Billing Plan Prompts Trustee Recall Campaign

High school district trustees have passed a plan to bill foreign countries or the federal government for educating the children of illegal immigrants, prompting a recall drive Friday.

The resolution, passed Thursday by a 4-1 vote, demands that the Immigration and Naturalization Service count the Anaheim Union High School District’s illegal immigrant students and determine their countries of origin. The trustees also are asking the U.S. government to reimburse the district for the costs of educating those students and to negotiate with other countries to recover the costs.

On Friday, opponents announced a recall drive against board President Harald Martin and trustees Robert Stewart and Alexandria Coronado, who led the effort.

“This school district is not doing anything for our people,” said Seferino Garcia, executive director of Solevar Community Development Corp., an Anaheim nonprofit social service agency. “They say the schools are overcrowded and the kids aren’t getting an education, but they don’t care about the community. We’ll have to work to get them out of there. They do not represent us.”

Stewart said that if the federal government paid the cost of educating illegal immigrants, the district would be able to spend $5,125 a year per student--instead of the $4,025 it spends now.

“What [opponents are] failing to realize is that the resolution will provide money to improve the situations they were talking about,” Martin said in an interview Friday. “They don’t realize that, again, because they are so narrowly focused on the race issue. They can’t see out of that very narrow box. All we’re asking for is the truth, the facts.”

The board’s action drew the ire Friday of Orange County Board of Education President Felix Rocha Jr.

“I’m so mad right now I can’t believe it,” he said. “This is really about racism. They are not acting in good faith against good case law. What do they want? They’re not inspiring the kids toward education. They’re just promoting themselves in a very mean-spirited way. And the little children are expected to go to school and feel like they’re a part of something?”