AP: Texas

02/07/2006

Associated Press

A Dallas school official said changing employment laws that restrict hiring illegal immigrants could help the district overcome its shortage of bilingual teachers.

School board member Joe May said the Dallas Independent School District should be able to recruit college-educated illegal immigrants who qualify for its emergency teaching certification program. But federal law prohibits knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.

The school board was set to discuss May's idea at a Tuesday meeting, although some board members urged caution, The Dallas Morning News reported for its Tuesday editions.

The Dallas district, which has about 161,000 students, currently recruits Spanish-speaking teachers from foreign countries and then helps the applicants obtain their work visas.

May said laws regarding the employment of illegal immigrants who've been in the United States for years should be changed.

"It makes sense if we set up shop over here," May said. "We can build an employment base in our own market."

Board member Hollis Brashear said he wants to hear how the district's attorneys respond to the idea. "But I don't know if we can discuss something that involves not complying with U.S. law," he said.

Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said he could support May's hiring proposal if it is done legally, adding that May's grass-roots effort is how laws are changed.

Hinojosa also said he empathizes with young children who enter the United States illegally with their parents and then run up against employment laws when they become adults.

"It wasn't their fault they were brought here," he said. "Their parents brought them here."

Federal officials said May's proposal conflicts with the law. Getting a work visa isn't an option for illegal immigrants in the United States, said Maria Elena Garcia-Upson, regional communications manager for U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

"While we empathize and sympathize with these individuals, there is an orderly fashion in which one can immigrate to this country," she said.

School board member Jerome Garza said May's idea deserves consideration.

"We as trustees can no longer solve problems like we did 10 years ago," he said. "We have to be innovative."

But John Keeley, director of communications for the Center for Immigration studies, a nonprofit group that seeks to limit immigration, said May's proposal sends the wrong message to students.