The Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF) is taking the Board of Education in Tamaqua, Pennsylvania to federal court, seeking to strike out a rule that requires students, who want register for school, to present a Social Security card.
“The purpose of this requirement is to exclude undocumented children and has nothing to do with the need to establish their residence in the school district. Thus, [it is] a violation of the federal equal rights protection requirements established in 1982,” said the letter signed and sent by César Perales, president of the New York-based Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund.
The letter, which was addressed to Larry Wittig, president of the Tamaqua Board of Education, and to Jeffrey Bowe, the district's legal representative, emphasized that the opportunity for an education “is a right that must be available to all on equal terms. Requiring students to present a Social Security card could block access for all immigrants.”
No official of the Tamaqua Board of Education could be reached for comment.
PRLDEF urged Wittig to take immediate steps to rectify the requirement, and to publish guidelines to inform members of the community and school officials that Social Security cards and/or proof of immigration status are not necessary for school registration and must not be used to exclude a student from school.
“Pennsylvania State law does not allow local schools or their districts to use Social Security cards as a barrier to registration,” the letter said.
The Tamaqua school district is composed of 2,218 students, of whom 96.8 percent are white, 1.5 percent Hispanic, and 1.1 percent are African American. According to the 2000 census, the town has 7,174 residents, 93 of whom are Hispanic.
Tamaqua is located near the town of Hazelton, whose city government was sued by the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund last year for implementing anti-immigrant municipal ordinances called the “Act for Illegal Immigration Relief.” Trial of the case will open on March 12, 2007 at a court in Scranton, Pennsylvania.
