EDUCATION : To Some, Mexicans’ Free Schooling in N.M. Doesn’t Add Up : Palomas students cross the U.S. border to attend classes. But a lawsuit calls the tradition too costly--and illegal.

Phoebe Watson was a grammar school principal in this remote outpost on the Mexican border in 1950 when she helped strike a bargain with neighboring Palomas, Mexico.

“If they had children who wanted to enroll in our school and we had the room, we’d take ‘em,” said Watson, 82, now mayor of this village of 750 people.

What began as a quiet arrangement with a handful of students now has led to the busing of 465 Palomas youths a year to schools here and in Deming, 30 miles to the north. The children get tuition-free English-language instruction, at an estimated cost of $1 million a year. Almost one student in 10 in the district is a resident of Mexico.

State education officials contend that a state statute requires them to admit any student “present in the state,” regardless of nationality or place of residence. School officials have interpreted the statute to mean they are obligated to provide a free education to any youth from Mexico who shows up at their door.

But a newly formed group of Luna County residents disagrees. The group has filed a lawsuit to end the 43-year tradition, calling it a burden on overcrowded border district schools and contrary to the state constitution, which prohibits public donations to private individuals.

New Mexico’s policy has been one of the nation’s most accommodating regarding the education of non-residents. The state is the only one to let youths cross the U.S.-Mexico border to attend school without paying tuition fees.

The dispute underlines rising tensions on the U.S. side about the way immigrants are drawing on taxpayer-funded services. It also illustrates how Americans and Mexicans in one isolated border area innovated to help each other, no matter what the law said.

“We believe in humanity here, not laws,” Watson said. “The Mexican children who’ve gone through our schools and then blended into our communities as leaders attest to the fact that it’s a good deal.”

But Harry Rhizor, a retired military officer who moved to Columbus 15 years ago and is one of two plaintiffs in the lawsuit, says Watson and state education officials ignore the strain the program puts on schools, and taxpayers’ wallets.

Rhizor, who has raised $6,000 in donations to wage the legal challenge, said the practice is a violation of the state constitution’s anti-donation clause.

“If it’s wrong, it’s wrong--I don’t see how a state has a right to take on foreign aid,” Rhizor said. “If the federal government wants to take on that obligation, fine.”

Rhizor said he discovered the problem about two years ago while working part time at the border crossing for the U.S. Customs Service. He was alarmed, he said, to see vans “bulging with kids” heading north to American public schools.

Paradoxically, most of the students who make the daily trek are already American citizens because their parents took care to see that they were born on the American side of the border. Nevertheless, Anne Marie Beck, a Deming realtor and outspoken supporter of Rhizor’s lawsuit, suggested that by continuing the education practice “we’re not teaching Mexico to take care of their own problems, and that’s a mistake.”

Palomas Mayor Julieta Avina calls such assertions ill-informed.

“Those people do not understand that there is hardly any work here, and we do not have a high school in Palomas,” Avina said in her small office fronting the unpaved main street through her farming and ranching community of 7,000 people. “If you don’t speak both English and Spanish you don’t get anywhere on this part of the border.

“To me, the lawsuit is racist,” added Avina, “and I think this issue could lead to international problems along this part of the border.”

Avina would not elaborate. But some local officials interpreted her comments to be a warning that if the lawsuit prevails, Mexico could retaliate by hindering the flow of people, goods and services across the border here, which could hurt communities on both sides.

Columbus and Palomas are closely linked, in part, by necessity. They are 70 miles from the next largest cities of El Paso and Juarez, Mexico.

Thousands of Americans flock to Palomas each year for dental and medical services and pharmaceutical products offered for less than half of what they would cost in the United States. Thousands of residents from in and around Palomas spend millions of dollars a year in New Mexico on taxable items ranging from farming equipment and clothing to food and automobiles.

In addition, if a fire breaks out in Palomas, the volunteer fire department of Columbus roars across the border and puts it out. If Columbus residents need day laborers, there are hundreds of people in Palomas eager to work for more than Mexico’s minimum wage of $4 a day.

Many families in Palomas fear that if the lawsuit is successful, they won’t be able to afford to send their children to high school in distant Juarez.

“I’m very angry about this because there’s hardly any work here and those of us who do work earn $40 a week,” said Marta Lopez, 38, a waitress in a Palomas restaurant who has two children attending grammar school in Columbus.

“My children were born in the United States and will be working over there one day,” she said, “so it’s very important they learn English.”

“For us, it would take away an opportunity for our children to have a better life,” said Alonso Mendoza, principal of the elementary school in Palomas. “This at a time when we need bilingual people to make the North American Free Trade Agreement work.”

That message is ingrained in the minds of the hundreds of youths who stream through the port of entry here each school day at dawn and gather in a parking lot a few yards north of the international line to board buses that take them to the American elementary schools and high schools.

“I’ve been going to school in New Mexico all my life because my mother thinks learning English can lead to opportunities,” said Dolores Coronado, 18, a senior at Deming High School. “I’m going to go to college to study nursing and I want to live in the United States.”

With resentment simmering on both sides of the border, Watson and Avina have made a priority of meeting regularly to discuss the latest developments. At one meeting last week Avina said: “The people who live in Palomas and in Columbus are like one family--many have relatives on both sides. The people behind the lawsuit must have come from someplace else. If they don’t like Mexico they ought to move to Canada.”

“Don’t worry, Julieta, we won’t let them win,” Watson said, taking the other woman’s hand. “We love your children too much.”

Open-Door Policy Challenged

For 43 years, Columbus, N.M., has enrolled students who live across the border in Palomas. Now the voluntary arrangement is under attack in court.