Rationing Opportunity: The War on Children and the Dismantling of Plyler v. Doe, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Rationing Opportunity: The War on Children and the Dismantling of Plyler v. Doe

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

April 6, 2026

Visit MALDEF.org that played a central role litigating Plyler v. Doe

As you can read for yourselves in this article published by thehill.com titled GOP calls to get undocumented children out of public schools grow authored by Lonas Cochran (2026), there are moments when the law does more than interpret policy—it draws a line around who counts. In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court did exactly that in Plyler v. Doe, holding that undocumented children are entitled to a free public K–12 education under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

That line is now under direct attack.

Recent reporting details a coordinated push—stretching from state legislatures to federal actors—to dismantle Plyler. Texas Congressman Chip Roy has called for overturning the decision, framing it as a “burden” on taxpayers. At the same time, Stephen Miller has reportedly encouraged Texas lawmakers to consider cutting funding for undocumented students. Tennessee is advancing legislation that would require proof of immigration status at school enrollment, a move widely understood as a precursor to legal challenge.

Let’s be clear: this is not random. It is a strategy.

The most likely pathway to overturning Plyler is not legislative repeal—it is engineered litigation. A state passes a law that restricts access to education, gets sued, and uses the case to invite a newly configured Supreme Court to revisit precedent. We have seen this playbook before. It is deliberate, incremental, and designed to normalize what once seemed unthinkable.

But much of the rhetoric surrounding this effort depends on misdirection.

First, the claim that Plyler represents “judicial overreach.” It does not. The Court did what it has long done: interpret the Constitution. The Fourteenth Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause applies to “persons,” not just citizens. This principle is not new. It dates back to cases like Yick Wo v. Hopkins (1886), which affirmed that noncitizens are entitled to constitutional protections.

Second, the assertion that Congress holds plenary power over immigration. True—but irrelevant here. Plyler is not about immigration enforcement. It is about whether a state can deny children access to education. That question falls squarely within constitutional limits on state power.

Third, the fiscal argument—that undocumented students strain public resources. This is not a constitutional argument; it is a political one. And it collapses under scrutiny. Public schools are funded through formulas tied to attendance. In an era of declining birth rates, many districts depend on stable or increasing enrollment to remain viable. Excluding students does not save systems—it destabilizes them. More importantly, denying education produces far greater long-term social costs: poverty, unemployment, and diminished civic participation.

What is unfolding, then, is not a good-faith debate about policy. It is a reframing of rights as liabilities.

And that reframing has consequences.

The article also points to a troubling operational shift: the erosion of long-standing norms that treated schools as protected spaces. With changes to federal enforcement posture, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity near or on school grounds is no longer off-limits. Reports of arrests involving parents and community members in proximity to schools are already emerging.

We need to name this for what it is: the transformation of schools from sites of learning into sites of surveillance.

When families fear school, they do not send their children. Attendance drops—not just among undocumented students, but across entire communities. Teachers become frontline responders to trauma. Classrooms become quieter, emptier, more precarious. And the damage extends far beyond immigration status.

There is also a deeper legal horizon to consider. Some observers have speculated that challenges to Plyler could intersect with broader efforts to reinterpret the Fourteenth Amendment, including debates over birthright citizenship. While the connection is not guaranteed, the logic is clear: narrow the definition of who counts as a constitutional “person,” and a cascade of exclusions becomes possible.

This is how rights erode—not all at once, but through strategic pressure points.

In my own work, I have described this as "discursive inversion": the process by which inclusion is reframed as excess, and rights are recast as threats. Under this logic, providing children with an education becomes an unfair advantage. Equal protection becomes preferential treatment. The moral universe flips, and exclusion begins to appear reasonable—even necessary.

We have seen this before. Historically, arguments about “limited resources” and “taxpayer burden” have been used to justify segregation, exclusion, and the rationing of opportunity. What changes are the targets, not the logic.

And here, the target is children.

Let us pause on that.

Plyler v. Doe did not create a broad new right. It prevented the state from imposing a devastating harm. The Court recognized that denying education to children—who have no control over their immigration status—would impose a “lifetime hardship,” effectively foreclosing their ability to participate meaningfully in society. Education, the Court reasoned, is foundational to individual dignity and democratic life.

To undo Plyler is to accept that some children can be rendered permanently disposable.

That is not a budgetary decision. It is a moral one.

It is also a profound shift in how we understand public education. For generations, public schooling in the United States has been grounded—however imperfectly—in the idea of universality. Not equality achieved, but equality aspired to. The notion that schools belong to the public, and that the public includes all who reside within it.

Overturning Plyler would mark a departure from that principle. Education would become conditional—granted not on the basis of presence or personhood, but on legal status. The classroom would no longer be a shared civic space, but a filtered one.

And once that line is drawn, it will not hold.

Because the question will not stop at undocumented children. It will expand—quietly at first—into other domains, other populations, other forms of conditional belonging.

This is how institutional unraveling begins. Not with a single decision, but with a redefinition of who is entitled to protection.

The Court answered that question in 1982. It affirmed that children, regardless of status, are persons under the Constitution and deserving of access to education.

The fact that we are now poised to revisit that decision should give us pause.

Not because precedent is sacred—it is not—but because the direction of change matters.

We are being asked, once again, to decide whether schools are instruments of democracy or tools of exclusion.

And this time, the answer will not be abstract.

It will be lived—in classrooms, in communities, and in the futures of millions of children watching closely to see whether this country believes they belong.

References

Lonas Cochran, L. (2026, March 30). GOP calls to get undocumented children out of public schools grow. The Hill. https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5804304-undocumented-kids-public-schools-plyler/

Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982).

Yick Wo v. Hopkins, 118 U.S. 356 (1886).

A State's Betrayal: The Dismantling of In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students in Texas, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

A State's Betrayal: The Dismantling of In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students in Texas

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Students walk through campus at the University of
Texas at Austin on Aug. 25, 2021. /Eddie
Gaspar/The Texas Tribune

CreditJUNE 4, 2025

I am deeply troubled—heartbroken, really—by the news that undocumented students in Texas are no longer eligible for in-state tuition (Klibanoff & Priest, 2025; Vertuno & Lathan, 2025). As someone who was directly involved in the development of this policy—House Bill 1403 in 2001—I see this decision as a moral and political failure of staggering proportions.

These young people are Texans. They’ve grown up here, gone to our public schools, and graduated from our high schools. They have signed affidavits pledging to regularize their status when eligible, just for the chance to pursue higher education. And now, with the stroke of a judge’s pen and a state attorney general who refused to defend a 24-year-old law, we are telling them they don’t belong. That they are undeserving. That their dreams, their labor, and their humanity mean nothing. It is cruel. It is shortsighted. And it is indefensible.

What makes this even more disturbing is the false narrative being pushed by officials like U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, who claimed the ruling was necessary to prevent U.S. citizens from being treated like “second-class citizens.” This is a blatant distortion of the truth. In-state tuition for undocumented students does not displace or disadvantage U.S. citizens in any way. 

These students are not receiving a “benefit” that others are denied; they are paying the same tuition as any other Texas resident under a law that has been in place for nearly a quarter-century. No student loses access to college because another is granted a fair shot. To suggest otherwise is to weaponize resentment and obscure the real aim: to exclude, to punish, and to stoke division.

This isn’t just about tuition. It’s about dignity. It’s about who counts, and who doesn’t. The message Texas is sending is one of rejection and disposability. These students, many of whom I’ve known and worked with over the years, are being told their futures don’t matter—not because they’ve failed, but because our political leaders have. This is a textbook case of what I call subtractive schooling—a system that strips away the identities, languages, and aspirations of immigrant youth rather than nurturing and investing in them (Valenzuela, 1999).

And this decision is unfolding within a broader landscape of racialized rhetoric and exclusionary policymaking, where terms like “illegal alien” and “second-class citizen” are deliberately deployed to divide, dehumanize, and distract. The same forces behind the dismantling of DEI, the silencing of Ethnic Studies, the whitewashing of curriculum, and the whitening of Texas colleges and universities are at work here. This isn’t about law and order—it’s about fear of the “other” and the ruthless and hateful exercise of power. 

Let me be clear: this decision isn’t just morally wrong—it’s economically reckless. By stripping undocumented students of access to in-state tuition, Texas isn’t saving money—it’s sabotaging its own future.

Each year, approximately 20,000 undocumented students attend Texas public colleges and universities, collectively paying over $81 million in tuition and fees (Every Texan, 2021). Denying them in-state rates will price many out of higher education entirely. And when enrollment drops, institutions lose the tuition revenue they’ve come to rely on. This loss will hit smaller colleges and regional universities especially hard, exacerbating existing financial strains.

Beyond tuition, higher education is one of the strongest predictors of lifetime earnings and tax contributions. When we deny these students access to college, we also deny the state the economic returns their education would generate. According to the American Immigration Council (2023), rescinding in-state tuition for undocumented students could cost Texas more than $460 million each year in lost wages and spending power. That’s money that won’t be earned, taxed, or spent in our communities.

These students have contributed millions in tuition and gone on to fill critical shortages in fields like education and health care (Klibanoff & Priest, 2025). There are broader ripple effects, too. Without access to higher education, many of these young people will be forced into underemployment or informal labor markets, where they are more vulnerable to exploitation and less able to contribute meaningfully to the economy (Flores, 2010).

Removing their access to higher education undermines not just their futures, but all of ours. And the way it was done—through a backdoor legal maneuver with no real public debate—is an affront to democratic process. This is not leadership. This is cowardice wrapped in legal armor.

But we cannot afford to stay in despair. We must act—boldly, strategically, and in community. This is a moral emergency, and it demands a coordinated, collective response. First, we must continue to come together to build a statewide coalition for immigrant student justice. Students, families, educators, advocacy groups, faith leaders—everyday Texans—must unite in defense of these young people and what they represent. This is a fight for the soul of our state.

We must also pursue every legal pathway available. If the state won’t defend these students, others must. Independent legal challenges, amicus briefs, alliances with organizations like LULAC, MALDEF and the Texas Civil Rights Project—all of these are essential to challenging this ruling in the courts and in the court of public opinion.

At the same time, our colleges and universities must step up. If public dollars are constrained, then institutions must find other ways—private scholarships, emergency funds, tuition relief from unrestricted accounts—to keep undocumented students enrolled and supported. They must show moral courage and commit to student-centered leadership.

Equally important is the work of storytelling. We need to flood the public sphere with the voices of students who have benefited from in-state tuition—those who stayed in Texas, who became teachers, nurses, engineers, and leaders in their communities. These are not abstractions. These are real lives. And the public needs to hear their stories now more than ever.

We also need to look to policy solutions at every level. If Texas has abandoned its responsibility, then cities, counties, and the federal government must act. We need local sanctuary funding, and we need national legislation—starting with the long-overdue passage of a clean DREAM Act. Texas may have failed these students, but we do not have to.

Above all, we must center the students themselves. Their leadership, their voices, and their resilience will guide the way forward. We can support them through teach-ins, legal clinics, wellness resources, and organizing spaces that affirm their power. We must remind them—and ourselves—that they are not alone. They belong. And we will fight for them.

This moment is painful. It is infuriating. However, it is also a call to action. I still believe in the power of people to change the course of history. Above all, we must empower undocumented students themselves to lead this fight. They belong here. Their voices matter. And their dreams are worth defending.

I still believe that Texas can be a place of hope, not fear—a place where every student, regardless of immigration status, has the right to learn, to thrive, and to dream. 

References

American Immigration Council. (2023). The economic impact of rescinding in-state tuition for undocumented students in Texas. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org

Every Texan. (2021). Cost of excluding undocumented students from Texas colleges. https://everytexan.org

Flores, S. M. (2010). State dream acts: The effect of in-state resident tuition policies on the college enrollment of undocumented Latino students in the United States. The Review of Higher Education, 33(2), 239–283. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0134

Klibanoff, E., & Priest, J. (2025, June 4). Texas’ undocumented college students no longer qualify for in-state tuition. The Texas Tribune. https://www.texastribune.org/2025/06/04/texas-undocumented-students-instate-tuition/ 

Valenzuela, A. (1999). Subtractive schooling: U.S.-Mexican youth and the politics of caring. State University of New York Press.

Vertuno, J., & Lathan, N. (2025, June 4). Judge blocks undocumented students in Texas from receiving in-state tuition. Associated Press. https://www.apnews.com/article/texas-instate-tuition-undocumented-students-ruling-2025 

© Angela Valenzuela, 2025
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

The Monarch program serving undocumented students was mercilessly shut down. The concern is that closing down this program may constitute an instance of over-implemented of Senate Bill 17 (Texas' anti-diversity bill at UT). 

After all, as expressed by LDF attorney Antonio Ingram, "Undocumented status is not a racial category; it's not a category that's gender identity, orientation."

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas SB 17 bans DEI in colleges. So why did UT end a program for undocumented students?

Lily Kepner

January 25, 2024 | Austin American Statesman

The University of Texas has ended a program that provided resources to undocumented students and to those who have mixed or temporary residency status to help support their academic success and graduation.

Though the university did not respond to American-Statesman requests for comment, a school employee confirmed the program's closure at a Jan. 18 UT Staff Council meeting and a student who participated in the Monarch Student Program also confirmed it ended.

The Monarch Program's closing has not been publicly addressed by the university, but at a Staff Council meeting, LaToya Smith, vice president of the UT Campus and Community Engagement Division, told staff that "we were informed that we would have to cease operating that particular program."

Smith went on to detail numerous other changes during the meeting that the university is taking to comply with Senate Bill 17, a new state law that prohibits diversity, equity and inclusion offices or initiatives at Texas public universities and colleges. As part of its compliance, the school has renamed or eliminated several of its campus programs that have long encouraged and welcomed students from diverse backgrounds.

"It's important for you all to know is that the dust has not settled," Smith told staff at the meeting.

SB 17, which went into effect Jan. 1, bans public institutions of higher education from having DEI offices, considering diversity statements in hiring or "conducting trainings, programs and activities designed or implemented in reference to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation." It prohibits these institutions from offering a "special benefit" or promoting differential treatment to individuals on the basis of race, color or ethnicity.

The law, however, does not address a student's legal status.

Impact of SB 17?

Emily Sydnor, a political science associate professor specializing in political communication at Southwestern University, a private school in Georgetown, said the program likely was shuttered because of the way an undocumented status might intersect with race and ethnicity.

"Undocumented students also might benefit from programs focused on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging around those specific demographic characteristics, and there is also likely a set that don't fall into that category," Sydnor said. "And I guess the question that I would have is how much of those two circles overlap in this case? And what's the threshold for the Legislature to decide when a program is sort of encompassed entirely by that race, gender ethnicity circle and when is it sort of a marginal overlap that means the program should get to move forward anyway?"

Though in her personal opinion being undocumented does not have an inherent connection to race and ethnicity, Sydnor said she can imagine that a stringent legislative analysis of SB 17 could suggest the program could be affected.

Antonio Ingram, assistant council at the Legal Defense Fund, a national racial justice organization that advocated against SB 17, said the program's closing is "highly surprising."

SB 17 bans any unit that performs the functions of a DEI office, Ingram said, but the law also states that none of the restrictions should be construed to affect "a policy, practice, procedure, program, or activity to enhance student academic achievement or postgraduate outcomes that is designed and implemented without regard to race, sex, color, or ethnicity."

"You can be a white undocumented student, you can be an Asian American undocumented student, you can be a Latino undocumented student," Ingram said. "Undocumented status is not a racial category; it's not a category that's gender identity, orientation."

Texas had the second-highest number of unauthorized immigrants in the United States at 1.6 million people in 2021, according to the Pew Research, a nonprofit public policy think tank.

There were more than 408,000 undocumented U.S. higher education students in 2021 — comprising about 1.9% of all postsecondary students in the U.S., according to an American Community Survey. The "vast majority" of the undocumented students came to the U.S. at a young age, the survey found. About 46% of these students were Hispanic, 27% were Asian American Pacific Islander, 10% were white and about 14% were Black, the American Immigration Council found.

"It feels like there's a concerted effort to say to students without documentation, who we know oftentimes are Black and brown, that you don't belong here," Ingram said.

How UT's Monarch Program helped students

A UT student, who is undocumented and asked to remain anonymous due to their status and the politically charged climate around immigration policies in Texas, said they chose to come to UT because of its support for undocumented students. The high school the student attended had no program like Monarch, and it felt impossible to navigate how to enter and succeed in the higher education world.

"It was just wonderful to know that at least UT recognized that this student population existed," the student said. "I could always fall back on that."

Monarch was the place the student could learn about and get help with higher education applications, financial aid, internships and entrance tests for future certifications.

Finding a home with the program, the student became an ambassador for Monarch and helped guide other students through their questions. When SB 17 was passed, the student thought nothing would change.

But on Jan. 10 ― less than a week before spring semester classes began ― the student found out the program had closed, leaving them "blindsided."

"Monarch is not necessarily geared to anybody from a specific ethnicity or culture or nationality, it is literally open for anybody and everyone because under the Monarch umbrella, it's yes, undocumented students, yes, (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) DACA holders, Temporary Protected Status, but also people who come from mixed status. That includes U.S. citizens," the student said.

"Why weren't we given enough time to do something?" they said.

'You're not alone'

Rooted, the Immigrant Student Liberation Collective, led by UT students, alumni and allies, plans to continue offering support and resources in place of Monarch, the undocumented student said. The collective has taken over Monarch's Instagram account under the new handle @ut_rooted.

Ana Hernández, who graduated with a degree in Latin American studies and history in 2015 and a master's in social work and in Latin American studies in 2018, is a member of Rooted. In 2013, she joined the University Leadership Initiative, a student group that advocates for immigrants without documentation, and was part of the initial research and student advocacy that demonstrated the need for a university-backed program like Monarch.

"We felt that we had finally made some incremental progress in getting just that much more, a small amount of funding and staff, so that students finally felt like they had a place on campus they could go and be themselves and feel safe and feel protected," Hernández said. "And feel cared about."Hernández said she was not surprised by the program's closure, but she said it "feels very unwarranted based on the law."

She would want students to know that ULI and Rooted are available to support students, working with community partners to help make up the resources lost with Monarch's shuttering.

"There is support," Hernández said. "No one has the power to take away your right to exist. And you're not alone."

'I can't keep fighting the system': DACA recipients are leaving the US, disheartened by years of instability

DACA is the progeny of in-state tuition bills that culminated in the Federal DREAM Act that still has yet to get passed by Congress. It has endured a lot of twists and turns, and remains in need of a legislative solution. As quoted herein, it would be harmful to the U.S. economy to lose workers, especially educated labor:

"DACA recipients from across the country will gather in Washington on Wednesday to make their case to members of Congress. Apple, Google and other large U.S. companies and business groups recently wrote a letter to congressional leaders warning that ending DACA would worsen the worker shortage and cost the U.S. economy $11.7 billion annually. Legislation would require at least 10 Republican votes to pass the Senate."

The economic impacts aside, I can only imagine just how unnerving it can be to always be in the situation of having a time-limited "membership" in this country when you've spent so many years here. I hope that this time around, the DREAM Act—together with Comprehensive Immigration Reform—will get considered and pass to make these 600,000 youth whole. 

-Angela Valenzuela

'I can't keep fighting the system': DACA recipients are leaving the US, disheartened by years of instability

Andrea Castillo, Los Angeles Times on Nov 13, 2022

Published in News & Features

Tawheeda Wahabzada was tired of hoping she would ever have a permanent place in the country that had been home for nearly her entire life. So in February 2020, after hosting a “self-deportation party” where she said goodbye to her friends and family, she left the U.S.

Wahabzada, 32, moved to Toronto, where she was born to Afghan refugee parents before they joined extended family in Nevada, where she grew up.

She thought starting over would be exciting, that she’d be busy making new friends, exploring her new surroundings and traveling. Instead, the pandemic shutdown kept her indoors and Wahabzada had to face the full weight of her decision. Lonely and isolated, she wanted to make sure others in her position wouldn’t have the same experience.

“I basically had to confront the consequences,” she said. “But I made myself a promise: If I’m 30 and I still have DACA, I’m going to leave. I can’t wait for an idea. I spent my 20s in this survival mindset and I couldn’t really enjoy life.”

Since 2012, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals has protected from deportation more than 800,000 immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, allowing them to work, drive and travel legally. But the program, which now has fewer than 600,000 enrollees, never offered a pathway to citizenship. It was “a temporary stopgap measure,” then-President Obama said when he introduced DACA in 2012.

A decade later, the program and the lives of many of its enrollees are hanging by a thread. A small but growing number of DACA recipients, disheartened after years of instability, are voluntarily moving to countries where they can acquire permanent legal status. Some, like Wahabzada, are going back to where they were born; others have transferred jobs or applied for student programs in unfamiliar places.

Last year, Wahabzada connected with two other former “Dreamers”: Monsy Hernandez, who now lives in Germany, and Eun Suk “Jason” Hong, who lives in Spain. Together they formed ONWARD, or Our Network for the Wellbeing and Advancement of Relocated Dreamers. On Facebook, the support group has gained several hundred followers since its inception.

“It’s not that we’re encouraging them to leave,” Wahabzada said of DACA recipients. “It’s a big decision. It’s a scary decision. It kind of feels like a stigma to give up on our status. I felt alone on that journey.”

Requirements regarding age, when the person arrived in the U.S., education and criminal history excluded many immigrants when the program initially rolled out. More than 100,000 others have come of age without benefits because they were too young to qualify before DACA became embroiled in litigation and court rulings prevented additional first-time applicants, limiting the program to renewals.

Last month, a federal appeals court affirmed an earlier decision in Texas by U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, that found DACA to be illegal. But the ruling kept the protections in place as a lawsuit challenging the program was sent back to the lower court for further proceedings.

The case is anticipated to reach the Supreme Court, where legal experts believe the conservative majority will also rule that the program is illegal.

DACA earlier withstood the Trump administration’s effort to end it when the Supreme Court ruled in 2020 that the administration had failed to follow proper procedure to do so.

Meanwhile, the program’s beneficiaries have been on an emotional roller coaster, closely following each court hearing and ruling, and breathing sighs of relief every time the program survives another day. Negotiations on congressional efforts to establish permanent residency for DACA recipients haven’t advanced.

After the latest court ruling, advocates increased pressure on the Senate to pass legislation that would permanently protect Dreamers, seeing the lame-duck period after midterm elections as a new opportunity to act.

DACA recipients from across the country will gather in Washington on Wednesday to make their case to members of Congress. Apple, Google and other large U.S. companies and business groups recently wrote a letter to congressional leaders warning that ending DACA would worsen the worker shortage and cost the U.S. economy $11.7 billion annually. Legislation would require at least 10 Republican votes to pass the Senate.

Roberto Gonzales, a sociology professor at the University of Pennsylvania who has extensively studied DACA, said beneficiaries are frustrated that while the program provided the possibility of upward mobility, their legal status has remained unchanged.

“If they had a choice to adjust their status, overwhelmingly they would,” he said. “Their roots are here, their education is here, their job experience is here, and they know what it would entail to move to another country. But it’s complicated because that’s not their choice. Their future may be more opaque today than it was in 2012.”

Gonzales, who has tracked the experiences of 500 DACA recipients since 2013, said the calculus has changed with the imminent threat that the program could end. Many have told him they are contemplating two separate futures — one in the U.S. and one elsewhere. A few people have already left.

“While many haven’t gone as far as to get visas or apply for jobs, what they’re doing actively is thinking about where they could live,” he said. “This is increasingly at the front of their mind.”

Selene Hernandez, 33, is among those considering a move. Hernandez, who is in a master’s program at Cal State Fullerton and hopes to become a marriage and family therapist, said it’s highly likely that she’ll move back to Mexico within a couple of years of graduating.

Hernandez was 10 when her parents brought her to the U.S. Before DACA, she paid her way through community college and then got a bachelor’s degree at Cal State L.A. She was unable to participate in extracurricular school activities, or apply for a driver’s license, a bank account or a tutoring job. Her first job as a cashier paid less than minimum wage.

The first time she considered leaving was in 2017. She had applied for a study abroad program through advance parole — a provision under DACA that allows beneficiaries to travel legally for school, work or humanitarian reasons — but when Trump terminated DACA and ended the travel benefit, her trip was canceled.

It would’ve been her first time seeing her mother, who had returned to Mexico after she divorced Hernandez’s father, since she was 18.

Last year, Hernandez finally was able to visit. Earlier this year, she went back again for two months.

She researched what her life could look like if she moved there. She visited the National Autonomous University of Mexico and was shocked to learn tuition is free. She pictured herself opening a therapy practice.

“I felt free. This is my country, this is where I was born, these are my people, they speak my language. It just felt very much like home,” she said. “That’s when it kind of hit me: I can live here.”

Coming back to the U.S., Hernandez said she felt trapped. She started saving money and asked her father, who also lives in Los Angeles, if he would sell her his house near Mexico City. She told her friends about her plan.

Hernandez said she feels fortunate to have a job she loves, a career she’s excited about and a generally happy life. But she misses her mother and younger brother in Mexico.

“I feel I’ve done my part,” she said. “I’ve been a good citizen, I’ve done things right, and yet here I am with a two-year membership to this country. I can’t keep fighting the system.”

Julia Gelatt, senior policy analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, said the rise of remote work expanded the possibility for many people to live far away from their jobs. But for DACA recipients, deciding to leave the U.S. involves considering multiple complicating factors, including cost, the possibility of a job transfer, personal connections to the other country and whether the recipient has U.S.-born children or other family to take into account.

Another significant factor is whether a recipient is able to return to the U.S. to visit loved ones. Immigrants who leave the U.S. after entering without authorization are penalized. For example, a person who has lived in the U.S. for six months to a year is barred from returning for three years, and someone who stays longer than a year is barred for 10 years. For the most part, Gelatt said, Dreamers have stayed put in the U.S.

Wahabzada is among those affected by the ban. She especially misses her mother, who is still hopeful for immigration reform, and the grandmother who helped raise her. She doesn’t know when she’ll see them next.

But she has no regrets about her decision to leave her home in Washington, D.C., and continue her work remotely for a global development organization. She said it’s a privilege to keep her job and stay in the same time zone in a city where she has extended family.

Before leaving, she wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times. The headline: “No need to deport me. This Dreamer’s dream is dead.”

“I was so jaded at that point,” she said. “A lot of my friends said, ‘You’re leaving right before the election — what if something happens after?’ But waiting for an idea is kind of self-destructive.”

Wahabzada said her status no longer feels like a burden. A few months after arriving in Canada, she came across an article about another Dreamer who had self-deported and reached out to him. It was Hong, who moved to Spain.

Hong became a DACA recipient his senior year of college at the State University of New York at Binghamton, where he studied finance. He landed a job at a life insurance company and felt like he could finally start building a successful future. But when Trump decided to end the program, he said, “that’s when I first realized my life is actually not in my control.”

Hong had considered pursuing a master’s degree in the U.S., but he started looking elsewhere. In 2018, he found a business school in Madrid where he could enroll for a fraction of the cost he would’ve otherwise paid.

Realizing he knew of no one else in his situation, he got cold feet and deferred his enrollment for a year. Then he read Wahabzada’s op-ed, which provided the confidence he needed to leave.

Hong said he’s glad he can now offer support to others. But his feeling of fulfillment is mixed with unease.

“Every time I go into Facebook and see a notification that a person wants to join our group, it’s really sad,” he said.

“Usually when there’s a number-of-followers increase, it’s something to be happy about. Not for this one. We know exactly how that feels.”

©2022 Los Angeles Times. Visit latimes.com.

This piece shows just how much of a stretch it is for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to foster an incorrect and pejorative view of undocumented immigrants crossing our Southern border. Were this not so, he would have included in his analysis the revenue generated by undocumented immigrants' through the sales taxes that they pay.

Against various credible sources of data, Paxton's distorted and politically self-interested conclusion is that undocumented immigrants cost Texans more than they generate in revenue.  Do read the entire article on the matter appearing below to derive the opposite conclusion that immigrants' contributions are net positive. As long as I myself have followed this question, the answer has never been otherwise. 

We should also always be mindful of the characteristic U.S. Census undercount of undocumented people and Hispanics, generally, that if done well, would bring much-needed federal dollars to our state, as well as stronger political representation which was a direct cost of the last U.S. Census undercount. Accordingly, read Gov. Abbott’s actions cost Texas an extra House seat, by Dudley L. Poston, Jr. & Rogelio Sáenz.

These machinations are nevertheless understandable from the perspective that scapegoating immigrants and stoking anti-Mexican and anti-Latino xenophobic fears in the Republican Party base—to which even a Trump-appointed federal judge didn't completely buy—is preferable to the truth that immigration and immigrants contribute positively to Texas' economy.

-Angela Valenzuela

Does Texas spend more for services to undocumented immigrants than they yield in taxes?

While Texas AG Ken Paxton casts unauthorized immigrants as costly “burden,” experts say they actually generate a net benefit for the state. The last official look – not updated – is 15 years old.

FILE -- Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton filed a lawsuit challenging President Barack Obama's transgender bathroom order in 2016. Now Paxton is leading a coalition of seven states suing the federal government to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, also known as DACA. It allows unauthorized immigrants -- Dreamers -- who came to the U.S. as children to legally stay and work here.(2016 File Photo / Austin American-Statesman)

By Robert T. Garrett | Dec 29, 2021 |Dallas Morning News

AUSTIN — As he celebrated an early-round win challenging one of just-inaugurated President Joe Biden’s dozen or more executive orders and policy changes on immigration earlier this year, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton claimed to have made a big discovery: “Illegal aliens” are costing state taxpayers a bunch of money.

In his federal lawsuit challenging the Biden administration’s initial, 100-day halt to deportations of most noncitizens, “Attorney General Paxton uncovered hundreds of millions of dollars that Texas taxpayers involuntarily spent on illegal aliens every year,” Paxton said in a March 31 news release.

Texans are generous “but the cost of illegal immigration is an unconscionable burden on the taxpayers of our great state,” Paxton said, ticking off six categories of expenses.

Paxton’s depiction of undocumented immigrants as economic deadweights draws fierce disagreement from immigration advocates who brand his analysis artless and one-sided. In court last winter, his numbers were embraced in part – but partly rejected – by a sympathetic federal judge appointed by former President Donald Trump.

The episode highlighted how it’s been 15 years since Texas has made an official attempt to analyze how much undocumented immigrants add and subtract from state and local government finances.

In December 2006, one month after her bid as an independent candidate to unseat then-GOP Gov. Rick Perry fizzled, then-Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn issued a special report, “Undocumented Immigrants in Texas: A Financial Analysis of the Impact to the State Budget and Economy.”

It estimated that deporting all 1.4 million unauthorized immigrants that were believed to live in Texas at the time would shrink gross state product by $17.7 billion or 2.1%. Strayhorn found undocumented immigrants produced for the state significantly more revenue than costs, a net positive of $425 million in fiscal 2005. Local governments, socked with incarceration and health care costs not reimbursed by the state, bore a net negative cost of $929 million in fiscal 2005, her report said.

Strayhorn, who as a Republican won two terms as comptroller and before that, one as state railroad commissioner, noted that her findings of positive fiscal effects at the state level conflicted with what at the time were fresh studies by a national anti-immigration group and a left-of-center Colorado think tank, “both of which identified costs exceeding revenue.”

Republican consultant Mark Sanders, who was Strayhorn’s top political adviser, recounted recently that the self-styled “one tough Grandma” and her aides knew the report would stir controversy.

“For a lot of Republican primary voters, it’s a black and white issue, there is no gray: ‘Illegal immigrants, especially illegal Mexicans, are bad for the country,’” Sanders said.

“That was the general feeling and Carole wanted to get out some numbers that showed a different story, a more accurate portrayal of the economic impact that this particular group of people was having on Texas,” he said. Leaders of communities near the Texas-Mexico border “were insistent that we do the report,” to underscore how a total shut-off of illegal immigration would be “devastating” for the state economy, he recalled.

“Now, it would be too hot a potato for someone to pick up and try to update,” said Sanders, noting that immigration more recently has soared in importance and become Texas Republican voters’ top issue. “It would take a tremendous amount of political courage for someone to do that in this atmosphere.”

Former Comptroller Susan Combs, who served in the tax collecting and revenue estimating post for two terms after Strayhorn, said during her tenure that changes in state and federal laws and other constraints on her office prevented the study from getting an update.

The current comptroller, Glenn Hegar, promised in 2013 that if elected he would update the 2006 study or do “a similar one.” However, Hegar hasn’t done so. Through a spokesman, he recently pointed to the press of other business, and a lack of prodding by the Legislature.

“The agency has not been formally asked to study the economic impacts of illegal immigration,” Hegar spokesman Chris Bryan explained.

Hegar, whose family owns a ranch near Eagle Pass on the border, knows “the recent massive increase in illegal border crossings” has ratcheted up border enforcement costs for border communities as well as the state, Bryan said.

“When the health care burdens associated with caring for migrants testing positive for COVID are factored into the increased law enforcement needs, the costs associated with the federal failures on the southern border are no doubt staggering,” he said.

The Hegar spokesman was referring to how Gov. Greg Abbott and members of the GOP-controlled Legislature, with only a sprinkling of Democratic support from border lawmakers, have more than tripled state spending on border security, to $2.8 billion in the current two-year budget cycle.