North Georgia feeling effects of surge of Central American children

A small public school system in North Georgia has been pulled into the controversy surrounding the surge of Central American children who are illegally crossing the U.S.-Mexican border on their own.

Dalton school officials are planning to spend $253,700 for a special “Newcomer Academy” program to educate the 30 unaccompanied boys and girls from El Salvador and Guatemala who enrolled there last school year, a record number of such children for the 7,695-student system. More enrolled over the summer, and others could show up in the coming weeks.

These children are at the center of a bitter conflict between Gov. Nathan Deal and the Obama administration. Deal, a Republican running for re-election, sent a stinging letter to President Barack Obama on Thursday, saying he was shocked to learn federal authorities have released 1,154 unaccompanied immigrant children to the care of sponsors living in Georgia.

In Atlanta, the children will be welcomed, Mayor Kasim Reed said Tuesday, calling it a “moral responsibility” to provide care for them.

Many of these children are fleeing deprivation and gruesome gang violence in their native countries and are seeking to reunite with relatives already in the U.S. After capturing them on the border, authorities are transferring them to the care of adult sponsors in Georgia and other states, where they undergo deportation proceedings in nearby immigration courts including one in downtown Atlanta.

Those proceedings can last months or even years because of massive backlogs in immigration courts. Meanwhile, the children’s sponsors are enrolling them in public schools, which must educate them regardless of their legal status under federal law.

In his letter to Obama, Deal said one of his concerns was a “surge in school enrollment of children from Central America.”

In Dalton, that influx comes with no extra state or federal money for the school system, beyond the standard funding it receives based on enrollment figures. The school system spends, on average, $11,358 per student for English language learners.

Some of these new students have never set foot in a classroom before, and they come with many challenges, said Jennifer Phinney, a school support director for Dalton. For example, some couldn’t count to 10 or name colors and shapes. Others didn’t know how to turn on a computer. Some don’t even speak Spanish. Instead, they speak a Mayan language called Mam.

Dalton school officials emphasized they are welcoming these children with open arms and that they represent only a tiny fraction of the system’s overall student population, which was 34 percent Hispanic last school year. Most are boys. Some spent weeks in immigration detention centers before arriving in Dalton.

“Obviously, we are going to have to do something different,” Phinney said. “We are happy to have them — it does require a lot of resources.”

Planning is another challenge as there is no way to know how many such children will enroll in the coming months. As of June 30 of this fiscal year, authorities have apprehended 57,525 unaccompanied children at the southwest border. The Obama administration is predicting that number could reach 90,000 by the end of the fiscal year, which falls on Sept. 30.

“It’s like you throw a party and you have no idea how many people are coming or how long they might stay,” Phinney said.

Dalton is located in Whitfield County, which has a separate, 13,271-student school system. The county system enrolled 13 unaccompanied immigrant children from El Salvador and Guatemala last school year.

During an interview Monday in Marietta, Deal predicted the number of immigrant children coming to Georgia will grow and drive up school costs for the state and local communities.

A spokesman for Deal said Tuesday that the governor had still not received a reply to the letter he sent to Obama.

“I think we deserve an answer,” Deal said Monday. “It’s not that we’re unsympathetic. We’re not. The children, of course, this is not something they brought upon themselves. We will be as compassionate as anyone will be. We just need to know what to expect, and we need to know how to anticipate the costs of them being in the state.”

Among other things, Deal’s letter to Obama asks about the children’s immigration status, the process the government is using to place them in Georgia, and what services they may need from the state.

Asked about Deal’s letter, a spokesman for the federal Office of Refugee Resettlement said Thursday that nearly all the unaccompanied immigrant children brought to Georgia were likely apprehended on the U.S.-Mexico border and that most are teenagers from El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras.

The federal agency cares for the children in shelters across the country until they can be released to sponsors, typically parents or relatives who can care for them while their immigration cases are processed. The children receive vaccinations and medical screenings before they are released to those sponsors, who must submit to background checks.

“Ensuring the privacy and safety of children is of paramount importance,” the agency’s website says. “We cannot release information about individual children that could compromise the child’s location or identity.”

Rebeca Salmon, an Atlanta-area immigration attorney who specializes in such cases, dismissed Deal’s letter to Obama as a political move. The letter, she said, shows Deal wants to be able to track the children and their caregivers, who may not have legal status in the U.S.

“It is just not his place,” she said. “There are 1,154 … children here in Georgia that are being tracked already by federal immigration officials under federal immigration law.”