Alabama education officials tell parents not to fear immigration rule

In an effort to combat widespread absences, Alabama's top education official is urging parents not to fear a new immigration law requiring students to provide a birth certificate when they enroll in school.

State Superintendent Larry Craven told parents in a notice in Spanish and English that Alabama schools would not turn away any children who cannot provide a birth certificate. He also insisted that the data they are collecting on each child's immigration status "will not be used to individually identify your child." He reminded them that their children are legally required to attend school.

Malissa Valdes, a spokeswoman for Alabama's education department, told The Lookout that total absences among Hispanic students rose from 2,011 on Friday to 2,285 on Monday, which means that about 7 percent of all Hispanic students didn't show up to school on Monday. That's more than double the usual rate of school absences.

Anecdotal reports suggest that Hispanic families without legal immigration status are fleeing the area in the wake of a federal judge's decision to let the nation's toughest anti-illegal immigration law go into effect on Thursday. (Parts of the law may still be struck be down in still-pending court challenges.) Some want to avoid an aspect of the law that requires local police to question people during routine stops or arrests about their immigration status. Judges have enjoined the enforcement of similar laws in other states, including Arizona; Alabama's legislation has been the first that the courts have allowed to go into effect.

It's unclear how many parents have stayed in Alabama while keeping their children from going to school in order to shun the birth-certificate mandate. (Parents may also be keeping their kids at home because they are afraid they will be pulled over if they drive their kids to school.) According to Jeremy Love of the Hispanic Interest Coalition of Alabama, there are rumors spreading through the state's Hispanic community that the law says children without legal status are not allowed to go to school. Valdes says that Alabama is still tallying up the number of students who have withdrawn altogether. According to data from Kids Count, 79,000 children of immigrants, both legal and illegal, now live in Alabama, and most of them are citizens.