Audits Urged to Find Mexican Pupils Illegally in U.S. Schools

A bipartisan group of lawmakers from San Diego on Thursday urged Controller Gray Davis to conduct an audit to determine how many children who live in Mexico might be crossing the border to attend school in California.

Davis, in an audit completed late last year, found widespread irregularities in the attendance procedures of one border school district, but then declined to review attendance records at seven other border-area districts.

Republicans have critized Davis, a Democrat running for lieutenant governor, for failing to follow through.

Now 12 legislators who represent parts of San Diego County--six Republicans, five Democrats and an independent--have signed a letter urging Davis to go forward.

“The affected school districts have had every opportunity to be aware of their responsibility to establish proper procedures for verifying residency,” the lawmakers wrote. “The taxpayers have every right to be assured that their money is being properly spent.”

The issue is separate from the controversy over illegal immigrants attending school in California. Those immigrants, whether they have legal status or not, are entitled to public education under a U.S. Supreme Court decision because they are residents of the state.

The students at issue in this case live in Mexico and cross the border every morning to go to school, then return home at night. Many may be U.S. citizens whose parents moved south of the border because they could not find affordable housing in the United States. Whether or not they are citizens, however, they are not entitled to an education unless they reside in the school district.

Although long whispered about in education circles along the border, the practice was exposed last fall by Republican Assemblyman Jan Goldsmith of Poway, who released a videotape showing a Mountain Empire School District bus picking up students at the border for trips to school.

A controller’s audit of that district found that hundreds of students were enrolled without providing proper documentation that they were residents of the district. In one case, several students listed a vacant lot as their home. Others used post office box numbers, which state regulations say are unacceptable proof of residency.

In December, Davis sent letters notifying seven more districts that they would be subject to similar audits. But the audits were never done. Now Davis says the letters were sent by mistake.

Davis said in an interview that his office could not afford the $500,000 the additional audits would cost. He said he is obligated to conduct audits for the federal government and to complete other audits that could result in savings of $30 million for the state Medi-Cal program.

Davis said he hopes to do one or two additional border school district audits in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1, to confirm the findings from the Mountain Empire district. If the Legislature gives him the money he needs to do all the audits, he said, “We’ll do them in a heartbeat.”

Claudia Smith, a lawyer for California Rural Legal Assistance, said her group interviewed the families involved in the Mountain Empire controversy and found that 90% of the children who were crossing the border said they were U.S. citizens. She said the controller’s audit was flawed and led to the harassment of some Latino students who were eligible to attend school.

“It’s very, very worrisome,” she said.