Media

We recently recognized the anniversary of the landmark Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which ruled that separate meant unequal, ruling against segregation for the first time since reconstruction. After the Court’s ruling, future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall -- then head of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Educational Fund – warned that “the fight has just begun.”

Immigration advocates are furious at Education Secretary Betsy DeVosafter she told a House panel Tuesday that school officials should determine whether to turn in undocumented students to federal authorities. “If a principal or a teacher finds out that a certain child is undocumented, or his or her family members are undocumented, we must do whatever it takes to ensure the student's safety and protection from the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency," said Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.) "I am outraged and highly concerned following comments made by Secretary Betsy DeVos during yesterday’s Education and the Workforce Committee hearing.” At the hearing, Espaillat asked DeVos at the hearing whether schools should report undocumented students to federal authorities, to which she responded, “… that’s a school decision. It’s a local community decision.”

Civil rights groups slammed Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for saying Tuesday that schools can decide whether to report undocumented students to immigration enforcement officials, saying her statements conflict with the law and could raise fears among immigrant students. DeVos’s answers came during testimony before the House Committee on Education and the Workforce. Rep. Adriano Espaillat (D-N.Y.), an immigrant from the Dominican Republic who was at one time undocumented, pressed the secretary for her positions on immigration enforcement. “Inside the school,” Espaillat asked, “if a principal or a teacher finds out that a certain child is undocumented, or his or her family members are undocumented, do you feel that the principal or teacher is responsible to call [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and to have that family reported?”