Huddlemass,
Plyler Vs Doe is specific in that the 14th Amendment is directed at the State, not the persons. The opening paragraph says: <i>The question presented by these cases is whether, consistent with the Equal Protection Clause of the
Fourteenth Amendment, Texas may deny to undocumented school-age children the free public education that it provides to children who are citizens of the United States or legally admitted aliens.</i>
This means that the State of Texas must allow these children the ability to goto school, even though they or there families have not paid for the desired benefit. <i>Public education is not a "right" granted to individuals by the Constitution.
San Antonio Independent School Dist. v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 35 (1973). But neither is it merely some governmental "benefit" indistinguishable from other forms of social welfare legislation.</i>
In section II of Plyler it clearly states: <i>To the contrary, each aspect of the
Fourteenth Amendment reflects an elementary limitation on state power.</i>, further down it concludes with: <i>That a person's initial entry into a State, or into the United States, was unlawful, and that he may for that reason be expelled, cannot negate the simple fact of his presence within the State's territorial perimeter. Given such presence, he is subject to the full range of obligations imposed by the State's civil and criminal laws. And until he leaves the jurisdiction -- either voluntarily, or involuntarily in accordance with the Constitution and laws of the United States -- he is entitled to the equal protection of the laws that a State may choose to establish. (this is known as Plausible Distinction, note 10 at ID 693)
Our conclusion that the illegal aliens who are plaintiffs in these cases may claim the benefit of the
Fourteenth Amendment's guarantee of equal protection only begins the inquiry. <b>The more difficult question is whether the Equal Protection Clause has been violated by the refusal of the State of Texas to reimburse local school boards for the education of children who cannot demonstrate that their presence within the
[p216] United States is lawful, or by the imposition by those school boards of the burden of tuition on those children. </b> </i> (this goes to the claims as made by Benicar on earlier pages) {....only begins the inquiry. - Does not grant 14th Amendment Protections to illegal aliens, there is no definitive claim that it does)
Section III
<i>The Equal Protection Clause directs that "all persons similarly circumstanced shall be treated alike."
F. S. Royster Guano Co. v. Virginia, 253 U.S. 412, 415 (1920). But so too, "[t]he Constitution does not require things which are different in fact or opinion to be treated in law as though they were the same."
Tigner v. Texas, 310 U.S. 141, 147 (1940). The initial discretion to determine what is "different" and what is "the same" resides in the legislatures of the States. A legislature must have substantial latitude to establish classifications that roughly approximate the nature of the problem perceived, that accommodate competing concerns both public and private, and that account for limitations on the practical ability of the State to remedy every ill.</i>
Section A:
<i>The children who are plaintiffs in these cases are special members of this underclass. <b>Persuasive arguments support the view that a State may withhold its beneficence from those whose very presence within the United States is the product of their own unlawful conduct. These arguments do not apply
[p220] with the same force to classifications imposing disabilities on the minor children of such illegal entrants.</b> At the least, those who elect to enter our territory by stealth and in violation of our law should be prepared to bear the consequences, including, but not limited to, deportation. But the children of those illegal entrants are not comparably situated. Their "parents have the ability to conform their conduct to societal norms," and presumably the ability to remove themselves from the State's jurisdiction; but the children who are plaintiffs in these cases "can affect neither their parents' conduct nor their own status."
Trimble v. Gordon, 430 U.S. 762, 770 (1977).</i>
Section IV:
<i>To be sure, like all persons who have entered the United States unlawfully, these children are subject to deportation.
8 U.S.C. §§ 1251 1252 (1976 ed. and Supp. IV).</i>
Conclusion:
If the State is to deny a discrete group of innocent children the free public education that it offers to other children residing within its borders, that denial must be justified by a showing that it furthers some substantial State interest. No such showing was made here. Accordingly, the judgment of the Court of Appeals in each of these cases is Affirmed.
Might I suggest learning to understand the cases and to whom it is directed before making claims that it infers something it do not.
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