Gov. Nathan Deal this month said state lawmakers have told him about a surge in enrollment of Central American children in the state’s public schools amid the humanitarian crisis on the Southwest border.
State Sen. Charlie Bethel and Rep. Bruce Broadrick, both Republicans from Dalton, confirmed this week they contacted Deal’s office about the situation. Complaining the border is not secure enough, they raised concerns about the impact the children are having on the public schools and social services in their North Georgia districts.
Fleeing poverty and violence in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, thousands of children are crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on their own. In the past six months, federal authorities have released 1,154 of them to the care of adult sponsors living in Georgia. Since the past school year, more than 40 unaccompanied Central American children have enrolled in Dalton and Whitfield County’s public schools systems.
“Our fight is not with these kids,” said Bethel, one of Deal’s floor leaders in the Senate. Georgia schools, he added, “are providing really disproportionate — from a dollar value standpoint — services to these kids with … not even a suggestion of reimbursement. You have kids who show up who don’t have parents locally, much less property tax-paying parents.”
“Certainly, we have got passion for these basically refugee children who are fleeing their country,” Broadrick said. “But my position is we are a country of laws … and the laws need to be adhered to. We cannot just have a porous border.”
Broadrick added: “We may be inheriting other countries’ problems.”
Others are saying Georgia – which has a population of 9.9 million – should welcome these children.
“This is an emotionally charged issue, but it is at times like these that cities and nations show who they really are,” Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed said in a prepared statement issued Wednesday. “And I know that the people of Atlanta have compassion and goodness in their hearts. That is why we are willing to do our part to care for vulnerable children while their best interests are determined in a manner consistent with the laws of the United States.”
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