Activist Judge Takes Over Arizona Schools

This week's Guard the Borders post hits close to home for me:

As a parent with two kids in Texas schools, I have a pet peeve. I really, really resent that their education is hampered by kids who can’t speak English. I’ve seen classes that move mind-bogglingly slow as teachers have to work one-on-one with children who shouldn’t be there in the first place. It’s enough to make me grind my teeth in frustration!

I am a big proponent of the immersion method of learning a language. It is my firm belief that once in America, immigrants should learn our language, and the best way is by complete and total immersion. When we lived in Mexico, we placed my son into a public school in the local village so that he could learn the language more rapidly. I continued to teach him at home what he needed to know to keep his education above American standards, and his classroom experience was for language purposes only. We asked for no special considerations, we just did what was necessary. It was not easy, but it worked.

That is only one of the reasons it is so offensive to see our tax dollars paying for immigrants, many of them here illegally, to receive special dispensations because they can’t (or won’t) learn our language! But why should they learn, when almost everything is bi-lingual anyways?

Recently in Arizona, an activist judge has ruled that it’s not enough that American citizens pay for a free education for the children of illegal aliens, and it’s not enough that the classes are dumbed-down for non-English speakers, but now the taxpayers must pay exorbitant funds to provide special classes for children who don’t speak English!

One of the most outrageous examples of out-of-control judges is the case called Flores v. Arizona, now pending in federal court in Tucson. Originally filed in 1992, plaintiff lawyers claim to represent an estimated 160,000 children of illegal immigrants attending Arizona public schools.

The case seeks to force Arizona taxpayers to pay for bringing these children, euphemistically called English Language Learners, up to grade level. The lawyers are trying to accomplish this by turning a state legislative issue into a federal judicial command.

The background for attempting to accord special “rights” to non-American, non-English speaking residents was predicated on a case in Alabama where liberals tried to add the word “language” to the Civil Rights Act, thereby making it illegal to discriminate on the basis of language. While the case was originally successful in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, it was reversed by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Based upon that, Arizona Judge Alfredo C. Marquez, appointed by Jimmy Carter, ruled against the Arizona taxpayers, but had enough restraint to recognize that he could not substitute the court's "educational values and theories for the educational and political decisions reserved to state or local school authorities." Nevertheless, he tasked the legislature with performing a cost study.

Over the next few years, the Arizona legislature passed three bills for this special funding. However, none of them were as large as Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, wanted and so she vetoed all three. Governor Napolitano wanted the Arizona Legislature to appropriate nearly $1,200 per immigrant child, totaling $192 million, without accountability for how it was to be spent. Obviously, the governor, with the judge’s ruling on her side, could sit and wait until the legislature saw things her way.

Unfortunately, the next judge in succession of Marquez, upped the ante. Appointed by Bill Clinton, Judge Ramer C. Collins, decided to punitively fine the Arizona State Legislature for not funding special accommodations for non-English speaking students.

In December 2005, Collins imposed fines of $500,000 a day, escalating to $2 million a day, for every day that the legislature fails to authorize funding acceptable to the governor.
[…]
Since Jan. 25, millions of dollars in court-ordered fines have been accumulating. If this continues to the end of the legislative session, the fines will total more than $77 million.

Who knew that an activist judge could legislate taxes and state funding?

If there is any issue that should be clearly and exclusively a function of the legislature elected by the people it is the matter of raising taxes and spending the people's money. Unfortunately, there are many supremacist judges who think they (in this case, a judge and a governor) can order the legislature to raise taxes and tell them how to spend taxpayer money.

While many Americans in other states think that these problems are confined to the four states with Hispanic majorities (TX, CA, AZ, and NM) - think again. Small towns across America are finding their educational systems utterly compromised by an influx of illegal workers and their families: Melrose, MN; Delavan, WI; Herndon, VA; Wassau, WI; Des Moines, IA; Raleigh, NC; Fort Myers, FL; Sioux Falls, SD; Grand Rapids, MI and North Platte, NE. Still think it’s not your problem?!

As one small town resident has said, “I, along with millions of other American citizens, am sick and tried of the politicians and others treating illegal aliens like honored guests! They are not honored, and they are not guests.”

H/T: American Daughter

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This has been a production of the Guard the Borders Blogburst. It is syndicated by Euphoric Reality, and serves to keep immigration issues in the forefront of our minds as we're going about our daily lives and continuing to fight the war on terror. If you are concerned with the trend of illegal immigration in our country, join the Blogburst! Send an email with your blog name and url to euphoricrealitynet at gmail dot com.