While crime and housing issues often come to the forefront of debates about illegal immigration, a leading Republican lawmaker said this week that the impact illegal immigration has on public schools and students is being mistakenly overlooked.
Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Fla.), chairman of the House Subcommittee on Early Childhood Education, said in a lengthy interview with Fox News Digital that the influx of migrants from the porous southern border is “wreaking havoc” in America’s schools.
“Right now, as far as we know, 10 million illegal immigrants have entered the country illegally in the last three years under Joe Biden’s administration. We say, ‘we think we know,’ but we don’t actually know,” he said.
“Because now there’s a word: ‘fugitives.’ We believe there are roughly 500,000 illegal immigrant children in this country. And one of the first places to feel the impact of illegal immigration is our K-12 schools.”
Bean said the committee had heard shocking stories from representatives of school districts in both Republican and Democratic states about how they had handled the enrollment of growing numbers of foreign minors.
“We heard [of] Hallway teachers. We’re hearing about enormous resources being used to quickly hire foreign language teachers. In fact, one district had to hire teachers to teach over 17 languages. It’s just a huge waste of resources.”
Bean’s Republican colleague, House Education Committee Chairwoman Virginia Foxx, R-S.C., echoed some of Bean’s comments in an interview Wednesday.
Fox, whose district covers the Blue Ridge Parkway, far from Mexico, said every state is a border state given the current crisis.
“I feel so bad for the kids who are coming unaccompanied by their parents. They can’t find bilingual teachers. I’m from North Carolina and it’s already hard to find teachers, let alone find teachers who speak another language.”
Bean also told the story of a teacher who had an immigrant student in her class who looked to be in his 20s but claimed his ID said he was 18.
“These things are just going up and up, and I think it’s because everything is getting out of control. Enough is enough. Let’s fix this border. Let’s get back to America’s schools and get on with doing what we do best – teaching students math, reading and science.”
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“I hope Joe Biden is watching our hearing. And if he’s not, he’s probably watching this news story about illegal immigrants wreaking havoc on our K-12 education system. This must stop.”
Bean said the harmful effects of undocumented immigration put additional strain on U.S. schools that are still reeling from COVID-19 lockdowns and the abrupt shift to remote learning.
He said the consequences of both crises are showing up in standardized test scores, which he calculates are the worst in 20 years.
“We’re now competing with countries like China and India that want to do us harm. We’ve always believed that our education system is among the best in the world, but that’s no longer the case,” Bean said. “So why are we diluting our limited resources? [have] With this huge influx?
Bean predicted Biden and some Democrats would argue that the White House is indeed taking steps to stem the tide of illegal immigration and mitigate the damage to public school systems, but he called Biden’s recent border-related executive orders a misnomer.
“I think [his order] “It has more holes than Swiss cheese,” he said. “The way it’s done, they’re not actually closing the border. They’re just saying 2,500 people are coming back. How do we know? The border is either closed or it’s not.”
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“If Joe Biden can’t close the border, maybe there’s someone else who can replace him,” he said, an apparent reference to former President Trump.
As for the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, Bean said he played a “congressional blame game Bingo” during Tuesday’s hearing, in which he predicted a string of buzzwords and political jargon he would hear when critics presented views with which he disagreed.
Bingo terms included “It’s Trump’s fault,” “Xenophobia” and “It’s the Republicans’ fault.”
The latter stems from a common charge on the campaign trail that Republicans aren’t trying to properly fund schools, he said. Instead, he said, America is spending huge amounts of money on education with little results.
During the hearing, Rep. Jahana Hayes, D-Connecticut, pushed back against Bean’s assertion that the influx of immigrant students enrolling through the education system is a crisis.
“The idea that immigrant students are a drag on public education, if you look across the country and look at the valedictorian or the class president or the top 10 of any high school class, you’re going to find first-generation immigrants,” Hayes said.
“As soon as we overcome the language barrier, we will have students who will show that lack of English is not a measure of intelligence.”
She also said that former President Trump Abolish the Department of EducationShe portrayed this as evidence of Republicans’ lack of seriousness on the overall issue.
Asked for comment on Bean’s remarks and the hearing generally, the office of Rep. Robert Scott (D-VA) directed Fox News Digital to forward Rep. Suzanne Bonamici’s opening statement at Bean’s hearing.
In his remarks, Bonamici accused Republicans on the committee of using the forum to undermine the 1982 Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe, which recognized that education is a fundamental right regardless of immigration status.
Bonamici said Republicans are wrongly “scapegoating immigrant children” and should be focusing on keeping children safe by tackling issues like gun violence.
In response to inquiries about Bean’s confirmation hearing, the Department of Homeland Security pointed Fox News Digital to a recent interview between Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and Fox News’ Neil Cavuto, in which the secretary told “Your World” there is an urgent need to revive and pass the latest border control bill.
“The bipartisan Senate bill would provide us with much-needed reform to a 30-year-old law. We are dealing with a terribly dysfunctional refugee protection system, and this bill would provide us with a level of resources that we desperately need and don’t have,” Mayorkas said.
Fox News Digital reached out to the White House but did not receive a response.