Posted on 04/18/2010 7:08:00 PM PDT by SwinneySwitch
ROMA — The violence plaguing life in the northern cities of Mexico has not stopped the children who are enrolled in schools on the U.S. side of the border.
The students continue to go to Mexico for the weekends or every night, returning for school the next morning.
“They say it is really bad, but I haven’t seen anything — never,” says Daisy, who goes to Miguel Alemán at night to be with her mother.
The last name of Daisy and other students are withheld for privacy and safety considerations.
Some Rio Grande Valley school districts estimate that up to 10 percent of students enrolled in their schools actually live in Mexico. The students attend schools in this country by either paying tuition at private schools or by providing fake U.S. addresses in those districts.
When violence in Mexico began to escalate in February, many students at Roma schools stayed home from school. Then their parents began sending them again.
There is no way for the district to know which students cross into the United States every day because they all have proof of residence in Roma, said Ricky Perez, spokesman for the Roma school district. But the school district has not seen many changes in the attendance of the students,
“It is business as usual as far as Roma is concerned,” Perez said. “That is not to say that we are diminishing the fact that there is a certain amount of violence up around the other side of the border. There might be some occurring here in (Miguel) Alemán that would maybe affect attendance.”
Although the U.S. consulate has issued travel alerts to U.S. citizens to stay out of Mexico, some students still make trips across the international bridge to attend school each morning.
Leslie, a high school student who crosses into Miguel Alemán to see her mom, echoed many other students when she said she doesn’t let rumors of violence affect her.
“I haven’t seen anything, but everybody knows there are bad people” with the drug cartels, she said. “We just know there is a bad situation, but we haven’t seen any type of violence.”
Leonel has heard adults talk about gun battles between former allies the Zetas and the Gulf Cartel, but he has not seen any of the violence himself.
Juan’s parents, on the other hand, won’t let him cross back into Mexico to visit his extended family.
“Over there (in Miguel Alemán) is cool. You can go and have fun with the family. In (Roma), you can’t do anything,” he said.
Maria Contreras, who crosses the international bridge almost every day with her children, said her frequent crossings are necessary. She goes to Mexico every night to take care of her elderly father and then comes to Roma every morning to take care of a sick aunt.
“If we want our kids to continue with their education, we got to do what we have to do,” Contreras said in Spanish. “If something is going to happen to us, it will happen anyway, so we have to continue with our lives.”
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Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
Why are these kids going to school in the US on the US taxpayer’s dollar?
If you'd read the article you'd find that many are in private schools. Some are illegally attending public schools. The same thing happens cross school districts, but at least the parents are paying taxes in some school district. It's generally done to get the kids into a better,or perceived better school, either across school district boundaries, state lines or international borders.
It sounds like the usual story ... UNTIL something happens to them personally, they won’t take the warnings seriously. This is very stupid on their part.
[quote]
The last name of Daisy and other students are withheld for privacy and safety considerations.
[/quote]
Key sentence. The privacy of illegal aliens is greater than that of the citizens of the united states.
Ping!
That’s the first thing I thought when I read the article.
All along the border Mexican children cross the border to attend school- and have been doing it for years. The article makes it sound like they are mainly crossing to attend private schools- that may be true in that area but near me they are all attending public school. When the issue has been raised here we are told that the students are U.S. citizens so they must be welcome to go to school here. Their mothers crossed the border to have their children here so the children would be able to attend school and qualify for other benefits of course. Another reason we need to do away with handing out citizenship to anyone that happens to be born here.
Rumors huh?
Young people have that innate ability to ignore reality. LALALALALALALA (holding ears)
they are not us citizens, they are suckers off a sick system.
Unfortunately until we put a stop to it, they are indeed U.S. Citizens. That is the problem.
sad, we should remove citizenship retroactively the clinton taxed retroactively
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