Rules and Paperwork Keep Long Island’s [UAC] Immigrant Children From Classroom

Before dawn breaks and the morning light spills onto his bedroom floor, Carlos Garcia Lobo bounces out of bed, his eyes alight with anticipation, and asks his mother if he can go to school.

Each time, she replies to her 8-year-old son: Not yet.

Four months after fleeing Honduras with a 15-year-old cousin, Carlos has reached what his family said seemed like an impassable frontier. Like dozens of the roughly 2,500 unaccompanied immigrant children who have been released to relatives or other sponsors on Long Island so far this year, Carlos has been unable to register for school.

The impasse has baffled parents ...

Many of the children are barred because their families cannot gather the documents that schools require to prove they are residents of the district or have guardianship — obstacles that contravene legal guidance on enrollment procedures the State Education Department issued in September. Concern over similar deterrents across the country prompted Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in May to chide districts for “raising barriers for undocumented children” ...

Like many immigrants on Long Island, where affordable housing is scarce, Ms. Bustillo rents rooms in a home that illegally lodges several families. To protect himself from scrutiny, the landlord declined to notarize district residency papers ...

Lease agreements or copies of bills are common prerequisites for school enrollment, a practice that is allowed under legal guidance issued in May by the federal Education Department and Justice Department. But activists argue that such requirements, when applied to newly arrived children, can impede their access to school ...

The superintendent of Westbury Public Schools, Mary A. Lagnado, said the district accommodated new arrivals by making paperwork available in Spanish and looking for “whatever alternative we can” when certain information is unobtainable ...

But especially in a town sensitive to its tax burden, she said, certain residency requirements are rigid. Families like Ms. Lobo’s who are subleasing rooms in a home must provide a notarized lease or owner’s affidavit, the homeowner’s residential deed or mortgage statement, and two home bills.

“We try to make sure that they are a bona fide resident of the school district,” she said. “Taxes are very high on Long Island. We have a responsibility to our community and homeowners” ...

Representatives Steve Israel, a Democrat, and Peter T. King, a Republican, both from Long Island, recently introduced legislation that would give districts emergency financing for new enrollees, an effort that Mr. Israel said was intended to relieve towns of the burden “to raise taxes or cut other services ...