Alabama Not to Seek Supreme Court Review of School Provisions of H.B. 56

Brian Lawson reports that the State of Alabama will not ask the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on its efforts to collect immigration information on public school students, Alabama Solicitor General John Neiman said this morning. It has sought review of some other provisions of H.B. 56, its state immigration enforcement law.

Today is the deadline for Alabama to ask the high court to take up its challenge of the U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in August blocking the schools measure from going into effect. After Alabama passed H.B. 56 in 2011, its public schools reported significant absences as families fled the state or kept children home from school in apparent fear of the status checks.

Specifically, Alabama has chosen not to ask for review of the Eleventh Circuit’s ruling that Section 28 requiring immigration checks in K-12 schools, was unconstitutional. Seeking review might have allowed the Supreme Court to reconsider its ruling in Plyler v. Doe (1982), which held that undocumented students had a right to K-12 education.

KJ