All immigrants, regardless of their citizenship status, have the right to attend a public K-12 school in the United States. Schools cannot collect students’ immigration status when they enroll. This has been the case since 1982, when the Supreme Court ruled against Texas in the case of Plyler v. Doe.

Republican legislators in several states, including Tennessee, Oklahoma and Ohio, are trying to pass legislation that challenges the Plyler decision. These bills would make it harder, if not impossible, for immigrant children to attend public school.

In the U.S., there are approximately 1.5 million children under the age of 18 who are undocumented immigrants, meaning that they live in the country without legal authorization.

There are likely 600,000 to 850,000 undocumented students enrolled in K-12 schools.

In 1975, Texas passed legislation that allowed school districts to either charge undocumented students to attend public school or not let them enroll at all.

Seven years later, the Supreme Court ruled that Texas’ law violated the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The court determined that someone’s immigration status “does not establish a sufficient rational basis for denying them benefits that the State affords other residents.”

For the past 44 years, this ruling has ensured that no state can ban undocumented students from attending a public K-12 school, charge them extra fees or discriminate against them in any other way because of their immigration status.

A few times over the past few decades, some states have unsuccessfully tried to make it harder for immigrant children to attend school.

In 1994, California voters passed Proposition 187, a ballot initiative that denied undocumented........

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