas, in its cruel, chaotic mass deportation efforts, leading to plummeting attendance and fear among entire school communities. Children have been detained in traumatizing conditions and used as bait by immigration enforcement agents to lure their parents.
Some of us may remember growing up and learning about when in the Bible Jesus said, suffer the little children to come to me, rejecting the efforts of his disciples to punish their parents' efforts. But right now, instead of caring for the little children, our country and its leaders are shamefully turning their backs on the little children. We must firmly reject a worldview that only certain classes of children, those whose parents can afford to pay, are entitled to the blessings of liberty and the hope of a better future. Our kids are our future, and I wanna do all we can to make sure that future is a bright one for everyone's sake. So this is not the direction that we need to go.
It's fundamentally flawed. I yield back.
Speaker 1
I thank the ranking member. I believe in for the sake of time, the chairman is gonna yield, and we'll recognize the ranking member of the full committee, mister Raskin.
Speaker 3
Thank you kindly, Mr. Chairman, and thanks to the witnesses for being here. And thanks to these wonderful kids in the front row who are keeping me very entertained. I wanted to start by invoking Tom Paine, who was an undocumented immigrant who came to this land in 1774, two years before the revolution, and wrote Common Sense, the pamphlet that ignited the American Revolution. And he said that this land, if it lives up to its ideals and its promise, would become an asylum for humanity, he said. Not an insane asylum, but a place of refuge for people seeking freedom from religious, political, intellectual, and economic persecution from all over the world.
Also in the eighteenth century, Thomas Jefferson, who was a descendant of a long line of undocumented immigrants, both on his mother's side and his father's side of the country, said that education would be central to democratic self government and to the protection of liberty in our country. He said that the nation cannot be both ignorant and free. He said it was an impossibility. In the twentieth century, the Supreme Court affirmed that public education is a constitutional commitment in America for all children who are here. In Plyler versus Doe, the court held that denying children access to a public education based on their immigration status would violate the Fourteenth Amendment Equal Protection Clause.
Writing for the majority, Justice Brennan found that excluding undocumented children from public education would impose a lifetime of hardship. He said. Something like what the constitution calls a taint of blood or a bill of attainder, a hereditary punishment for something over which the child had absolutely no control. Pylor did not place an undue financial burden on America. Rather, it has paid big dividends for our country.
A recent analysis measured the costs and benefits of this decision and found that children who were able to go to school, thanks to Plyler, have contributed to the tune of billions of dollars more in state and local income taxes than the costs of their education. And, of course, their classes were gonna be happening anyway. Plyler has strengthened the workforce by allowing three quarters of adults who got an education, thanks to Plyler, to work in occupations that require a high school degree. And it's also improved public health by making sure that every child in America gets the appropriate vaccinations. So is there anyone who really thinks that America would be stronger as a country if all of the kids who got an education because of Pilar versus Doe had been forced to stay home or to stay in the streets during the day, when their parents were working?
Well, in order to distract America from the Iran war, which is now costing between 1 and 2,000,000,000 dollars a day, and which has already cost 13 Americans their lives and more than a thousand Iranians their lives, including 175 schoolchildren who perished in a bomb explosion at an all girls school. In order to distract America from the Trump administration's massive cover-up of the Epstein files and the billion-dollar global trafficking conspiracy of young women, teenage girls, and children, our colleagues wanna revisit a 44-year-old Supreme Court decision with the aim of kicking tens of thousands of kids out of their classes and out of their schools. Well, the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign is already succeeding in denying kids, both noncitizens and citizens alike, access to school and education. In a survey of 693 educators across the country, when asked whether federal immigration enforcement efforts were affecting students, 24% reported reduced student attendance at school and increased distraction or disengagement in class. 18% said reduced attendance is leading to declining student performance, of course, and 50% stated that the children in their schools have expressed great anxiety and fear about what is taking place in their communities.
The harm is not concentrated solely in the cities most under siege, either. West of the Twin Cities in Wilmar, Minnesota, more than one in four students started missing classes after one student with legal residency was detained and held in custody for several days, and another student who's a US citizen was stopped by ICE outside a district learning center. The school superintendents said, quote, families of our Black and Brown students feared profiling in family separation even as legal residents. White families reported keeping children home due to anxieties about potential armed law enforcement activity taking place inside the schools. And even when kids are showing up, immigration enforcement actions are dramatically affecting academic performance.
Using data from a large urban school district in Florida, one of the 10 biggest in the country, researchers found that the recent surge reduced test scores for both US-born and foreign-born Spanish-speaking students, especially in higher poverty areas. It is hard to study, to learn, to think, to do homework, or to take exams when you are filled with fear, dread, and anxiety. This reign of terror is part of the administration's relentless campaign against children right now. In July, Trump signed into law his big beautiful bill, which included the largest cuts to Medicaid, the children's health insurance program, and the supplemental nutrition assistance program, SNAP, in our history. Over 37,000,000 children rely on Medicaid and CHIP to get health care, and nearly 15,000,000 children rely on SNAP to get adequate nutrition.
While denying children access to health care, the administration is also making it harder for kids to stay healthy in the first place. After a confirmed 2144 measles cases across 44 states in 2025, the US stands to lose its measles free designation. With this self-inflicted wound administered by secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the country is already on track to soar past last year's total measles cases, with more than 1,300 cases across 31 states already confirmed as of March 12. And, of course, Mister Chairman, Texas has been particularly hard hit. The secretary of health and human services fired all 17 members of its advisory committee on immunization practices, which provides recommendations for immunization in the US and dropped the number of recommended routine childhood vaccines, putting children again at risk of contracting preventable diseases.
The administration has gutted the Department of Education, which ensures nearly 26,000,000 low-income students and 7.5 million students with disabilities get meaningful access to educational opportunity, and has repeatedly threatened funding for Head Start, which provides childcare and early education to millions of low-income children every year. I would urge our colleagues to abandon this determination to make life harder for children in our country, and instead join us in passing policy to deliver for America's kids. Together, we can make the child tax credit permanent, instead of making tax cuts permanent for the nation's billionaires. We could expand access to health care and support for nutrition for kids in need. We could protect the Department of Education to make sure kids in America get equal access to quality education.
We could take action to once and for all address the leading cause of death for children 18 in the United States, the epidemic of gun violence in our country. For more than a decade now, Americans have strongly supported common sense gun safety reform to ensure that guns stay out of the hands of the people who do the most harm. Yet no matter how many children lose their lives to gun violence, our colleagues maintain their oath to the gun lobby in the absolute myth that the Second Amendment prevents reasonable gun safety legislation. It does not. The Democrats on this committee take supporting and protecting every child in America seriously.
I hope our colleagues will join us. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Speaker 1
Thank the ranking member. I'll remind people this is a hearing on Pylor v. Doe. Now, without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witnesses. Miss man oh, does the Well,
Speaker 4
I was just curious if the ranking member said, I think his opening sentence was, he said Thomas Paine was an illegal immigrant. My understanding was Mister Paine was born in the UK, came to America, then a British colony in 1774. So I was just struggling to figure out how he was.
Speaker 3
Oh, I didn't say he was an illegal immigrant. I said he was an undocumented immigrant. Just like Thomas Jefferson's family was. Most of our ancestors did not arrive here with documents.
Speaker 3
Well, that does appear to be a big deal to people on your side or the out because you don't wanna educate kids because they don't have the right documents.
Speaker 1
It's the time of the chairman. The chairman's gonna yield back. And I would just note it's not undocumented because he was within the colonies of England. He was a citizen of England. Alright.
Without objection, all other opening statements will be included in the record. We will now introduce today's witness, Miss Mandy Drogon. Miss Drogon is a senior fellow with the Government Reform and Oversight Coalition at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Her work focuses on K through 12 education. She previously worked at the American Federation for Children.
Mr. Matt O'Brien. Mister O'Brien is the deputy executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. He previously served as an assistant chief immigration judge, chief of the National Security Division of US Citizenship and Immigration Services fraud detection and national security directorate, and in other senior roles in USCIS, ICE, and what was then known as the immigration and naturalization service. Mr. James Rogers. Mister Rogers is senior counsel at the America First Legal Foundation, where he litigates matters involving border security, election integrity, parental rights, and constitutional administrative law.
He previously served as senior litigation counsel in the Arizona Attorney General's Solicitor General's office. Mr. Thomas Sines. Mister Sines is the president and general counsel of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. He previously served as counsel to then Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villarregosa. Valls.
We thank our witnesses for appearing today, we'll begin by swearing you in. Would you please rise and raise your right hand? Do you swear or affirm under penalty of perjury that the testimony you're about to give is true and correct to the best of your knowledge, information, and belief? So help you, God. Let the record reflect that the witnesses have answered in the affirmative.
Thank you. You may be seated. Please know that your written testimony will be entered into the record in its entirety. Accordingly, we ask that you summarize your testimony in five minutes. Miss Drogon, you may begin, and I will remind each of you to turn your microphones on before you begin your testimony.
Miss Drogon, you may begin, you have five minutes.
Speaker 5
Chairman, ranking member, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify on the adverse effects of Pilar Vido and how subsequent federal policy, particularly the Obama administration's Dear Colleague letter, has created a contradiction harming students, schools, and communities. Plessy v Doe held that states cannot deny illegal immigrant children access to public education. Texas has fulfilled that obligation. Our constitution requires a free public education system, and Texas has built one of the nation's most robust accountability systems. Our A through F accountability system evaluates schools based on standardized test performance, graduation rates, and college readiness indicators.
These ratings have real consequences. They can trigger state interventions, leadership changes, campus restructuring, and school closures. In recent years, roughly 16.6% of Texas districts have received a D or F rating. The ratings drive major policy decisions like student funding, and it relies on accurate demographic data. Yet federal policy prevents states from collecting one key category, the illegal immigration status of K-12 students.
FWD dot US estimates that approximately 111,000 students in Texas are illegal immigrant children. This restriction does not come directly from Pilar Rito. Instead, it stems largely from a 2011 Dear letter issued by the Departments of Justice and Education, which warned that asking about immigration status could discourage enrollment and create a chilling effect. The Dear Colleague letter is agency guidance. It's not a law passed by Congress, and it is not required in Plyler or by the Supreme Court.
Congress should clarify that it cannot prevent states from collecting necessary data to educate students. Every effective education policy relies on demographic data. Schools identify student populations to provide targeted support, whether it's for low-income students, English learners, or students with special disabilities. And they track things like race, gender, attendance, and even parental incarceration. This data is used to identify needs and measure outcomes.
It is not used to stigmatize students. It's universally accepted that schools must have it to identify student needs, measure outcomes for the students, the schools, and the entire education system. Yet illegal immigration status is the one characteristic schools are effectively barred from measuring. States are asked to address complex challenges while remaining blind to a key factor influencing the outcomes. This contradiction undermines the very logic of Pfizer itself.
If illegal immigrant children face serious disadvantage, as the court has recognized, schools must be able to identify them in order to provide appropriate support. Evidence suggests illegal immigrant students face challenges way beyond language barriers, including higher absenteeism, mobility, interrupted schooling, and greater educational needs. A study in social science and medicine found that 97.4 percent of Central American and Mexican migrant children experienced at least one traumatic event before entry, and 44 percent showed psychological or behavioral concerns. Texas medical experts report many require significant mental health support due to sexual and violent trauma experienced during migration. These realities, accountability systems, and other students as well.
Schools must determine whether performance challenges stem from language barriers, trauma, or interrupted education, but policymakers cannot answer these questions on how illegal immigrant students perform as compared to other groups. We see the consequences all across Texas. Campuses receiving failing ratings for five consecutive years face closure, restructuring, and state takeover. Recently, districts such as Fort Worth, Beaumont, Connolly, and Lake Worth ISD have faced such risks after six campuses repeatedly received failing grades. These campuses share strikingly similar characteristics.
Between 80-97% of the students come from low income households, compared to 60% statewide. At five of the campuses, 64 to 94% of students are considered at risk of dropping out. A Stanford education researcher, Beth Schuler, explained, quote, I don't think we want to lose sight of the fact that the demographic composition of a school system is the thing that's going to be most predictive of variation in performance and outcomes, end quote. When schools struggle or close, communities are disrupted. Enrollment declines, families move, and local economies suffer.
In short, the downstream effects of pylor veto affect every single student in the state of Texas, in the schools, and in the community. It's not just the illegal immigrant students. Congress should require the Department of Education and Justice to issue new guidance clarifying the 2011 Dear Colleague letter can't prevent states from collecting data on illegal immigration or the legal immigration status of students. Congress should also pass legislation allowing states to collect immigration status, both legal and illegal. If states are required to educate illegal immigrant students, they must be allowed to identify the student population status to fully understand and address the adverse effects of Plyler v. Doe.
Thank you, and I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Miss Drogan. Mister O'Brien, you may begin, and remind you to turn your microphone on.
Speaker 6
Chairman Roy, ranking member Scamblin, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. The Supreme Court's decision in Plyler versus Doe rewrote rather than interpreted the equal protection clause. By transforming a Texas funding provision into a nationwide mandate, the court required states to provide free K through 12 education to children who have no legal right to be in the United States. The majority did not rely on established constitutional doctrine. Instead, it imported its own policy preferences, particularly concerns about illiteracy and social mobility, and constructed a novel, heightened standard of review that the court itself admitted does not ordinarily apply to nonsuspect classes or nonfundamental interests. The result was an act of judicial legislation that intrudes on Congress' plenary authority over immigration, restricts state control over limited educational resources, and imposes heavy fiscal and operational burdens on already struggling school systems.
For more than a century, the Supreme Court has consistently recognized that immigration is a uniquely federal domain entrusted to the political branches. Congress may draw distinctions between citizens, lawful residents, and those here in violation of the federal law. Indeed, the court has repeatedly affirmed that Congress has no constitutional obligation to extend public benefits to individuals who lack lawful status. When Texas in 1975 enacted a statute limiting the use of state funds to educate only children legally admitted to the United States. It acted squarely within this constitutional framework.
Nevertheless, the statute was challenged under the Fourteenth Amendment, and the Plyler majority ultimately struck it down, not on legal grounds, but on speculative policy judgments about social equity and long-term socioeconomic outcomes. The court acknowledged that illegal aliens are not a suspect class and that education is not a fundamental right, yet it proceeded to treat both as if they were, devising a bespoke standard of review applicable only to the facts before it. This approach was inconsistent with precedent, inconsistent with the constitution's text, and inconsistent with the judiciary's proper role. Under ordinary rational basis review, a state may allocate its resources in any manner reasonably related to a legitimate governmental interest. But the Pliler court replaced that differential standard with what legal scholars call rational basis with bite, forcing Texas to justify its policy as though a fundamental right were at stake.
In doing so, the court substituted its own policy views for those of the legislature and entered an area, immigration policy and resource allocation, where the Constitution explicitly entrusts authority to elected officials. The consequences of this judicial overreach have been substantial. Pylor effectively created a federalized unfunded mandate requiring states to provide free K through 12 education to all children lacking lawful presence. Today's state and local governments collectively spend tens of billions of dollars each year to comply with this mandate, even as many public schools struggle with overcrowding, limited resources, and declining performance. Estimates indicate that between 1.9 and 2.2 million illegal alien children are now enrolled in America's public schools, many of whom arrive with significant educational needs that require additional staffing, specialized instruction, and expanded support services.
These obligations fall squarely on state and local budgets, which already devote more resources to K through 12 education than any other expenditure category. In sum, Plyler v. Doe represents a dramatic departure from constitutional principles, established doctrine, and the proper limits of the judicial role. By elevating policy considerations above legal analysis, the court imposed long-lasting financial and operational burdens on states and localities while undermining democratic accountability. Rather than upholding the constitution, Plyler exemplifies the risks of judicial lawmaking and has had enduring negative consequences for both constitutional governance and the effectiveness of American public education. Thank you.
I look forward to your questions.
Speaker 7
Chairman Roy, ranking member Scanlon, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for this invitation. In 1982, the Supreme Court held in Plyler versus Doe that states must provide free public K through 12 education to children illegally present in the United States. That decision was wrong. It should be overruled. And even in the meantime, states are not without tools to address it.
Pylor presented the court with a straightforward constitutional question. Under the equal protection clause, courts apply strict scrutiny when a law discriminates against a suspect class such as based on race or religion, or burdens fundamental rights such as the right to freedom of speech or religion. Laws rarely survive strict scrutiny review. For everything else, courts apply rational basis review, which is a permissive standard that laws almost always survive. The standard of review that courts apply usually determines the outcome.
As Mr. O'Brien acknowledged, the prior Hilar majority conceded that the heightened standard of strict scrutiny did not apply. It acknowledged expressly that illegal aliens are not a suspect class, and that education is not a fundamental right. Having made those concessions, the court was legally obligated to apply rational basis review, under which Texas's law would easily have survived. Instead, the majority invented a novel substantial state interest test found nowhere in prior precedent, then used that invented standard to strike the law down. As Chief Justice Burger wrote in dissent, "If ever a court was guilty of an unabashedly result-oriented approach, this case is a prime example."
The decision was a close one, with only five justices in the majority and four justices dissenting. The dissent's core critique was that the majority had ignored the requirements of the constitution and was substituting its own policy preferences for those of the Texas Legislature. It was trying to address a perceived failure of Congress to deal with illegal immigration rather than allowing the political branches of government to fulfill their functions. The constitution, Burger wrote, does not make justices into platonic guardians authorized to strike down laws that do not meet the court standards of desirable social policy. The dissent also correctly pointed out that it is rational for a state to conclude that it does not have the same responsibility to provide benefits to persons whose very presence in the country is illegal.
In Dobbs versus Jackson Women's Health Organization, which overruled Roe versus Wade, the Supreme Court articulated five tests for whether a prior precedent should be overruled. Plyler fails everyone. It was egregiously wrong from the start. The majority itself conceded that prior court precedent required that the Texas lobby upheld. Plyler's reasoning is thin, lacking any grounding in constitutional text or history.
Its substantial state interest standard is unworkable. No court has coherently defined it in 40 years. It has distorted immigration federalism by chilling legitimate state policy choices, and it implicates no concrete transactional reliance interest of the kind that the law is designed to protect. Critically, Plyler's own majority acknowledged that undocumented, that, quote, undocumented status coupled with some articulable federal policy might enhance state authority, end quote, and thus justify the type of policy that the Plyler court had rejected. Congress has since provided exactly that policy.
The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, or PRWORA, declared it a compelling government interest to deny public benefits to illegal aliens, and it barred them from federal public benefits. The premise on which Pylor rested thus no longer exists. Some states have started considering adopting laws that would bar illegal-alien children from receiving free public education. They're trying to create a vehicle for the Supreme Court to reconsider Pyler and overturn it. Congress can accelerate reconsideration by enacting legislation explicitly authorizing states to condition the free k 2 12 enrollment on unlawful presence.
Even under Plyler, meaningful tools remain. States can condition free public education on residency, and then define residency as requiring lawful presence. Plyler bars denial based on immigration status, but a state that conditions enrollment on legal residency raises a fundamentally different question. States can also require districts to collect and publicly report the fiscal cost of illegal alien enrollment, building the evidentiary record for future litigation. Finally, they can restrict supplemental programs beyond the basic K through 12 curriculum and deny in-state post-secondary tuition in compliance with federal law.
In conclusion, as chief justice Burger wrote in his Pylor dissent, quote, the constitution does not provide a cure for every social ill, end quote. The court should correct its 1982 error. In the meantime, the states and Congress can take action to keep illegal aliens from taking advantage of the generosity of the American taxpayer. Thank you.
Speaker 8
Thank you, Mister Chair, honorable members. My name is Thomas Sines, and I have been for 17 years now the president and general counsel of MALDEF, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund. I am proud as the current head of MALDEF that my predecessors were the legal representatives for the plaintiffs in Plyler v. Doe, the first of a number of cases consolidated and coming before the Supreme Court in 1982. It's important to note that the Plyler v. Doe decision was the product of a conservative Supreme Court. Indeed, four of the five justices in the majority, including the author of the opinion, William Brennan, were appointed by Republican presidents.
In addition, it's important to note that the swing justice, if you will, Lewis Powell, has impeccable conservative credentials, and he is clearly the justice whose decision ended up being the decision in Plyler. He was the fifth vote. But it's also important to note, as not often remembered, that while this court split five to four on the constitutional issue, the court was unanimous in its conclusion that the Texas law struck down was bad public policy. I say that because Chief Justice Warren Burger, who wrote on behalf of all of the dissenters who joined his opinion in full, including the soon-to-be Chief Justice, conservative William Rehnquist. On behalf of all of them, he stated that this Texas policy was a bad public policy.
He called it folly. It's important to keep that in mind as you review the basis of the majority decision in Pliler. In Pliler, the majority simply applied rational basis, a standard recognized by the Supreme Court previously and all the way up to date, as a basis for evaluating legislation that singles out a particular group of persons for exclusion from a public benefit. In this case, excluding minor children who are undocumented from receiving public education. In applying rational basis, the majority considered a number of factors.
Among them are factors that have clearly not changed in the 44 years since Pfizer was decided. First, the fact is, as the court noted then, many of the students who are undocumented today and who would be deprived of a basic public education were the Texas law to be revived. Many of those students will remain in the country indefinitely or permanently, and will adjust their status to that of either lawful permanent resident or naturalized US citizen. As such, they will be expected, as Brandon noted, to contribute to our economy, to our society, and to our government. Their ability to do so if deprived of a basic public education would be taken away.
Second, court did recognize that public education is expensive, and that's the case today as well. However, despite that fact, public education is perhaps the government service that receives the highest levels of support throughout the country. Why is that? Because that expense is an investment. It is an investment that pays off.
Having these children in school with a basic education when they become citizens or lawful permanent residents and are contributing to the economy pays off much more than the cost of the education. Billions and indeed over time, trillions of dollars more into the economy, into the government through tax payments, and through immeasurable benefits such as patents, innovations, and improved service throughout the economy. The court also recognized that these children are not responsible for their status in this country. They are minors. We're talking about elementary and secondary school children who came to the country as a result of decisions by their parents.
That is still true today. Despite the slight increase in unaccompanied minors, the fact is the vast majority of undocumented students did not come to the United States on their own. Finally, the court recognized, and I note here that Lewis Powell's concurrence particularly focused on what would happen if the Texas law was implemented. It would leave thousands of children on the street during the daytime rather than being in school. Well, the Plyler decision didn't explore that as deeply as it might have.
The fact is that eliminating Plyler would threaten the continuance of public education. Why? Because kids out of school have a tendency to attract their peers to leave school as well. It will start with their siblings as a result of the phenomenon of mixed-status families where older children are undocumented, but younger children are birthright citizens. It will extend beyond the families to peers, and, ultimately, it will be impossible to enforce truancy laws because any child who doesn't want to be in school will know to simply say, I'm undocumented, something that any truancy officer would be unable to disprove.
Speaker 1
Thank you, Mr. Sines. I now recognize my friend from California, mister McLintock.
Speaker 9
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, a few weeks ago, the president put a very simple proposition to the Democrats. Do you believe that the first duty of the federal government is to defend American citizens and not illegal immigrants? Not one of our Democratic colleagues supported that proposition. Not one.
And we can plainly see that attitude on full display at this hearing, in fact, in any hearing where the subject presents itself. You know, I've never understood the logic of Plyler, which seems to be that illegal immigrants are both entitled to taxpayer-paid benefits, but at the same time are subject to deportation. That makes no sense. If they have no right to be here, I don't understand how they have a claim to taxpayer benefits. The other foundation of Plyler seems to be, well, don't worry about it.
There aren't that many of them. Well, that might have been true in 1973. It's certainly not true today. It's indisputable that this is diverting billions of dollars of school funds away from educating American citizens and legal residents. In California alone, taxpayers are paying about $3,000,000,000 a year for this purpose.
That's $3,000,000,000 of education funds that are not reaching American citizens and legal immigrants. Imagine the outrage from the Democrats if we propose cutting $3,000,000,000 from California's public schools, but that's exactly what their open borders policies have done. Now we just heard Miss Gandlin tell us that this is good for students and good for taxpayers. I wonder if these people ever listen to themselves. And I think we're entitled to ask how have our public schools fared since this, the largest illegal mass migration in history under the Democrats.
Are students doing better or worse? Miss Drogon, what does the data actually tell us?
Speaker 5
So the data actually tells us when we're hearing numbers of a couple thousand, that's completely inaccurate. Even if we're using a left-leaning pro-immigration organization, that ranking member Scalin quoted FWD.us, they say that in Texas alone, there's at least 111,000 students. So this obviously is billions of dollars. We can look at the data and see, since 2015 with the unaccompanied minors that have been released, if we use the TEA PEIMS data that tells us how much we're spending, it's $18,125 per student across the state of Texas on average. Of course, doing English as second language and whatnot costs more.
But if we use that number, we can see that we're already approaching $2,000,000,000 at 1,780,000,000. We could also use the Huffine Liberty Institute's research that went back over a course of 10 years to see the amount of money that we were spending in Texas. And they found that it's roughly 10, excuse me, 8% on illegal immigrant students. According to our data, last year
Speaker 9
Somehow this is supposed to be helping our students. I don't understand.
Speaker 9
So I'm on my first trip to the border. I spoke with a border patrol officer who related a conversation he just had with the mother who'd taken her eight-year-old son on the dangerous trip to cross our border illegally. He asked her why she'd expose her child to such danger. And she answered, well, to get him a good education, to get away from the gangs. And the border patrol agent said, well, don't you understand those gangs are already here?
And your child will be placed in a classroom where he doesn't understand the language or the culture, and he'll look to those gangs for his acceptance. You know, every day we hear of cases in which illegals with criminal records or gang affiliations are found in our public schools. There's a story in the news today coming out of Fairfax County just a few miles from here of a 19-year-old illegal alien from El Salvador who was groping young girls for months before the district took any disciplinary actions. Mister O'Brien, have there been any studies of how many illegals with criminal records or criminal activities are in our schools today?
Speaker 6
I don't believe so. Only because it's virtually impossible to get the relevant data. We conducted studies that indicated that illegal aliens commit crimes at a rate anywhere from 2 to 3 times higher than citizens and lawful immigrants.
Speaker 9
I would presume, yeah. There have been extensive studies presented to our immigration subcommittee on that very point. The democrats love to claim, oh, there's no higher criminal rate among illegals. Well, that is completely belied by the facts. Mister Rogers, what makes you think that the Supreme Court is inclined to reverse this decision?
Speaker 7
Well, the Dobbs decision set out a very clear standard of five factors that can be used to evaluate whether prior precedent was wrongly decided and should be reevaluated. And, like I said in my testimony, all five of those factors, Pylor fails all of them. And so I think applying the standard that they've set out, Pylor, is ripe for a reconsideration.
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Science, I wanna return to something that the gentleman from California said. Did the Supreme Court say that a family could not be removed from the country if their noncitizen children were in a public school, or are they still deportable if the family is not here lawfully?
Speaker 8
So the way children tend to be deported, as I think you know, congressmember, is apparent is deported and has to make a decision, whether to take the children with them or to leave them in the custody of someone else. That's the way deportation works for the class that we're talking about. But it's also important to note, in response to what the member from California said, the undocumented, many of them have a basis to remain in this country. And if they were actually placed in deportation proceedings, they will have defenses available to them, and many of them will, through that process, ultimately stay in the country permanently. So you can't say that all of.
Speaker 8
No. If they were to seek some suspension of deportation because of long standing ties in this country, because of continued connection in this country, Mhmm. Or because they simply have a basis for adjusting a relationship to someone else that they didn't have previously or didn't know provided a basis.
Speaker 3
But my point is a little bit different, which is that there's nothing in Plyler versus Doe which gives anybody the right to stay in America if they don't already have such a right. You're positing that in some cases, they might have such a right, but there's nothing in Plyler v. Doe that changes immigration law. So all the Supreme Court said in Plyler versus Doe was, as long as this family is in America, the children have a right to be in public school and should not be out on the street or kept at home or what have you. Am I reading that correctly?
Speaker 8
That's absolutely correct. This is all about students who are here and therefore have to be somewhere during the day. They should be in a public school.
Speaker 3
Not at all. So what's your response to Pylor's critics who are saying that this places a massive fiscal burden on the country? So it's untrue because you have to.
Speaker 8
Look at both sides of the ledger. And what we're talking about is an investment that we make in any child who's in public education, and that is it. The payoff comes when they are able to participate in the workforce in many college education requiring professions and the like. A recent study points out that a large number of the recipients of services under Plyler end up in positions that require a college degree. Beyond that, you have to recognize that these are also taxpayers. These families are taxpayers like their neighbors.
Their status does not change the fact that they pay sales taxes, property taxes if they have property, income taxes if there is an income tax.
Speaker 8
Exactly. They're not eligible, as you know, and as has been pointed out by others on this panel. So they are paying those taxes from what they are able to earn.
Speaker 3
Yeah. So in ordinary times, if we're not in a time of anti-immigrant hysteria and nativism, people have accepted this for half a century. Right? And it has not seemed like a big deal that I
Speaker 8
I would argue, congress member, it's not a big deal now for most of the people out in the public. There really are not huge numbers of bills moving forward in our legislatures. Yes. Bills get introduced. But when legislators start doing their job and look at what the consequences are of actually attempting to implement a law like the one struck down in Tyler, they realize this is not wise public policy, and they tend to back away from it.
So there's no clamoring to change Tyler versus after 44 years.
Speaker 3
Yeah. You know, in the brief colloquy I had with the chairman at the beginning, we talked a little bit about my reference to the first great generation of revolutionary patriots, people like Tom Paine or Thomas Jefferson as undocumented or the descendants of undocumented people. I didn't think there was anything controversial about that. I suppose from the perspective of Native Americans who were here long before anybody else, everybody was undocumented at that point. But have we not had a fluid sense of the border?
Now we need to have actual laws that exist, but this has been part of the law that kids who are here get to go to school here at least until their family is deported. Right? Absolutely.
Speaker 8
This is as well established as much of immigration law, because we didn't actually control our southern border until the middle of the twentieth century.
Speaker 3
Well, that was Mexico, right, until the 1840s and the 1850s with the annexation. I think it was in 1845 of Texas and California a little bit after that. So what is the bottom line then? Is all of this really headed to try to get a very right-leaning Supreme Court to overturn Pilar versus Dow? Is that what this is about?
Speaker 8
I think that's the ultimate goal, but there is an impediment, which is this is now part of the federal immigration policy.
Speaker 8
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to note that our annual debt has now gone past $39,000,000,000, and I yield my time to the chairman from Texas.
Speaker 1
Well, I appreciate my friend from Kentucky, notably wearing his debt clock where he's announcing to the world that we are now cracking $39,000,000,000,000. And I would note that there are a lot of reasons why, and this is one of them, among money, that we continue to have this fanciful notion that we can just say anybody can come into The United States and that it doesn't have an impact on our overall budget. And that the idea that it's like somehow, oh, there's this magic economic driver and economic creation of revenue that is offsetting the cost of our government services and programs and welfare and education and crime and hospitals, that somehow then magically pays for itself. It is absolutely insane. Mister Sines, there are approximately 2,400,000,000 children in the world under the age of 18.
Can they all come to the United States and be educated?
Speaker 1
now for 44. Why is education free? Mister Sines, how about 1 billion? Can a billion children around the world come to the United States and get a free education?
Speaker 1
10,000,000. When we're a god-fearing, Jesus-loving people, 10,000,000 people around the world can come here to the United States.
Speaker 8
So far as I know, this country actually has religious pluralism and respects all religions. So I object to your question in that sense, but I'm not gonna give you a number, Mr. Chair. The simple fact is there.
Speaker 1
You're not gonna give me a number, and you're not gonna give me a number because you know this is a super unicorn nonsense.
Speaker 1
unicorn nonsense. Well, you know what? This is an absolute aberration because you know precisely what's going on. You think that you can make policy via the court, that you can somehow establish that there's a right to come here to The United States and get a free education. But when posed with the question, how many people can come here?
You know there's not an answer. Because right now, the people of Texas are the ones left holding the bag. Miss Drogon.
Speaker 1
It's my time when I'm a chairman whether or not I'm running for office is irrelevant. Question. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Sines. The fact of the matter is, Mr. Sines.
Speaker 1
Of this committee, Mister Sines, and it's my time. And the fact of the matter is the people of Texas, miss Drogon, are the ones left holding the bag.
Speaker 1
Are the taxpayers in Texas paying for education for illegal alien children to the detriment of American citizen children?
Speaker 1
Can you expand on that? We talked about it before on the numbers. We've had over 100 something thousand unaccompanied alien children. How about the fact that we've got, for every English learner, Texas schools receive 616 or $950 for those enrolled in a dual language program. How much does that cost?
Speaker 1
So the Texas taxpayers are the ones left holding the bag on that number alone. Correct?
Speaker 1
And what is the impact for the average school district out there that is dealing with the fact that you have illegal alien children that are being educated on the backs of the taxpayers.
Speaker 5
It's massive. That's what we were talking about, is this isn't just about the illegal immigrant illegal children. It's also about the entire system. We have accountability systems. And these students, I pointed out several districts, Lake Worth ISD, 43.6% of them are English learners.
This is a crushing barrier. It goes between 30 to 70% that are English learners in these districts that are slated for takeover. That doesn't just impact the students, the illegal students in the schools. It impacts the entire school. And American citizens who are losing out on resources, their teachers are being forced to try to do Google Translate on their phones.
All of these things obviously impact the total education system, and the taxpayers are left holding the bag for it.
Speaker 1
Somebody asserted earlier that there's nobody clamoring in the state of Texas to deal with this issue. First of all, do you believe that to be true?
Speaker 1
Correct. And I hear about it all the time across the state of Texas, since I do crisscross the state of Texas quite a lot. And the reality is, with respect to that question, do we have the information or the data for the average American to understand the extent to which forced education of illegal alien children is having an impact on their kids, their school district, their bond issuances, and their property taxes. Are we prohibited from having that information right now?
Speaker 5
Yes. We are prohibited from having that information, and it has created a, quote, chilling effect on districts. I hear from teachers, superintendents, and leaders all across the state of Texas. They want this data collected so that we can have a comprehensive view of how this impacts students and taxpayers in our education system as a whole.
Speaker 11
Thank you, Mr. Chair. First, mister O'Brien, you made a comment that the statistics show that illegal immigrants or undocumented immigrants committed crime at a higher rate than other folks. We have statistics, and we've talked about them as committee that are just the opposite. They came from Texas. Where are your statistics from?
Speaker 6
The statistics that we looked at were from the SCAP, which is the State Criminal Alien Apprehension Program. The state? It's a federal program that reimburses states for the cost of incarcerating anyone who is not a citizen who is present in The United States, particularly illegal aliens.
Speaker 11
Well, just to inform you, the justice department did a study a few years ago in Texas and said that undocumented immigrants are at a much lesser rate of committing offenses than other citizens, and other statistics show that as well. They are less likely to commit offenses. Most of them don't get out and are afraid right now to get out of their houses because they're afraid they'll get shot by ICE or taken to some detention camp and held for an unlimited amount of time even if they have their little hats on and they're five years old, and they take them to Texas and put them away. That's not good for children. That's not good for America.
That's not good for anybody. That's anti-American. So if you show me your statistics and get them to me, I'll look at them, and I'll send you this Justice Department statistics that show that illegally or undocumented immigrants do not commit crimes at a higher rate.
Speaker 6
Well, we certainly can get that to you. And my experience as an immigration judge and a trial attorney with ICE would indicate differently. And my experience.
Speaker 11
Your experience is not a statistics. It's your experience. It's very subjective. I like to see object objective.
Speaker 6
I think the statistics are based on the experience of people like me. Mister Sainz, you were trying.
Speaker 11
to say something in response to Mister Roy, and he cut you off. You're not running for office. I understand that. Could you tell me what you were about to say?
Speaker 8
I was going to say that, in fact, the number of students who are in school as a result of Plyler versus Joe is dictated by our immigration policies, in effect. So we can talk about the billions of people out in the world, but it has no reflection on what's happening in this country. As you earlier mentioned, we're talking about students who are here. As earlier was mentioned by your colleague, actually, we're talking about students who are here. Their families are here.
Don't know how long they'll be here, but they're here, maybe here indefinitely or permanently. That's the class of students we're talking about who benefit from Pilar versus Doe. But not only they benefit, their classmates benefit, and all of society benefits because they then have the skills to ultimately contribute to our economy in important ways, to the tune of billions, ultimately, trillions of dollars.
Speaker 11
I think miss Drogon was giving some testimony that undocumented or illegals have worse grades and are more likely to drop out and cause problems.
Speaker 8
So I think it's important to note that we don't have data about undocumented students and their grades. What we do know is that so many of those who were undocumented in elementary and secondary school do go on to higher education. These are the students who now have DACA, and their younger colleagues who have been rendered ineligible for DACA. But these are the ones who are contributing to our economy who, frankly, through their contributions in health care and in other fields, saved us during the pandemic. So that's what we're talking about, not students who are low-performing.
I think it's important to note, because there's a lot of conflation of this, that when you talk about English learners, you're not talking about undocumented students. The vast majority of non-citizens in this country are not undocumented. They have some other status, lawful permanent residence or other, and that comprises a portion of the English learner population. And, frankly, a large portion of the English learner population is United States citizens born in this country who have every right to stay permanently and who are in school but come to school with a need to acquire English fluency at an academic level that they didn't acquire in their homes prior to coming to school. Similarly, the chair mentioned in his opening remarks the Latino population of a particular school district.
Latino does not equal undocumented, not by any means. The Latino population is overwhelmingly US citizen and lawful permanent resident of this country. So talking about increased numbers of Latino students in a school is completely irrelevant to what we are talking about here, which is the experience of undocumented students in public schools.
Speaker 2
Thank you. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record a 03/18/2026 statement and report titled The Power of Plylar, highlighting how the Plylar decision has aided in decades of economic advancement.
Speaker 2
I would also introduce the Texas specific data showing the net fiscal impact has been $93,000,000,000 to the positive.
Speaker 2
And finally, I would enter a 2021 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research entitled Presence of Immigrant Students Boosts Test Scores for All.
Speaker 1
Objection. I'll now recognize the gentle lady from Wyoming for 5 minutes.
Speaker 12
Thank you. When discussing the issue of K-12 education, there is no free public education. Every decision that is made here in Washington, DC, or within any state or local community comes at the cost of the American taxpayer. Plyler versus Doe effectively imposed an unfunded mandate, whose consequences, due to years of neglect and mismanagement of our immigration system across multiple administrations, has gone far beyond what could have ever been foreseen in 1982. This is evident as the court's decision rested on the assertion that the number of illegal aliens in public schools was small and that there was no evidence in the record suggesting that illegal entrance imposed any significant burden on the state's economy.
We know that it is absolutely untrue. And I'm sure that mister Sainz, if you could actually read the data, would recognize that as well. This decision, which came at a time markedly different than the one we face today, negatively impacts every aspect and participation of our public education system at the cost of hardworking American families. Reporting from 2023 found that New York City grappled with the challenge of incorporating nearly 20,000 illegal alien students into its classes, while in 2024, the Denver public schools incorporated over 3,000. Miss Drogan, knowing that schools are generally unable to ask about a student's immigration status, does any consistently reliable data exist that could give us an idea of how many illegal-alien students are enrolled in our public school systems and how much it costs the American taxpayer?
Speaker 5
It's all just estimates, and I would say that that's very intentional, whether it's weaponized opaqueness or incompetence. The idea is that they don't want us to identify them to understand and be able to give accurate numbers on how many, where they are, what the impact is, not just the cost, but the socioeconomic impact of entire communities. Again, we I was listening to mister McClintock talk about a mother talking about she wanted to get her kids away from gangs. There are gangs in Houston schools. Trendee Aragua is in his Houston school.
This has been proven. So to say that we can give an accurate number, we can use Census Bureau data. We can use different entities to try and extrapolate from customs and immigration or other services. But the truth is we don't know, and that is
Speaker 12
Very intentional, particularly by the Obama administration's dear colleague letter in 2011. Well, then, mister O'Brien, wouldn't you say that the same is true for crime statistics? Isn't that intentional to ignore the immigration status of many people who commit crimes in order to cover up the fact that, in fact, illegal aliens do commit crimes at a higher rate than native born?
Speaker 6
Yes. That is 100% correct. And you also have to take into account that any illegal alien is by definition a criminal because they have violated 8 USC 1325 improper entry by an alien, and so they've committed a crime to enter the United States. Okay.
Speaker 12
If the data is not there and verification is not an option, are there adequate safeguards at the state and local level to monitor and mitigate misuse of taxpayer funding, including issues such as residency or enrollment fraud? No. Not anyone can track it accurately. We simply do not have the data. What reforms, if any, have been taken at the state and local levels, particularly over the course of the Biden-Harris border crisis?
Has there been any?
Speaker 12
Tennessee has passed a law through the house asking to be able to track this data. Alright. And, again, miss Drogan, given that the national average cost of educating a single student exceeds $16,000, how have state and local governments accounted for spikes in enrollment stemming from unchecked illegal immigration?
Speaker 5
It's crushing. The debt in Texas is growing from, not just what we're spending at the state level, but we also have to recognize that our bond debt, we have $234,200,000,000 of bond debt. This brings a massive amount of debt from our taxpayers, and we cannot identify who they are, where they are going, and the impact on Texans as a whole.
Speaker 12
So have essential services programs or facility improvements been reduced or delayed due to the enrollment burden that Plyler v. Doe imposes on our nation's schools?
Speaker 5
I think that's a very accurate statement that there are students that are not getting the services, American students, whether they're special education students or in other classifications that are not getting the services because we are having to redirect student funding to pay for English second language teachers, tutors, all sorts of this. But, also, as I noted in my testimony, there's a whole host of other problems, not just chronic absenteeism. But you look at the medical results, the mental health problems. When you have these students that are coming in and they have severe mental health problems due to traumatic events, whether it's rape or violence that they've experienced, this takes other resources out of the school system.
Speaker 12
K. Well, I thank you for the testimony. I have many other questions. But I also want to, at this point, ask unanimous consent to introduce an article entitled illegal immigrant student accused of groping girls in Northern Virginia high school related to an adult student who lied about his age so that he could enroll in high school. I also would like to object.
Unanimous consent for an article. Vance reveals 19,000,000,000 dollars in fraud uncovered in Minneapolis and hints that California is the next target.
Speaker 12
Clearly erasing any financial benefits that illegals may provide in this country. Thank you, and I yield back.
Speaker 1
I thank the general lady from Wyoming. I will now recognize the general lady from Washington.
Speaker 14
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to start just by saying there are no illegal children. I think it's a very cruel thing to say about children. There is an illegal war on Iran happening right now that's already cost taxpayers $16,000,000,000. There is an illegal cover-up of the Epstein files that is happening right now.
There is an illegal corruption by the Trump administration officials like Christie Nome in directing government contracts to family members. Those are all illegal. But it's important that we don't say that there are illegal children. That is a very cruel and hurtful statement to make. Republicans would have the American people blame immigrants for all their problems, but it's not immigrants who are making it harder to feed the families.
Republicans did that by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It's not immigrants who are raising the cost of health care for children. Republicans did that by cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from the children's health insurance program, and it's not immigrants who are hurting the quality of our public education. Republicans are now trying to do that by overturning the Supreme Court's historic decision in Plyler v Doe. That decision established that undocumented students are protected by the Fourteenth Amendment against discriminatory state laws that deny them equal access to public education.
And Justice William Brennan said it best when he said, these students, quote, live within the structure of our civic institutions and contribute to the progress of our nation. Mister Sayens, a lot of these discussions end up dehumanizing immigrants, and I wanted you to humanize these students for us. Who are they? Bring them into the room with us. Tell them who they are, how they've contributed to the progress of our nation.
Speaker 8
First of all, they're the older brothers and sisters of US citizens. And then when they complete their education, go on to higher education, and adjust their status and remain here permanently, they are the US citizen fathers and mothers of United States citizens today. When you talk about a decision that goes back 44 years, we have a long history of folks who were able to attend school because of Plylar, because they were in Texas or another state that might have adopted that policy, and who have succeeded beyond anyone's dreams, making contributions to our economy, to our society, and even to government.
Speaker 14
And you mentioned during COVID, I want to bring another example from my home state. It's all Santiago Pastrana grew up going to public schools near Seattle, where she had teachers who mentored her and inspired her to attend the University of Washington. As a DACA recipient, now a naturalized US citizen, you talked about this progression in some of your answers. She has decided to give back to her community by working at an immigration law firm for a decade and at the state attorney general civil rights division. And the whole discussion reminds me of the debate that we keep having in this committee around birthright citizenship, another clear protection of the Fourteenth Amendment that Republicans continue to attack. This subcommittee held a hearing last year, and one of the witnesses testified that eliminating birthright citizenship would, quote, create a permanent underclass, a caste system which was the very result that the Reconstruction Congress intended to end, end quote.
Mister Scions, would removing students like Itzel from the classroom also create a permanent underclass?
Speaker 8
It would, and the majority in Plyler v. Doe recognize that. And creating such a permanent underclass would have immediate negative repercussions for the public school system. As I was outlining, you will lose students in the schools, not just the undocumented students. And it has long-term consequences, of course, for all of society. When you have a permanent underclass, they are deprived of any ability to contribute in the way that DACA recipients, and others have continued to contribute as doctors, as lawyers in important professions and positions throughout society.
Speaker 14
What about the impact on US citizen children? What's the impact in the classroom likely to be?
Speaker 8
It actually improves their education because they're exposed to other cultures. They're exposed to other experiences.
Speaker 8
The opposite. Lose all of that. They lose all of that. Their only encounters with those students would be out in the streets. That's not likely to be a very positive encounter on either side.
We're talking about enhancing public education by continuing to follow a 44-year-old decision or bringing public education to an end as we know it.
Speaker 14
In addition to taking away benefits in the classroom, what are the broader consequences for the American economy? You sort of referred to this if Tyler was overturned, and students like Itzel were denied equal access to education.
Speaker 8
Our economy would take a huge hit. I mean, there's no denying that people who are allowed to have an education are able to contribute more to our society through tax payments and through their contributions on the job. If you take away even the basic education that folks need, their ability to contribute will be rendered almost a nullity.
Speaker 14
I think this is such an important conversation that you're bringing to the table. I thank you. Mister chairman, I yield back, but I do have some unanimous consent requests to enter.
Speaker 14
First one is granting this is from New America. Granting undocumented students access to public education delivers $633,000,000,000 return on investment.
Speaker 14
Next one is from Brookings. Are immigrant students disproportionately consuming educational resources? And I would just say that the conclusion is absolutely not.
Speaker 14
Next one is from NPR. Immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than US-born Americans. Studies find.
Speaker 14
Next one is from the Cato Institute with similar conclusions, illegal immigration and crime in Texas.
Speaker 14
And the last one is from the National Institute of Justice entitled undocumented immigrant offending rate lower than US-born citizen rate.
Speaker 1
Without objection, I thank the gentlelady from Washington. Recognize the gentleman from North Carolina for five minutes.
Speaker 15
Thank you, mister chairman, and thanks to all of you on the panel today. Let me jump into this. Mister Rogers, you touched on something, I think when representative McClintock was speaking, and you had mentioned in your written testimony that caught my attention, that the 2022 Dobbs decision at the Supreme Court set the framework for overturning Pliler versus Doe. And, I just wanna give you a few moments to kinda dive a little deeper into that and explain why you believe this to be the case.
Speaker 7
Sure. Thank you. The Dobbs decision set up five standards for whether a prior precedent should be overruled. The first one was, whether the, excuse me, whether the nature of the court's error. And if it's an egregious error, that weighs in favor of overruling.
As I talked about, the court applied the wrong standards for the equal protection clause. The second is the quality of the reasoning. And if you actually read the decision, it's very bare. It just basically says, this is good policy. It doesn't give actual legal reasoning.
The third is workability. It's whether it's a standard that can be applied by the courts. And the standard the court invented, no one's been able to define or understand what it means. The fourth is its effect on other areas of law. And as we've heard, this decision has affected how states can implement their own education policy.
We heard some testimony about how states haven't adopted Plyler type laws like the one they issue in Texas because it's good policy. If it were good policy, then we wouldn't hear people concerned about parlor being overruled. But the fact that they're so concerned means they know that states would adopt it if they didn't have this restriction. And then the last is reliance interest, whether companies or whether individuals have financial reliance interest on the rule. And there's no financial interest of the type of, like, contract interest here.
So all five rules weigh against Plyler being upheld.
Speaker 15
Excellent. Thank you, sir. And mister O'Brien, can you explain how the Supreme Court and Plyler acted like the legislative branch rather than the judicial branch?
Speaker 6
Sure. The function of a court is to apply the law as written. In this particular case, there really was no constitutional issue before the court, based on the court's own reasoning. The court found that illegal aliens was not a suspect class. The court also found that a free public education is not a fundamental right.
Therefore, it's arguable that there was no constitutional issue whatsoever in front of the court because, by definition, if illegal aliens are not a suspect class, then the state of Texas was not discriminating against anyone. But for whatever reason, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari and went forward with it, and then they completely ignored the relevant standards, and they ruled entirely on policy grounds. Now the consideration of policy under our constitutional framework belongs to the Congress of the United States. It does not belong to the court. The courts apply the law based on canons of statutory construction and other legal principles.
But policy calls belong to Congress.
Speaker 15
So you would say the court should not be able to require free education for the children of illegal immigrants?
Speaker 6
No. Not by any stretch of the imagination. That is a decision that if Congress wished to make, it probably could have, but it in no way fell within the purview of the court.
Speaker 15
Thank you, sir. And mister Rogers, coming back, as I understand, the Plyler versus Doe, the state of Texas argued the legal alien children imposed a burden on the state's education system. The court, in a decision, rejected such a claim. Here we are, forty years later, where there's a lot more data to underscore that point. Can you explain the burden that the massive influx of illegal aliens places on the state's public education systems?
Speaker 7
As we've heard, they impose a tremendous burden because most of them arrive not speaking English. They require special services, which means that American citizen children can't get those services because there's limited resources. An interesting example of the policy decision about this is, if a temporary immigrant arrives with a tourist visa, they're actually required to pay tuition under law, under federal law right now. They have to pay tuition for their kids, yet illegal aliens who are also here temporarily don't have to, which is tremendously unfair that they're treated differently given special privileges.
Speaker 1
I thank the gentleman from North Carolina. Mister Rogers, your last thirty seconds here, it is your considered judgment that there are states right now taking actions to start to pass laws to say that they should not have to fund education for illegal alien children and that they should move it the way through the courts, and that the court should take it up. Is that correct?
Speaker 1
Thanks, Mr. Rogers. I will now recognize the gentle lady from Vermont for five minutes.
Speaker 17
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm a former middle school teacher, which I always say is the perfect preparation for this place. I know the incredible value and importance of public education, and to say that the children of immigrants are not entitled to learn and grow in public schools is an extreme position. We're talking about children. This is a fundamental question of decency and who we claim to be as Americans.
I wanna echo the comments of my colleague, Miss Jayapal, who said there are no illegal children, and we should not be referring to them in this way. And how has this administration treated children and families so far? Well, it has cut early childhood education. It has cut children's health care. It has cut child nutrition programs.
It has cut infant formula inspection. It has cut research for vaccines. They even eliminated funding for children's television programs on PBS. This is not an administration that is looking out for children and families. As I said, I'm a former teacher, and I'm a parent.
And I know how hard it is being a kid and a teen in this country today. Our kids carry the real fear of gun violence in their schools. They carry the real anxiety of unaddressed climate change. They have to navigate social media landscapes that exacerbate the crisis of loneliness and disconnection. And for the children of immigrants, they have to deal with all this on top of the fear that they're experiencing right now, as there are targeted raids happening in communities across this country.
And just last week in Vermont, masked agents decided to create chaos and a dangerous situation near two schools. And I heard from parents about how frightened they were to drop their kids off at school and to pick them up at the end of the day. The actions cause fear and concern among this community in Vermont, and that kind of anxiety is going to live with those children and those families for a lifetime. Mister Sayenz, can you describe the level of fear and anxiety affecting immigrant communities in the US today?
Speaker 8
It's extreme, and it's extreme because of what you have described. But it starts with the undifferentiated immigration enforcement that is happening across the country, targeted at certain states, but across the country, and accomplished through masked agents who do not wear identification that their law enforcement at all. This is not what kids have been taught should occur in this country. So it occasions great anxiety, and studies have begun to document higher degrees of absenteeism because of it. But you add to it the challenges that you've also outlined.
When you take away adequate nutrition, you take away adequate health care, you take away adequate housing, then those are the things that kids have anxiety about. Is my family going to have a place to stay tomorrow night? Am I gonna get a meal tonight? Am I gonna get the health care that I need? On top of that, if they actually have a health care need that they're not getting, they'll be absent from school.
But all the kids who are in school are preoccupied by that kind of consideration, and it leads to their inability to concentrate, as I'm sure you saw.
Speaker 8
Sometimes for all kinds of reasons in middle school, but this just adds to it, and it makes them ill-equipped to really take advantage of the education while they're sitting in the classroom. So all of it accumulates.
Speaker 17
And I just wanna make sure I highlight something here. It's not just immigrant children. That's right. It is any family that is a family of color in this administration, because we have seen that ICE enforcement is concentrating on people who have a different color of the skin and a different accent. They have widened the search.
It's creating lots of harm in our communities. And so when you think about a child's immigrant status and if it can be used as a means to deny immigrant children an education, where does this end? What is the logical conclusion for this in terms of equal access to public, you know, to public education? Where will it end? What other groups will be excluded from this?
Speaker 8
Well, you have to assume that the theory that there's no rational basis that would strike down the Texas law means that there is no rational basis standard to strike down excluding disabled kids from school. They're also expensive. Their education is more expensive. So you can imagine that they would be the next target. And beyond that, you can single out any group of students, because education is not a fundamental right.
And under the theory being put forward today, there would be no basis to challenge any decision on equal protection grounds that excludes any group of students. So you can imagine a society split between those who are allowed to receive a free public education, and a large and growing group that are denied that opportunity.
Speaker 17
I agree with you. And I stand with students. I stand with their families. I stand against the fear that is being created. And if we want a better world, which I think we all do, I think we can come together on that on this committee, then we have to support and protect young people in this country, not attack them.
Thank you so much, and I yield back.
Speaker 1
I thank the gentleman from Vermont. Before I recognize my friend from Texas, I have a couple of unanimous-consent requests. Ask unanimous consent to put in the record an article by Fair demonstrating the data showing illegal aliens have higher crime rates. Without objection, a CIS report showing misuse of Texas data understates illegal immigrant criminality. Without objection, I would also put in a report by Affairs showing that there were approximately, respectfully, 16,000 illegal aliens in Vermont compared to 2,700,000 illegal aliens in the state of Texas, in a report demonstrating state-by-state data.
And with that, I would recognize my friend from Texas, Mr. Gil.
Speaker 10
Thank you, mister chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing and for fighting so hard against destructive mass migration. And thank you to the witnesses for taking the time to be here. Mister Sands, if somebody crosses the border illegally, what should happen to them?
Speaker 8
Federal law indicates that there are steps that can be taken to remove them. Now that can happen at the border. So they should be, it can happen when they are integrated into society. There are protections once you're integrated in society, especially depending on how.
Speaker 10
We find them crossing into the country illegally, they should be deported, to put it simply. Is that right?
Speaker 8
Someone does not have a right to enter, yes, there is a right under federal law to interdict them and prevent them from entering. Right. That's been a basic element of immigration law for a very long time. I agree. Including during Plyler.
Speaker 10
I agree. Do you believe that American tax dollars should be used to rehabilitate criminal and legal aliens within our own borders?
Speaker 8
I believe it's in our own interest to rehabilitate anyone who commits a crime.
Speaker 8
Borders, it's to the benefit of all of us to rehabilitate them. Rehabilitation of those convicted criminals is not for their own benefit. It's for the benefit of society.
Speaker 8
rehabilitate? Again, anyone who commits a crime and is convicted should be rehabilitated. There's no limit. Benefit of the entire.
Speaker 10
An illegal alien comes into our country. Murders or rape somebody, we ought to rehabilitate them, is your view? And there's no limit to the number of illegal alien criminals we should rehabilitate. Is that your testimony?
Speaker 8
I wasn't asked to testify about that. Congressmember, I asked to testify about just clarifying your, I'm not sure what this has to.
Speaker 10
How much money should we spend on rehabilitating criminal and legal aliens?
Speaker 8
We should spend as much money as necessary to rebuild, rehabilitate anyone who was convicted of a crime in this country. Again, as much as let me just note. Congressmember has nothing to do with Tyler versus Doe. And these are children. These are children.
And with an education, they are far less likely. Getting there, and you're answering.
Speaker 10
That crimes, actually. Couldn't we just secure the border and deport illegal aliens, as opposed to rehabilitating them on our own tax dollars?
Speaker 8
So that's too facile, congress member. And I think you should understand that. The simple fact is society benefits from rehabilitation. It's not a gift to anyone who's convicted for a.
Speaker 10
Civil, it sounds like. Do you believe that there should be a strict wall of separation between local law enforcement and immigration officials?
Speaker 10
I do. There should be a strict wall to be clear. A strict wall of separation.
Speaker 8
All laws are strict. I'm not aware of Congress or any legislature passing a lenient law.
Speaker 10
A wall of separation between local law enforcement and immigration officials.
Speaker 8
A wall of separation. Okay. Yes, congress member. Yes. Again, I do believe there should be a law of separation.
And if you want to describe that law metaphorically as a wall, okay. I would accept that.
Speaker 10
Okay. I was using your words where you said there should be a strict wall of no cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration authorities. That's something that you'd said in an interview with NPR in November 2016. So police arrest.
Speaker 8
I've just acknowledged that. So not so if police arrest putting myself to myself. I'm sure that you, I'm asking, knife off the asking questions.
Speaker 10
Here, not you. If police arrest an illegal alien for breaking into somebody's home in the middle of the night, should they turn that illegal alien over to immigration officials?
Speaker 8
So, Plyler versus Doe guarantees an education. And as a result, that means that those kids who receive that education are far less likely to break into anyone's home, Congressman.
Speaker 10
But I'm asking, let's say they do. Should they be turned over to the immigration officials?
Speaker 8
It's just that you're no. No. They should be put through the criminal law system that we have.
Speaker 10
What about after serving, let's say they're convicted and they serve a sentence. And this is a criminal and a legal alien. They broke into somebody's home. They're convicted. They serve, let's say, a five year sentence.
Instead of releasing them onto the street, should local law enforcement or prison officials really give them over to immigration officials?
Speaker 8
There are too many repercussions of a policy like that. You're putting it in the context of a single instance?
Speaker 8
That's not clear, sir. Please don't put words in my mouth. Should Americans have my words from NPR? What I say here, you don't need to put words in my mouth.
Speaker 10
I'm the one who's asking questions here. Should American taxpayers pay for Social Security for illegal aliens? It's a yes or no question. I think the answer is no.
Speaker 8
It's a massive question. Doesn't happen. We don't, I'm asking you if benefits.
Speaker 10
that you think that should happen, and I'm asking you if you think it should happen.
Speaker 8
I don't believe that that's a question when it doesn't happen. It's misleading to suggest it does. No one who's on file. It's a really basic question. You don't.
Speaker 10
Want to answer it because you've got a crazy radical open borders agenda that we can all see. Thank you, Mr. Kurt.
Speaker 1
I thank the gentleman from Texas for his questions, and I'll now recognize the ranking member for use the request.
Speaker 2
Yes. Thank you. I ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an article written by Alexandra Villarreal, published by The Guardian 01/23/2026. These are kids not going to school. Fear of ISIS keeping children from classes in Connecticut.
Speaker 2
Also, ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an article written by Bright Brie Hatch and published by Chalk Beat, Tennessee on 10/28/2025 titled, in increasingly Hispanic Memphis schools, immigration enforcement surge brings fear and absence.
Speaker 2
Ask unanimous consent to enter into the record an article written by Kate Paine, Bianca Vasquez Tonis, and Gisela Salmon, published by NBC News 11/17/2025. Entitled immigrant student enrollment is dwindling its stools across the US amid.
Speaker 2
Ask unanimous consent to enter into an article written by Justine McDaniel and Maria Luisa Paul published by The Washington Post 11/24/2023 titled, in cities targeted by ice, empty desks, and dish.
Speaker 2
Follow. CQC to enter into the record an article written by Daniela Silva and Natasha Kareki published by NBC News on 10/14/2025 entitled Chicago teachers say immigration enforcement near schools is scaring kids and
Speaker 2
In class. Finally, I ask unanimous consent to enter in the record an article written by Mara Klecker and Anthony Lontree published by the Minnesota Star Tribune, 01/15/2026, titled Attendance Drops at Minnesota Schools as Federal Immigration Enforcement in Test Intensified.
Speaker 16
Thank you, Mr. Chair. You know, I just have to say that, many of us travel around the world. And in my travels, I remain in awe at how educated so many children are in other countries. They are bilingual. They are trilingual.
They are culturally proficient and aware. It is amazing. And it is so disturbing that it seems like my Republican colleagues in this committee are interested in a, dehumanizing other children and, b, advocating for our children to be unprepared for this world. At one point, you know, the languages that folks were hearing in the schools were Welsh, Irish, Polish, German, and Italian. And now we want to shift that to children of color, as we continue to find ways to isolate ourselves and dehumanize children.
So, Synes, folks do like to talk about the money, so let's get into the money. There was a FWD report called the power of piler that estimates that adult Californians who benefited from piler have contributed $655,000,000,000 in combined past and future GDP over their lifetime. So can you quickly walk the committee through what that number looks like on the ground?
Speaker 8
What it means is we have contributing members of our society who are doctors, who are teachers. Many formerly undocumented students end up in the education profession, in the health care profession. They are making contributions in business, in some cases, in C-suite positions. It means that we have the opportunity to translate that investment in education into the GDP that that report you cited talks about.
Speaker 16
Right. And the report actually shows a net fiscal gain of $145,000,000,000 in California alone. So that's income tax revenue over lifetimes, minus the cost of educating those children. So for those who claim we can't afford Tyler, how do you respond to the argument that we actually can't afford to lose it?
Speaker 8
I think it's absolutely clear because we'll have immediate repercussions in our public schools, really seeing a further diminution in their ability to deliver an education to anyone. But in the long term, we'll lose all of that additional revenue and economic contributions, and the things that you can't even quantify in money. The innovations, the inventions, the new ideas, the inspired leadership provided by formerly undocumented immigrants in our society.
Speaker 16
And sort of, like, connectivity to humanity. So if Tyler is overturned, California stands to lose $99,000,000,000 in future economic output just from children currently in school in 2023. What does that trajectory look like nationally in your professional assessment?
Speaker 8
Well, you can extend it out further because if Plyler is overturned, a number of states will begin to attempt to deny an education to kids. I ultimately think they would reverse, as they see their public schools fall apart because of the exclusion of a certain class of students. But over time, you're talking about trillions of contributions to the economy, including revenue from a population that is permanently going to be in this country. So the contrast is a permanent underclass incapable of providing any kind of serious contribution to either tax revenues, the economy, or to the many other elements of social connection that we've talked about.
Speaker 16
Thank you. And to Mister O'Brien, your organization advocates for restricting PILOR, but the record here shows that the core argument you make that educating these children is a cost to taxpayers simply doesn't hold up. The data shows tax revenue from undocumented workers alone covers the cost of educating these children more than 9 times over. So am I correct in saying that you believe that the hundreds of billions of dollars in economic contributions from PILOR beneficiaries, including over $600,000,000 in California alone, were not worth the investment? I don't believe that those contributions were made.
I believe that the data upon which those claims are based is erroneous, and that there is a cost imposed by Plyler. Okay. So you don't like the data when it doesn't say what you want it to say. So I'm gonna stay with the numbers in the report and the numbers that are here. Fair has argued that educating undocumented children is a cost for taxpayers.
The data in front of us shows a net fiscal gain of $145,000,000,000 in California, $43,000,000,000 in New York, $20,000,000,000 in Arizona, $93,000,000,000 in Texas, $42,000,000,000 in Florida, $21,000,000,000 in Washington. So I think once again we should be talking about why we cannot afford to lose Pyler, not why it is so important to keep all of these economic gains. And, mister chair, I just wanna enter into the record. I'd like to ask unanimous consent to enter into the record the report forward .us report, the power of Pyler.
Speaker 1
Thanks, gentlemen, from California. And I will now recognize the chairman of the committee, mister Jordan.
Speaker 4
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mister Rogers, any idea what percentage of the United States population lives in a sanctuary jurisdiction?
Speaker 7
That's a good question. I don't have that number, but it's far too high. It should be zero.
Speaker 4
Yeah. It should be zero, but it's like 31.5%. 18 cities, 11 states, 3 counties in the District of Columbia. Because these are big blue cities, big blue states, again, almost a third of the population lives in a jurisdiction where, and correct me if I'm wrong, but where local left wing political leaders tell local law enforcement not to work with federal law enforcement when it comes to enforcing federal law. Is that your understanding of sanctuary jurisdiction?
Speaker 4
a different deal. But in a third of the country, that goes on. And last year alone, we just marked this bill up two weeks ago. Last year alone, 2025, seventeen thousand eight hundred and sixty-four times, ICE would file a detainer with a local law, with local jail, local detention center where there's a person who's in the country illegally and been charged with a crime. And ICE would send a detainer notice saying, hey.
You're gonna let this guy out. Give us a call. And 17,864 times in 2025, local law enforcement, because left-wing politicians told him to, would not work with federal law enforcement and really many times release these people to the streets. Again, I'd ask you, is that a crazy policy or what?
Speaker 7
It's absolutely crazy, and it's totally counterproductive for everybody. The illegal immigrants and legal immigrants who live in those communities.
Speaker 4
And would you be surprised to learn that several of those people who were released then went out and caused harm, did some crime against some other American, maybe some other migrant? Who knows? But committed some crime after they've been released, when they could have been turned over to federal law enforcement.
Speaker 7
It's not surprising. It's totally predictable, and it's a tragedy for each of those people.
Speaker 4
Totally predictable. Mister Sines, would you say that's a good policy or a bad policy? Which policy? Policy, sanctuary, jurisdiction.
Speaker 4
Good policy to let 17,000 people out, potentially 17,000 people not on a detainer, and let some of those people release to the streets who'd already been charged with the crime, and then they commit another crime. And you're saying that's a good policy.
Speaker 8
That's your characterization of how that works out. It's an inaccurate characterization. No. I'm sorry. It's inaccurate.
Speaker 4
131% of the 31% of the population lives in a sanctuary jurisdiction. Is that inaccurate?
Speaker 4
So that's not inaccurate. What about this? 17,864 times a detainer was not honored last year by local law enforcement when ICE issued a detainer.
Speaker 8
Again, I have no idea, Congressman. I came here to talk about Plyler versus Doe, and I can absolutely guarantee you there has never been a detainer issued against a student enrolled in public education.
Speaker 4
Have any answer to your questions about Pyler and about his racist policy related to this police, unrelated to that.
Speaker 1
Let's suspend. It is the gentleman's time to ask the questions. The one who's gonna respond to the questions, we're not gonna talk over each other.
Speaker 4
Mister Ryan, to get to Plyler, there's a cost associated with this, right, with this decision. There is. Significant. I mean, I think the court said way back in 1982, the number of illegal aliens in public schools was small, and there was, quote, no evidence in the record suggesting that illegal entrance oppose any significant burning or burden on the state's economy. That was the ruling back in '82, but things have changed a little bit since then, haven't they?
Speaker 6
They've changed drastically. And the estimated combined cost to the taxpayers, federal, state, and local is somewhere in
Speaker 4
the neighborhood of 80,000,000,000 with a b. And it was particularly exacerbated the previous four years in the last administration. Is that accurate?
Speaker 4
Eight to 10,000,000 people coming into the country in a four-year time frame. Many of those were students. I remember the Biden administration lost track of hundreds of thousands of those students. Is that right?
Speaker 4
So there's certainly a cost associated with that. That's what this hearing is about as well. Yeah. Let me ask one other question here, and then maybe I'll yield a few seconds to my good friend from Texas. Is Thomas Paine an undocumented immigrant or a founding father, Mr. Rogers?
I'm just curious.
Speaker 6
A citizen of the UK who went to another territory of the UK, so it was like moving from Massachusetts to New Hampshire.
Speaker 4
Yeah. Yeah. Miss Rogan, I just was curious if he thought he was an undocumented immigrant or a founding father.
Speaker 8
I'd say the terms don't apply back to when Tom Paine was alive. So it is true he was undocumented. But that really wasn't a category. Of any concern.
Speaker 4
Alright. God bless you. I will, you'll well, sorry, mister Gil. I ran out of time.
Speaker 1
I appreciate the chairman. I will not recognize the ranking member for a UC request.
Speaker 1
If you especially, go hold on. Hold on. I'm gonna recognize the ranking member for UC.
Speaker 4
And, mister Goldman, I do have to do an interview. That's I was like, I do.
Speaker 20
I have one question for you. Yes. Let's hear it. Of the 17,000 and however many.
Speaker 20
Yep. How many of those people had completed a criminal conviction and completed their sentence?
Speaker 4
I don't know that number. I know there's a detainer filed at the local detention center or jail, and it was not honored. And some of those individuals were released, and we know some of them committed crimes.
Speaker 20
Right. And the problem is you can go. That's fine. But the problem with you constantly making this argument about sanctuary cities is that these are charged defendants. And as President Trump knows very well, we live in a country that has due process, where you are innocent until proven guilty.
And if the grounds for which an individual is to be deported is based on that criminal charge, we do not deport people based on charges. We deport people based on convictions. And so if you wanna talk about the sanctuary laws, let's talk about what the issues that you are raising are. And mister Rogers, you mister Jordan asked whether or not the sanctuary laws prohibit state or local law enforcement from cooperating with federal law enforcement. The problem is these are criminal law enforcement agencies on the state and local level, and immigration is a civil law enforcement.
So we can imagine a scenario, of course, where the civil immigration enforcement completely overwhelms all of the resources of the local police and the local criminal law enforcement. That is the reason why sanctuary city laws apply, is that so the police can actually focus on crime, not on federal civil immigration. But as Mister Sayan says, we are here to talk about children, children that this administration continues to attack. This administration has increased the fees for any unaccompanied child to apply for a visa. Where is that unaccompanied child supposed to get money from?
This administration has canceled contracts for legal representation of children. This administration has consistently and my Republicans have consistently attacked children who may be transgender and affect no one else. This administration is waging a war on children. Leave children alone. And the bigger point is what you haven't touched on is all the expenses that these undocumented children take up in their public education.
Well, Mister McClintock says they're benefiting from taxpayer benefits. Well, guess what? Undocumented immigrants are taxpayers. In fact, the amount of money that we get from taxes paid by undocumented immigrants is nine times as much money as is paid for their education. And in fact, studies show that $633,000,000,000 in local and state tax revenues exceed whatever the education costs are.
It increases our GDP by nearly $3,000,000,000,000. Why don't we stop terrorizing immigrant communities, shooting Americans, ripping Americans out of cars, arresting people at courthouses who are trying to lawfully apply for asylum? Why don't we have a bill and a hearing on that, rather than continue to attack children who are brought here without any ability to make the decision themselves? And yet you want them to, what, stay home, sit at home when their parents decide to come here rather than get an education, contribute to our society, which the overwhelming majority do? Yes.
I'm sure you can pick out one or two or five or 10 or 20 people who are released and commit a crime, but that shouldn't happen. And if they do commit a crime, they should be deported. I disagree with mister Cyan on that. But that's not what is happening here. So just stop attacking children.
I yield back. Recognize the ranking member for a unanimous consent request.
Speaker 2
Thank you. First up, I would introduce an article, published by the nineteenth, dated 01/06/2026. Five years after January 6, dozens of pardoned insurrectionists have been arrested again.
Speaker 2
I also have a statement of professor Patrick Wolfe, highlighting how our founding fathers stress the importance of educating immigrant children. Patrick Wolfe, distinguished professor of education policy and twenty-first-century endowed chair at the University of Arkansas.
Speaker 2
The UC request to enter in the record a statement arguing keeping children in school protects public safety, strengthens our economy, and upholds our country's education. That's Professor Gerard Robinson at the University of Virginia. Another one from NYU professor Sofia Rodriguez, that dismantling Plyler would harm children of US citizens and all children in US schools.
Speaker 2
Also have unanimous consent to enter into the record statements from the following organizations, all for ed on behalf of 109 civil rights organizations?
Speaker 2
Okay. The Center for Law and Social Policy, the Century Foundation, the National Youth Law Center, the National Education Law Center, and the a I'm sorry. First, focus on Children and the AFL CIO.
Speaker 1
Thank you, gentlelady. I will now recognize the gentleman from Wisconsin for five minutes.
Speaker 18
Thank you. First of all, I like the thing missus Drogon for bringing up, one of the great horrors our country was involved in over the last few years. And that is a huge number of sexual assaults which took place by leaving the border open. I went down to the border maybe seven or eight times, and I talked to the doctors who interviewed the women, kinda debriefed the women when they got to this country. And the fact that the Biden administration allowed this open border policy, complete with, by the time it was over, it must have been hundreds of thousands of sexual assaults.
It's really one of the low points in this country's history, and I wish we had more Democrats at the time who were able to look out for the women. I'll also point out that there are bogus studies out there claiming that these illegal immigrants are not committing many crimes. The only way they're able to come up with such a ridiculous conclusion is you look at we do not keep track of whether legal or illegal citizens are committing crimes. If I go into a federal prison, which is near my district, and ask how many of the inmates here are legal immigrants, they would say, we have no idea. Same thing if I talk about a county jail.
So given that most of these illegals are not classified as legals when they're in prison, that's how you get this bogus situation. I also, but I'm gonna ask Mister Rogers a question. I did not even know this response to Mister Harrison's question. As far as who pays for people's public education, if somebody is a legal immigrant here or illegal immigrant, do we treat them differently?
Speaker 7
Yes. We do. So, for example, if a family were to come on a tourist visa, DHS would let them in for six months, and they can often extend for another six months. If a family stayed here for a year under their tourist visas and enrolled their kids in public school, under the law, they would be required to pay the cost of that education here as temporary visitors, whereas the illegal emergency under Pilar are not.
Speaker 18
That's just insane. Of course, the idea that we, one more time, treat people who come here illegally better than we treat people who come here legally. Now, missus I guess I could ask any one of you a question, but I'll start with miss Drogon. We obviously have way too many illegal immigrants in this country, and we have to do something to discourage everybody from coming here. What effect does allowing people into our public schools for free have on the temptation to come here illegally?
Speaker 5
I think it's a significant temptation, and we hear this all the time. You talked about the mothers that you've met whose children were abused and themselves abused on their journey up here. They are driven by the promise of educating their children. We hear this time and time again. So they are told if you get here, then your children can be enrolled in the schools.
And so that is what we are seeing occur all across the country. But Texas really is where many of them are entering at First Point, and they're finding locations, and this is why we talk about the growing chairman Roy talked about how you have districts that started with a couple, a dozen kids, and they've grown to hundreds. There's communication, and they are bringing their children here to seek a free public education.
Speaker 18
It's interesting. I don't know the answer to this question, but I'll just see if you wanna guess. We have a policy of giving apparently a free education to people who come here illegally. We also have a policy of giving free health care to people coming here illegally, which is the dumber policy, which is the one resulting in more people coming here who shouldn't be here. The free health care for all policy, more than the average American gets, or the free education policy.
And then you wanna guess why?
Speaker 7
I would say it's probably a toss-up. I did spend two years as a consular officer doing these interviews in Brazil, and I personally saw people brag about how they could get free health care when they stayed here illegally. So it definitely is a draw.
Speaker 18
Right. I did hear when I was down talking to the border patrol, you know, dialysis treatment for free. Time to get my free dialysis. Come to America. Right.
Next question. We have this idea that there's a racial element to what we're doing among people who come here naturalized. And every year, about 800,000 people are naturalized legally in this country, something like six times the number when I was a child. Does anybody have any guess which countries, when it comes to letting people in this country or becoming citizens legally, which country they're from? I'm under the impression that if you go to 10 countries that send the most new people here, none of them are European nations.
The idea that we are a racist country is just a horrible slander against our country, and it makes one wonder about the motivation of people who do it. But thank.
Speaker 1
thank you very much. Thank you, gentlemen from Wisconsin. Thank you for your questions. And I will now recognize my friend from Missouri, Mister Hunter.
Speaker 19
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Plyler v. Doe is a clear example of judicial overreach with lasting consequences. What began as a narrow Texas funding law was transformed by the court into a nationwide mandate requiring states to provide free K through 12 education to illegal aliens. As doctor O'Brien and mister Rogers testified, this was not a constitutional interpretation. This was judicial legislation.
In doing so, the court intruded on Congress's exclusive authority over immigration and imposed significant ongoing costs to taxpayers. When unelected judges create policies of this scale, voters and their elected representatives are left without a meaningful voice in the decisions that directly affect their schools and their children's education. As the Dobbs framework actually offers a clear outline for reconsidering Plyler, as Mister Rogers pointed out, Plyler fails all five Dobbs factors for reconsidering precedent because it was egregiously wrong from the outset. And as Miss Drogan testified, Plyler's downstream effects extend beyond illegal alien students. Schools are forced to operate without critical information about student populations and are unable to collect immigration status data that would inform resource allocation.
It's time for Congress to reclaim its constitutional role and end this era of immigration policy dictated by unelected judges. Taxpayers are tired of bearing the financial burden of judicial mandates, and states need to be empowered to allocate resources based on their unique needs and the needs of all American students. Miss Drogon, it seems to me ironic that my Democrat colleagues are somehow claiming that Democrats are standing up for these children who enter the country illegally. 300,000 unaccompanied minor children entered this country under the Biden-Harris administration, while Democrats in Congress cheered them on. Many of those kids were lost.
In fact, the Biden administration lost at least 85,000 children. And some of these children were released to guardians at an address that didn't exist or dozens of them list to, you know, uncle Jose at the same address. Many of those kids are undoubtedly being trafficked to this day. Many are probably dead. What do you say to this?
The idea that somehow, you know, the Trump administration or we Republicans in Congress are sometimes somehow being cruel to illegal aliens.
Speaker 5
It's incredibly cruel to lure children and parents to the United States to send them through violent situations with coyotes that rape them, harm them, other violence, and then put
Speaker 19
Women and children are raped by coyotes, and my Democrat colleagues encourage this. And the Biden Harris administration encouraged this.
Speaker 5
Yes. The policies that encourage families to come over here with the promise of a better life or freebies, if you will, do encourage them to go through that. And then, of course, as you noted, I think it's the Department of Homeland Security said that there were hundreds of thousands that they could not find.
Speaker 5
So, yes, this is a huge problem. And, I know that a lot of times some want to use feelings over facts. The reality is that facts are being hidden intentionally. As I mentioned in my testimony, the Obama era administration, the Department of Justice and Education worked together to send out their dear colleague letter implying just like they did with disciplinary measures and transgender ideology that you would be investigated if you did not play our pulp political game. And so, yes, that is what is happening here.
Speaker 19
Thank you. Mister Rogers, I've heard over and over again in this hearing, illegal aliens are taxpayers. Are all illegal aliens taxpayers?
Speaker 7
No. Obviously, a lot of them are paid under the table and have significant tax.
Speaker 19
The first time this ever came to my attention is when I was running for a state rep in 2006, and I started knocking on the doors of actually union. I was in a new neighborhood that was predominantly union households. And they started asking me, what are you gonna do about illegal immigration? Because in O'Fallon, Missouri, a low income housing tax credit funded project was being staffed by illegal aliens who were working off the books. The O'Fallon police department busted dozens working illegally off the books. I don't think we have any idea what the true magnitude of that is.
Speaker 7
Correct. We don't because the studies that talk about benefits cherry pick the data. Clearly, there's significant costs that aren't being accounted in those studies.
Speaker 1
I think John from Missouri, and I want to offer my apology to the ranking member. I went out of order, believing that she had already gone, as that is my fault. And she was gracious in allowing Mister Andre to continue his questions, and I will now recognize the ranking member for her five minutes.
Speaker 2
Thank you. Mister Sands, you mentioned earlier that much of the discussion we've heard today has been based upon a conflation of ideas that all students from immigrant families who require ESL are undocumented in this country. But we know that almost half of foreign-born US residents are, in fact, citizens. Another 19% are legal permanent residents who could become citizens. Another 5% are here on temporary visas, and half of the remaining, about a quarter of foreign born immigrants living in the US, have some legal status, including awaiting a determination of their asylum claims or U Visas, temporary protected status, DACA status, humanitarian relief, etcetera.
So we're actually talking about a very small number of our total immigrant population, who are, in fact, undocumented. And when we talk about the children of those folks, it becomes even smaller. As a former school board member, I am concerned about the idea that we're going to put the burden on our school districts of determining immigration status when our federal government has such a hard time determining that. And, also, the burden of remedial education that would occur if we deny basic education services to children at formative parts of their lives. Can you talk about the impact on a child's life if they are denied an education, and what that's going to mean to our communities as well?
Speaker 8
Well, first of all, I think it is important to note, as you do, that all of these programs would continue. English learner programs, remedial education programs, all the programs that are being somehow attributed to the undocumented population. Because it is so small, it would have to continue in order for public education to succeed. Indeed, the incremental cost of adding one more English learner to an English learner program is much smaller, obviously, than having to create a new program, which is not what's happening. But what happens over the course of a child and then an adult's life who does not get a basic education is they end up illiterate, in all likelihood, and the options for those who are illiterate are quite limited.
Too often, the options are ones that are against the law for many. For others, they will have to, as you've mentioned, find some way to become literate. So you would have to see some huge increase in adult literacy programs in order to create a workforce that's even capable of doing the most menial jobs. The alternative, as you know, is to ensure that every kid has an education and can go on beyond 12th grade if that's their inclination and their talent allows it to make the kinds of contributions that we've seen from so many formerly undocumented immigrants ongoing in our society today.
Speaker 2
Thank you. You touched on something that I think we all saw during the COVID crisis, that when schools closed down and kids are not in school, we saw a huge spike in gun violence and community violence that was impacting kids, either because they were unsupervised, not getting an education, or because they had too much time on their hands. Can you talk about what excluding kids from school could do to our communities? And in particular, I'm a little surprised that this pro-crime policy is something our colleagues have expressed interest in.
Speaker 8
I had the great honor of representing the plaintiffs in challenging California's proposition 187, which is the only direct attempt to contradict Plyler in the 44 years since. That was only 12 years after the decision in 1994. And what we found was police chief after police chief who would testify that what would happen when you have hundreds, thousands of kids on the street is they are likely to become the victims of crime because they're readily available. And too many of them as they age would then be fostered into becoming participants in the criminal rings that they were first victimized by, and it would result in a huge increase of crime almost immediately once you have those kids out of school. But as I've said, it multiplies over time because, ultimately, it's not just the kids who are excluded who choose not to be in school.
Their siblings, citizen younger siblings of undocumented older siblings, will follow them out of school at some point, many of them. Others are friends. Others are even acquaintances who see if they don't have to be in school, then why am I here? And that, frankly, will be accelerated by the withdrawal of all of the supports that are happening this year and next, whether that's health care, nutrition, or housing, that's gonna lead to more kids' inclinations to be out of school. So if you start with eliminating Plylar, it will multiply quickly under the current regime because of that lack of support, a huge spike in crime.
Speaker 2
If we accept the argument that immigration status can be used as a reason to deny public education, where does that logic stop?
Speaker 8
Again, it means that you are then allowing local decision makers to decide who they'd like to exclude from school. It's likely to start with those who are somehow different from the norm or are somehow more expensive in someone's views to educate, and it could lead to a serious decrease in eligibility for public education that the Supreme Court noticed in another important case, Brown v. Board of Education, is so critical to preserving our democracy and preserving our ability to thrive as a society.
Speaker 2
Thank you. And, mister chairman, I have one last, I hope, unanimous consent request. 02/06/2025, PBS article entitled Who Are the Immigrants Who Come to the US? Here's the data.
Speaker 1
you. And before I start my time, have a UC request, insert an article by Laura Reese, the Heritage Foundation. Every state should challenge Pollard v. Doe. Time to end free education for illegal alien K through 12 students without objection. And with that, I'll begin my five minutes of questioning.
And, I would note, Miss Jordan, just quickly for you, is child mutilation in the context of transgender surgeries good for children?
Speaker 1
Is child migration in which the coyotes are abusing these young girls and children good for children?
Speaker 1
Did disastrous open borders policies result in children being abused in the migration process?
Speaker 1
And, this notion of not being in the school being somehow a time when children would get in trouble or be in danger, even if you could see that potential reality, is the problem of not being in school or is the problem being here illegally?
Speaker 1
Right. This is not the condition present. So this whole question here about, well, you know, we're gonna be allowing local decision makers to make arbitrary decisions about who can be educated. Are we not talking about that it is not arbitrary? We're just saying there should be American citizens or people who are legally present in the United States.
Correct?
Speaker 1
So now all of this here, we've been talking about policy. We've heard a lot of my democratic colleagues. We've heard democratic witnesses in this hearing and others acknowledge on the record, open without shame, that local law enforcement should not cooperate with federal authorities. We've heard that here today. We've heard that illegal alien children who have committed crimes should not be turned over to ICE for dealing with their possible deportation.
We've heard that sanctuary cities for 31% of the population are good, and we've heard that there is no limit that would be accepted for how many people should come to The United States when we have 2,400,000,000 school aged children around the world. So my question here is all of that seems to be the policy positions of my democratic colleagues and those that are testifying on behalf of my democratic colleagues. But I think the question here, at the core of this, is a legal question. Right? And that I'd like to turn to mister O'Brien and mister Rogers to close is that my democratic colleagues and witnesses have said effectively in an exchange between the ranking member of the full committee, mister Raskin, the witness. And I'm gonna paraphrase that Pylor didn't change any status.
The result of Pylor wasn't to change a legal status, but it does effectively say it would be bad. It would be bad for kids who are here illegally. Isn't this effectively, Mister O'Brien, first, Mister Rogers, an admission that Plyler should be struck down? That this was effectively a policy choice by the court, not a legal decision baked in or based upon the Fourteenth Amendment? Mister O'Brien first.
Speaker 6
Yes. The court essentially says that, in its opinion. It admitted outright that illegal aliens are not a suspect classification and that there is no right to a free public education. Therefore, there shouldn't have been any issue before the court at all.
Speaker 7
Yeah. It's absolutely a policy judgment. And if judges have concerns about policies in America, they should run for office. But it's not their role to make policies as judges.
Speaker 1
Correct. Because there's been a lot of policy discussion in this hearing. But the question here is, as I put in the record that the heritage paper saying, you know, these states should be able to perceive their policies and the plowers should be struck down, this should be left to the states to decide or congress to make policy. And, mister Ryan, you referenced, the majority found that the Texas law imposed, quote, a lifetime hardship on children with no responsibility for their immigration status, taking an estimable toll. And the Texas interest, quote, in the preservation of the state's limited resources for the education of its lawful residents did not outweigh the harm.
The pot, the court made a policy choice. Yes. Correct? They just literally wrote out in their opinion a policy choice and preference. They did not root it in the constitution or the law, as frankly was the standard of the day in that time.
Right? And we've already gone through, Mister Rogers, if you acknowledged, in the Dobbs decision, laying out how we go back and review precedent. It is your position correct as you stated here, but I wanna summarize in close that you think that the court should review it, that they would have, under the Dobbs framework, the ability to review that precedent. And especially in light of the error that was found in Dobbs' opinion review of Roe, that we've got a similar legislating from the bench problem, a policy choice that was made by judges to assert in a five-to-four opinion that the people of Texas could not make a decision on their behalf, for their schools, for their education, for their taxpayer dollars on how to deal with the failure of the federal government to secure the border and inundate our schools with people who are in the United States illegally. Do you believe that the court should review it based on what I just described?
Speaker 7
Absolutely. She reviewed it. It should overturn, Plyler. And we've heard testimony about all the benefits from Plyler, but it's not a court's role to determine the financial benefits. That's for legislators to weigh, and that's where they should belong in state legislatures and in congress.
Speaker 1
And to in closing here, seven seconds left. You believe that if, brought to the court, to the Supreme Court, if states were to take action, I know Mississippi, Texas, and other states have been taking action, to act on their behalf and pass policies, you believe that if taken to the court, that this court would, in fact, overturn Plyler and side with the states? I do. Well, with that, I now have my friend from Texas who has joined us here, and I would recognize mister Hunt for his five minutes.
Speaker 13
Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under the Biden administration, American students and parents were overlooked. This is a fact, and we all know it. President Trump took decisive action to prevent illegal aliens from receiving free secondary education, which, by the way, is a very good thing.
Now we must also prevent illegals from accessing any taxpayer benefits, K through 12 education. As someone who was a product of school choice, me, whose parents drove me one hour each way so I get the education that they worked hard for me to actually attain and earn. I understand the importance of this hearing and the need to ensure opportunities are available to all American children who are tax-paying American children and tax-paying American families. Under zero circumstances, should illegal aliens receive benefits that American families rightfully deserve. In '19, in the 1982 ruling in Pilot versus Doe, declared that the 1975 Texas law denying funds to public schools that enrolled illegal aliens was unconstitutional because it caused lifetime hardships on children who are not responsible for their immigration status.
But what about those legal citizens in this country that are also being overlooked, specifically in Texas, my home state? During that case, it was argued that only a small number of students were illegal, suggesting this ruling would be insignificant. This decision was flawed then, and has become a harmful burden to the American youth today. The situation under Democrat control and what was the border crisis with over 20,000,000 people entering this country, we have no idea who they were, and benefiting from the efforts of hardworking Americans. And as we have discussed at Infinitum today, we are in so much debt that we can't even figure out how to get out of it.
And the debt clock gets worse, and we simply flat out can't afford it. Somebody has to have the backbone. Somebody has to have the ability to call this out for what it is. It raises a very serious question. What could this money have done for American families?
What could this money have done for the American students? And as somebody who is a believer in Christ, as somebody who believes in the good of America, as somebody that has fought for this country, as somebody that has risked my life to defend this great nation, I understand the need to want to help others.
Speaker 13
My gosh. What about our own American citizens that are tax-paying Americans right here, right now, that should be put in first place? That's what this whole America First movement is all about. This is what I fought for. And while I wish we could save the world, unfortunately, this is not going to work.
So we must protect ours first, just like any other country in the entire world would. You see, last I checked, I haven't seen any other country giving Americans piles of cash. But yet we are the ones that are shipping our billions of dollars of hard-earned tax-paying dollars to everybody else, and no one wants to help us. My first question is for you, Miss Drogan. Thank you very much for being here today.
Thank you for your testimony. And as a part of the school choice, I wanna personally thank you for your ongoing efforts in helping the future of our children. You say that Congress should consider legislation allowing states to collect and share immigration data for educational planning. Can you expand upon this? And in your opinion, what should be done with states that refuse to participate?
Speaker 5
Yes. Well, as I talked about, the dear colleague letter that essentially threatened districts or states for collecting it. That was implied.
Speaker 5
Chilling effect of the letter. And the problem, obviously, is there you have educators, you have educating leaders that are afraid of this. They're afraid of the ramifications all across our state, all across our country. And so they're not collecting this data. And, therefore, every time that we hear someone give statistics, whether it's how much they supposedly contribute, it's erroneous because it's not based in facts.
We literally don't know, but we can estimate. We can estimate how much this is costing. We can also go back and look at the students while English as a second language or emergent bilingual is not a perfect description of students that are likely here illegally. It gives us some sort of idea of what's happening. And what is happening is these students in these districts are causing negative ramifications across the board, whether it's in their classrooms, in their schools, in the entire districts that we are seeing being taken over by the state, and that disrupts all of the education.
So it is a crisis to not identify who these students are. Mhmm. We do it with special ed. We even do it with incarcerated parents. It's just common sense to say who the kids are in our schools.
And, of course, we're not doing that now. That creates a huge crisis both on resources and on funding.
Speaker 13
This is an issue of opportunity cost. If we are not helping American students, we're helping the children of illegal aliens that shouldn't be here in the first place. It means we're not helping an American student who deserves it.
Speaker 13
This is not a difficult concept. It's actually quite easy. No. I'm not a jerk. No.
I'm not xenophobic. I believe in ensuring that we educate American citizens first. That's where our resources are, not it doesn't need to go there. It must go there. Thank you very much.
My time was up. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Speaker 1
I thank the gentleman from Texas. I thank the witness for their testimony. This concludes today's hearing. Without objection, all members will have five legislative days to submit additional questions for the witnesses or additional materials for the record. And without objection, the hearing is adjourned.
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