Excerpt from U.S. Supreme Court trial of 1982

Opinion written by U.S. Supreme Court justice William J. Brennan on June 15, 1982

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the children of illegal immigrants had the same rights as everyone else, especially the right to an education

"By denying these children a basic education, we deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions, and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our Nation."

In 1977, children of illegal immigrants were not allowed to attend school in Texas without paying tuition, a fee paid to attend a school. Nearly none could afford the tuition. Five years later, in 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Texas could not deny the children of illegal immigrants a public education. The case, called Plyler...