American taxpayers are spending $78 billion a year to educate children who crossed the border illegally – and until now, the federal government made it illegal to even count them.
That's the policy Chip Roy just blew the lid off.
Now he's demanding Harmeet Dhillon and Linda McMahon kill the Obama-era memo that's kept your school district in the dark for 15 years.
What Plyler v. Doe Actually Says — And What Obama Added
In 2011, the Obama administration's Department of Education issued what it called "civil rights guidance."
The memo declared that the immigration status of a student – or their parent – is "irrelevant" to their enrollment in public school.
That sounds like legal boilerplate.
It wasn't.
School districts across Texas read that memo and concluded: don't ask, don't tell.
Collect immigration data and risk federal reprisal.
Roy laid it out plainly in his letter to Dhillon and McMahon: states like Texas and school board associations nationwide stopped gathering basic immigration-status data – even when that data was critical for resource allocation, program design, and long-term planning.
You can't manage what you can't measure.
https://twitter.com/OffThePress1/status/2041900814956888296?s=20
And for 15 years, Washington made sure you couldn't measure it.
Plyler v. Doe – the 1982 Supreme Court decision – ruled 5-4 that states cannot deny K-12 enrollment to children based on immigration status.
Roy isn't challenging it.
What Roy is challenging is the Obama administration's decision to weaponize that ruling into something it never said.
Plyler guarantees enrollment.
It says nothing about prohibiting states from collecting demographic data.
Roy put it directly in his letter: "Nothing in federal law – including Plyler v. Doe – prohibits states from collecting demographic data, including immigration-status information, for legitimate educational and administrative purposes."
Obama's DOE turned a court ruling about enrollment into a gag order on data.
States can enroll every child and still know who those children are.
States can plan their budgets, staff their classrooms, and design their programs with accurate information – unless a presidential administration decides that information is too politically inconvenient to allow.
The $78 Billion Taxpayer Tab for Illegal Immigrant Schools
Here's what the federal government didn't want your school board calculating.
According to the Federation for American Immigration Reform, educating limited-English-proficiency students – the vast majority of whom are children of illegal immigrants – costs taxpayers just over $78 billion annually.
https://twitter.com/RepChipRoy/status/2041906467154874604?s=20
Virtually 100 percent of that cost falls on state and local taxpayers.
Not Washington.
You.
Roy put the Texas number on the record during a March hearing before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution and Limited Government: "$1.9 billion" – that's what illegal alien enrollments have cost Texas taxpayers alone.
The Heritage Foundation calculated that in four states – California, New York, Texas, and Arizona – absorbing a single year's influx of migrant children into public schools cost taxpayers nearly three-quarters of a billion dollars.
In one year.
In four states.
Meanwhile, your kid's school is cutting extracurricular programs and crowding 35 students into a classroom.
What Dhillon and McMahon Can Do Right Now
Roy's letter doesn't require an act of Congress.
It doesn't need a new law.
It just requires the Trump administration to do what Obama should never have done: treat states like adults capable of governing themselves.
Rescind the 2011 memo and let every state count.
That's what Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi have spent 15 years making sure you never find out.
Because they understand something Roy just made explicit: the data isn't just a budget tool.
It's a political weapon.
The second your school board has to stand in front of your community and read the actual numbers out loud – the per-pupil costs, the English-learner program drain, the classroom overcrowding that sent your grandkids home on Zoom – the open-borders argument dies on the spot.
Not in Congress.
Not on CNN.
In your town.
That's why the memo existed.
That's why Schumer will call Roy's letter "anti-immigrant" before the week is out.
And that's why Harmeet Dhillon needs to sign the rescission order before he gets the chance.
Sources:
- Pedro Rodriguez, "EXCLUSIVE: Chip Roy Urges Feds to Roll Back Obama-Era Ban on Collecting Immigration Data in Schools," The Daily Signal, April 8, 2026.
- "Rep. Roy Urges Feds to Roll Back Obama-Era Ban on Collecting Immigration Data in Schools," Office of Rep. Chip Roy, April 8, 2026.
- Lindsey Burke and Lora Ries, "The Consequences of Unchecked Illegal Immigration on America's Public Schools," The Heritage Foundation, February 2024.
- "The Elephant in the Classroom: Mass Immigration Imposing Colossal Cost and Challenges on Public Education," Federation for American Immigration Reform, 2024.
