Friday, May 06, 2022

Abbott v. Scary Brown People

 Bullshit:

"The challenges put on our public systems [are] extraordinary," Abbott said. "Texas already long ago sued the federal government about having to incur the costs of the education program... And the Supreme Court ruled against us on the issue about denying, or let's say Texas having to bear that burden."

"I think we will resurrect that case and challenge this issue again, because the expenses are extraordinary and the times are different than when Plyler v. Doe was issued many decades ago," the governor added.

First, let's go to the syllabus version of Plyler v. Doe:

Held: A Texas statute which withholds from local school districts any state funds for the education of children who were not "legally admitted" into the United States, and which authorizes local school districts to deny enrollment to such children, violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

(a) The illegal aliens who are plaintiffs in these cases challenging the statute may claim the benefit of the Equal Protection Clause, which provides that no State shall "deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Whatever his status under the immigration laws, an alien is a "person" in any ordinary sense of that term. This Court's prior cases recognizing that illegal aliens are "persons" protected by the Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, which Clauses do not include the phrase "within its jurisdiction," cannot be distinguished on the asserted ground that persons who have entered the country illegally are not "within the jurisdiction" of a State even if they are present within its boundaries and subject to its laws. Nor do the logic and history of the Fourteenth Amendment support such a construction. Instead, use of the phrase "within its jurisdiction" confirms the understanding that the Fourteenth Amendment's protection extends to anyone, citizen or stranger, who is subject to the laws of a State, and reaches into every corner of a State's territory. Pp. 457 U. S. 210-216.

(b) The discrimination contained in the Texas statute cannot be considered rational unless it furthers some substantial goal of the State. Although undocumented resident aliens cannot be treated as a "suspect class," and although education is not a "fundamental right," so as to require the State to justify the statutory classification by showing that it serves a compelling governmental interest, nevertheless the Texas statute imposes a lifetime hardship on a discrete class of children not accountable for their disabling status. These children can neither affect their parents' conduct nor their own undocumented status. The deprivation of public education is not like the deprivation of some other governmental benefit. Public education has a pivotal role in maintaining the fabric of our society and in sustaining our political and cultural heritage; the deprivation of education takes an inestimable toll on the social, economic, intellectual, and psychological wellbeing of the individual, and poses an obstacle to individual achievement. In determining the rationality of the Texas statute, its costs to the Nation and to the innocent children may properly be considered. Pp. 457 U. S. 216-224.

(c) The undocumented status of these children vel non does not establish a sufficient rational basis for denying them benefits that the State affords other residents. It is true that, when faced with an equal protection challenge respecting a State's differential treatment of aliens, the courts must be attentive to congressional policy concerning aliens. But in the area of special constitutional sensitivity presented by these cases, and in the absence of any contrary indication fairly discernible in the legislative record, no national policy is perceived that might justify the State in denying these children an elementary education. 

(d) Texas' statutory classification cannot be sustained as furthering its interest in the "preservation of the state's limited resources for the education of its lawful residents." While the State might have an interest in mitigating potentially harsh economic effects from an influx of illegal immigrants, the Texas statute does not offer an effective method of dealing with the problem. Even assuming that the net impact of illegal aliens on the economy is negative, charging tuition to undocumented children constitutes an ineffectual attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigration, at least when compared with the alternative of prohibiting employment of illegal aliens. Nor is there any merit to the suggestion that undocumented children are appropriately singled out for exclusion because of the special burdens they impose on the State's ability to provide high-quality public education. The record does not show that exclusion of undocumented children is likely to improve the overall quality of education in the State. Neither is there any merit to the claim that undocumented children are appropriately singled out because their unlawful presence within the United States renders them less likely than other children to remain within the State's boundaries and to put their education to productive social or political use within the State. Pp. 457 U. S. 227-230.

This case rests on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, so it's not a matter of "unenumerated rights" or "substantive due process."  

Though there were "extensive findings" in the trial court that illegal immigrants were an economic burden on the state, I would challenge that.  Texas has two primary sources of funding for the government:  a sales tax paid by anyone who buys any consumer good in the state; and a property tax levied by school districts directly on land owners.  Which means even tenants pay property taxes, because the landowner pays taxes.  The tax burden therefor, for “illegal immigrants” I would argue, is minimal to non-existent.  Whether "illegal immigrants" are poor or rich is of no matter; directly or indirectly, like every resident of Texas, they pay state taxes.  Being a non-citizen does not relieve you of paying sales tax or even paying rent.  And a landlord who doesn't factor property taxes into the lease is going to lose that property to someone who does.

My base critique of the State's position, however, is the argument that people in this country "illegally" are not "within the state's jurisdiction."  Which literally makes no sense, because then they are either "outlaw" in the old common law sense of the term, and can be treated like personal property or, worse, like not human beings at all; or the State cannot command their return across the border they crossed without permission once they set foot on this side of that border.

The other side of the argument is that this is ancient Rome, and only citizens get the full benefits of the law here.  An interpretation directly contrary to the plain language of the 14th Amendment (and not really an argument raised in the Court, because it is both non-legal and a non-starter). As the Court quotes from the argument for the 14th Amendment prior to its passage by Congress:

"The last two clauses of the first section of the amendment disable a State from depriving not merely a citizen of the United States, but any person, whoever he may be, of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or from denying to him the equal protection of the laws of the State. This abolishes all class legislation in the States and does away with the injustice of subjecting one caste of persons to a code not applicable to another. . . . It will, if adopted by the States, forever disable every one of them from passing laws trenching upon those fundamental rights and privileges which pertain to citizens of the United States, and to all person who may happen to be within their jurisdiction."*

I also like this simple acknowledgement of the humanity of the schoolchildren entangled in this baldly political decision (the law withholding funds from schools that did admit illegal immigrant children):

"[V]isiting . . . condemnation on the head of an infant is illogical and unjust. Moreover, imposing disabilities on the . . . child is contrary to the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility or wrongdoing. Obviously, no child is responsible for his birth, and penalizing the . . . child is an ineffectual -- as well as unjust -- way of deterring the parent." 

And the last bit pretty much takes a sledgehammer to the State's argument that "illegal" children are different, and less deserving (which is Abbott's argument, too):

 Finally, appellants suggest that undocumented children are appropriately singled out because their unlawful presence within the United States renders them less likely than other children to remain within the boundaries of the State, and to put their education to productive social or political use within the State. Even assuming that such an interest is legitimate, it is an interest that is most difficult to quantify. The State has no assurance that any child, citizen or not, will employ the education provided by the State within the confines of the State's borders. In any event, the record is clear that many of the undocumented children disabled by this classification will remain in this country indefinitely, and that some will become lawful residents or citizens of the United States. It is difficult to understand precisely what the State hopes to achieve by promoting the creation and perpetuation of a subclass of illiterates within our boundaries, surely adding to the problems and costs of unemployment, welfare, and crime. It is thus clear that whatever savings might be achieved by denying these children an education, they are wholly insubstantial in light of the costs involved to these children, the State, and the Nation.

VI

If the State is to deny a discrete group of innocent children the free public education that it offers to other children residing within its borders, that denial must be justified by a showing that it furthers some substantial state interest. No such showing was made here.

The only "substantial state interest" Texas could show is that they didn't want to spend the money.  That's the only argument Abbott is raising, too.  If he could, indeed, get the Court to reverse Plyler, it would throw out stare decisis in a way even the most obtuse commentators on Dobbs could not ignore.

Then again, just watch 'em. 

Rie came from Texas, as did Lawrence, as did Plyler. Might  I suggest you pay a bit more attention to the second most populous state in the union? Abbott’s trying hard to out-Trump DeSantis. Doing a pretty good job of it, too.


*Yes, of course, we had Jim Crow laws anyway. You can thank the Supreme Court for that. Which the Court changed 58 years later (and forget declarations that Brown will be overruled. It was hollowed out in the last century. It is now far more honored in the breach than in the keeping.). Not enough, though, that we didn’t need the Civil Rights Act. And considering what this Court did to the VRA, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it gut any codification of Roe, so long as Thomas and Alito hold out and stay on the bench.
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