White House aide and white supremacist Stephen Miller reportedly sought to block undocumented immigrant kids from a public school education as far back as 2017, but was ultimately unable to go forward with his plan because, well, it would be unconstitutional.
Miller and his allies “sought for months for a way to give states the power to block undocumented immigrant children from enrolling in public schools,” Bloomberg reports. “They abandoned the idea after being told repeatedly that any such effort ran afoul of a 1982 Supreme Court case guaranteeing access to public schools.” Still, it demonstrates the extent to which this administration will go to make life miserable for brown and black families—and the extent of Miller’s depravity.
It was Miller who most recently harassed officials into hurrying their asses on a discriminatory rule change that had already inflicted immense damage in proposal form. "The public charge [regulation] has been in the works for a year and a half," Miller scolded in one email. "This is time we don't have. I don't care what you need to do to finish it on time." It’s Miller who has been behind family separation, in just one other example, and then wanted more of it.
Of course, the administration has been perfectly willing to disobey the courts on other matters, like family separation. A judge last year ordered officials to stop state-sanctioned kidnapping at the border, but nearly 1,000 children have been stolen since then. When it comes to Miller’s plan to block undocumented kids from school, Education Department spokesperson Liz Hill told Bloomberg, “The memo wasn’t issued because the secretary would never consider it.”
But stealing kids from their parents for reasons as petty and minor as a dirty diaper? For traffic citations? For “a conviction on a charge of malicious destruction of property with alleged damage of $5”? Sure, Trump officials will consider that, and have done it. This is a profoundly anti-child administration that has stooped to just about every low. So what’s perhaps almost as shocking as the Trump administration considering this plan, is the administration not just going ahead with it anyway.
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