Here’s what you need to know about how a Supreme Court ruling to end or restrict birthright citizenship could change the educational landscape.
Public schools cannot reject students because of their immigration status
All children, regardless of immigration status, have the right to a free K-12 public education in the United States. That right was affirmed in the landmark 1982 Supreme Court ruling. Plyler v. Doe.
The case centered on whether Texas could prohibit the use of state funds to educate children living in the United States illegally. It was also questioned whether a public school district could charge foreign-born students tuition to enroll. The immigrant students sued and prevailed.
In Plyler says Cervantes, “The judges recognized that denying children a K-12 education, a basic education, would create a permanent underclass in our society.”
Because of this decision, school districts are not supposed to collect immigration data on their students or their families. But immigrant advocates fear that Plyler has become a political objective.
“The conservative movement has made very clear its intention to revoke Plyler v. Doe even providing a manual to state legislatures to help make that happen,” says Alejandra Vázquez Baur, co-founder and director of the National Newcomer Network, which advocates for newly arrived immigrant students.
The Heritage Foundation, the conservative think tank behind Project 2025, which has shaped much of the Trump administration’s agenda, recently called to states to restrict public education for undocumented students and has recommended that states directly challenge he Plyler decision, arguing it will cost states hundreds of millions of dollars in education spending in 2023 alone.
“States have a compelling interest in preserving limited taxpayer dollars by prioritizing American citizens and legal immigrants.” wrote Lora Ries of Heritage.
Tennessee lawmakers are among those taking action: There are bills currently moving through the state legislature that propose tracking the legal status of K-12 students and allowing public schools to refuse to enroll undocumented students. Several other states have also proposed laws that directly or indirectly threaten Plyler.
If any of these proposals become law, it could spark legal challenges and ultimately reopen the question of whether immigrant children have a right to a public education.
The right to education does not mean that families feel safe sending their children to school
Immigration Enforcement Efforts May Take Their Toll school attendance.
MPR News reported that after the federal immigration presence in Minnesota earlier this year, some districts experienced a 20-40% increase in absences. And that trend predates the Trump administration: Researchers at the Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank based at Stanford University, found that after the immigration raids in January 2025, school districts in California’s Central Valley had a 22% increase in absences.
Vázquez Baur says these findings show that immigrant children’s constitutional right to attend K-12 public schools is already under threat.
“The law is still the law, kids can still go to school. Now we know that’s being complicated right now by immigration enforcement in schools,” he says. “The issue of birthright citizenship complicates it even more.”
Sophia Rodríguez, a professor of education policy at New York University, has been studying the impact of immigration enforcement on school attendance. She says she has heard reports of “constant fear, anxiety and stress” from immigrant families worried about sending their children to school. “And when you add this possible end to birthright citizenship, you create a greater number of communities living in fear and anxiety,” he says.
Some studies have shown that, historically, when there is an increase in local immigration enforcement, fewer Hispanic students enroll in nearby schoolswhich can disrupt their education and affect school funding. In most states, public school districts receive funding based on daily student attendance and overall enrollment.
this comes as many school districts are already facing drops in enrollment.
Students with disabilities could be left out
For many children, schools are the first point of contact with public services such as nutrition programs, health care, language learning and counseling. That’s especially the case for immigrant families, says NYU’s Rodríguez. “[Schools] They are often the only social institution or public institution that immigrant families have access to.”
They are also often the first place where children’s disabilities are identified and where those students can take advantage of the services they need to succeed. He Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the central special education law that guarantees all Disabled children have the right to a “free and appropriate public education.”
“So those are things that are not going to go away or change based on immigration status,” says Anne Dwyer, a professor at Georgetown University’s Center for Children and Families. “But if a community is experiencing immigration enforcement or fear of law enforcement to such a level that parents don’t even feel comfortable taking their children to school, then those children automatically won’t be able to access those same supports that schools provide.”
Schools also rely on state and federal Medicaid dollars to pay for services like physical, speech and occupational therapy. The program covers approximately half of all students with special education plans. according to a KFF analysisa nonpartisan health policy research organization. Medicaid funding too constitutes an important portion of public school budgets: The US Department of Education. reported in 2024 that Medicaid sends between $4 billion and $6 billion to schools annually.
“Even if a school can’t potentially provide a type of service, it will probably be an intermediary for those resources,” Rodriguez says.
However, Medicaid is typically limited to U.S. citizens and people with other qualifying legal statuses. If birthright citizenship is eliminated, children born in the United States who would have previously been citizens may no longer qualify for Medicaid. For any of those children who have disabilities, schools would still be legally obligated to serve them under IDEA, but they would have to find a way to replace the lost Medicaid funds.
“That would create huge potential cost shifts for districts,” Dwyer says. “And we know that school districts are already incredibly stretched.”
Paying for higher education would be much more difficult
While the law currently provides K-12 education for all students, the same is not true for higher education. Students without legal status can still enroll in college, but they do not have access to federal financial aid, such as federal student loans and the Pell Grant, which helps low-income students and is currently facing a funding gap.
And because of their status, undocumented students are also more likely to come from impoverished backgrounds, says Caitlin Patler, a public policy professor at UC Berkeley. “Those two things together make higher education almost impossible for undocumented children.”
In some states, including Georgia and Alabama, undocumented students are not allowed to attend certain public universities; Other states charge them out-of-state tuition.
Patler says research shows that U.S. citizenship is directly related to opportunities that increase a child’s educational achievement. “And therefore, much later, as children are followed throughout their lives, educational attainment correlates directly with stronger economic contributions.”
He worries about a future in which birthright citizenship is reduced or eliminated. “This would have a cascading domino effect, potentially over several generations, by forcing this large and growing group of millions of children into a caste-like status.”
A caste-like status, he says, in which your opportunities would not be dictated by your potential, but by your immigration status.
