D.C. Area Schools Brace For 6,000 New Illegal Immigrant Students


Washington D.C. area schools are rushing to make educational arrangements and classroom placements for approximately 6,000 illegal immigrant students. Since the beginning of 2014, about 40,000 illegal immigrant children have crossed the Texas Border. Many of those children now reportedly live with their parents or other relatives who are allegedly illegal immigrants themselves.

Schools in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia are mandated to find classroom spots and educate the unaccompanied children until their illegal immigration cases are heard and a residency decision rendered. The vast majority of the children speak little or no English, prompting concerns from parents who have long resided in the respective school districts. Parents and local taxpayers are also concerned that classrooms will be over-crowded and teachers will be forced to attempt to educate children who may be one or more grade-levels behind the American students, and have virtually no command of the English language.

Prince George’s County teacher Dianne Yohi said, “We’re seeing a very high number of students, they have all arrived either early in the spring or the last few weeks.” Yohi is tasked with helping to assess the English language skills of the illegal immigrant children from Central American and Mexico as they enroll into the public school system. “They don’t speak any English and many of them have not completed a grade level equal to their age,” the D.C. educator added.

A 15-year-old illegal immigrant teenager from El Salvador, identified as Mario, had this to say while enrolling in Gaithersburgh High School:

“There’s so much violence, I was even afraid to go to school, in El Salvador many students on their way to school are disappearing. When you’re trying to survive, get to the next day, eat, find a place to sleep, you really don’t have a lot of time to process the emotional impact of the things that have happened to you.”

While Mario’s story has been labeled tragic by many online posters, it has also been pointed out that children from a host of countries around the world face similar hardships. If every child in danger around the globe was permitted to walk into America illegally and go to school, districts would soon be broke, taxpayers would be asked to pass higher operating levies, and all students would suffer from a lack attention by teachers and decreased academic instruction time. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, protesters in Chicago expressed opposition to President Obama’s amnesty policies and stated that their children must walk through dangerous areas and attempt to avoid recruitment by violent gang members when they go to school.

Another illegal immigrant child, identified as David 12, walked across the Texas border just several weeks ago. He traveled to America from Honduras. According to a school counselor, David came to the United States in hopes of locating his parents. The boy said he was abused and then abandoned by the person his parents had left him with in Honduras. David’s mother, Dilma, said that she was shocked he left home on his own. The woman said it had been about eight years since she had last seen him.

“He was a baby when I left him, now he is almost a young man,” she said. The mother left the baby in the care of her sister. The money she sent to Honduras for his care was allegedly spent on drugs, booze, and parties held by the sister.

Do you think the massive influx of illegal immigrant children will have a negative impact on public education in America?

[Image Via: Shutterstock.com]

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