This bill would repeal a 1996 law that prohibits states from granting undocumented children access to higher education benefits.

The number of undocumented children in the public school system is impossible to determine, though, since it is illegal for officials to collect information on immigration status.

The creation of this law came after the failed attempt to pass the DREAM Act for undocumented immigrant children.

She also supports the DREAM Act to help long-term undocumented children to earn college degrees and become legal residents.

The Supreme Court established the right of undocumented immigrant children to a free public education in a 1982 Texas case, Plyler v. Doe.

In January 1988, he said, the district counted 7,127 undocumented Central American children.

In Plyler, the court, following two lower courts, struck down a Texas law effectively barring undocumented children from public schools.

Tancredo called for the deportation of the family of Jesus Apodaca, an undocumented immigrant child in a Denver high school.

But the state's decision to deny foster care to undocumented immigrant children opens a new front in that battle with Washington.

The right of undocumented children to public education was firmly established by the Supreme Court in 1982 in Plyler v. Doe.