By KIMBERLEE KRUESI and KRISTIN M. HALL, Associated Press

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Damian Felipe Jimenez has many dreams about his future — he could be a restaurant owner, a scientist or maybe something else. As he works through sixth grade, he knows education will be critical in making his dreams a reality, but he’s increasingly worried that option could soon disappear for some of his classmates.

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Felipe Jimenez is one of hundreds of children who have packed the Tennessee Capitol this year to oppose legislation designed to upend the long-standing U.S. constitutional right to free public education for children, regardless of immigration status. It’s a protection established by the landmark 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyler v. Doe, which struck down a Texas law that sought to deny enrollment to any student not “legally admitted” into the country.

“I am the son of immigrant parents who have shown me to respect and value everyone,” Felipe Jimenez told lawmakers earlier this year, speaking on behalf of the impact the bill would have on his peers. “Just like me and all the kids in this country, we have the right to dream and make those dreams come true. The right to an education should not be taken away from us because of our immigration status.”

A growing number of conservative leaders are pushing states to overturn Plyler v. Doe — including the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. This year, Tennessee’s Republican lawmakers appear the most willing to take up the cause by advancing legislation that directly contradicts the Supreme Court’s decision and would spark a legal battle that supporters hope will not only go before the high court but also allow justices to reverse the ruling.

GOP-led states have introduced a plethora of anti-immigration bills following President Donald Trump’s reelection and his subsequent moves to aggressively deport immigrants who have entered the U.S. illegally. But few have followed Tennessee’s lead to focus on revoking public education from children, and none have made it out of committee.

An uphill fight but a different Supreme Court

The Republican-controlled Tennessee Senate has approved a proposal requiring proof of legal residence to enroll in public K-12 public schools and allowing schools to either turn away students who fail to provide proper documentation or charge them tuition. The House version differs by letting public schools check immigration status, rather than requiring it.

The two versions will need to be reconciled before they can head to Republican Gov. Bill Lee’s desk. If it passes, the legislation is all but certain to face a lawsuit.

FILE – Gisselle Huerta, left, yells against a bill that would allow public and charter schools to deny immigrant students from enrolling during a House meeting of the Education K-12 subcommittee, in Nashville, Tenn., March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

The sponsors of the proposal have largely downplayed denying children the right to education, but instead have focused on the fiscal impact states are facing in educating children residing in the U.S. illegally.

“It’s been argued that undocumented illegal aliens pay sales tax and property tax,” said Republican Sen. Bo Watson, the backer of the bill in the Senate. “True. But one doesn’t know if those payments come close to offsetting the additional costs. We argue they do not.”

It’s unknown how many undocumented children live in Tennessee, and it’s unclear if the proposal would result in any savings. When Texas made similar economic arguments in the Plyler case, it was rejected by the court.

Lawmakers and other conservative supporters repeatedly point to the 5-4 vote that determined Plyler in 1982, stressing the narrow decision means there is wiggle room to overturn the precedent — particularly under the current Supreme Court that has been open to reversing legal precedent, including on the right to abortion.

“It doesn’t take one too long to figure out that there’s a strong appetite by the conservatives on the Supreme Court to overturn precedent,” said Brett Geier, a professor of educational leadership at Western Michigan University. “And where does it come from? It starts with the states.”

The first test against the Plyler decision came in 1994 in California. Voters there approved a proposition prohibiting immigrants in the country without legal authorization from receiving public health care, education or other social services. That law was overturned.

In 2011, the Plyler precedent was challenged again after Alabama lawmakers required schools to determine student immigration status. That statute was eventually blocked after a legal challenge resulted in a settlement.

“I don’t see real debates about this. I see symbolic measures that are supported by some groups of Republican legislators,” said Thomas Saenz, president of the law firm Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which successfully defended the plaintiffs before the Supreme Court in the Plyler case.

“They do trot up same old arguments from the 1970s about the burden of the costs, etc., etc.,” Saenz added. “They never balance that against the benefit of taxes being paid by these kids and their parents.”

For children, the fight turns personal

For months, as GOP lawmakers have defended the legislation, the tone of those who have shown up to fight against the bill has often turned emotional. Students have broken down in tears, distraught over their classmates being removed from their school and worries over who might be next.

FILE – A woman embraces her child outside a House hearing room during protests against a bill that would allow public and charter schools to deny immigrant students from enrolling for classes in Nashville, Tenn., March 11, 2025. (AP Photo/George Walker IV, File)

As the Senate voted earlier this month, 12-year-old Silvestre Correa Del Canto stood outside in the crowded second floor of the Capitol with his mother, alarmed that the legislation could hurt children who don’t make the decisions about where they live and could impact their lives for years.

His family brought him to Nashville when he was 3 from Santiago, Chile. He now attends a public middle school that was originally a segregated school for African Americans. He connected that legacy to the Tennessee legislation.

“I feel like we’ve worked a lot to be connected again, people with people and going to school together,” Correa Del Canto, a sixth grader, said. “And I feel like that would be just going steps back, just going back in time and like losing all that we’ve worked for.”

Associated Press writer David Lieb contributed from Jefferson City, Missouri.

By YURI KAGEYAMA, Associated Press Business Writer

TOKYO (AP) — European shares opened lower on Thursday after a day of gains in Asia as investors awaited the next steps in President Donald Trump’s trade war.

The European Central Bank was expected to cut interest rates given worries over the potential impact of Trump’s trade policies.

France’s CAC 40 dipped 0.6% to 7,282.82, while the German DAX lost 0.2% to 21,267.50. Britain’s FTSE 100 shed 0.7% to 8,216.80.

The future for the S&P 500 jumped 0.9%, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.8%.

In Asia, Japan’s benchmark Nikkei 225 gained 1.4% to finish at 34,377.60 after Trump joined Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick in the talks with a Japanese delegation in Washington.

Afterward, Trump wrote in a social media post that it was: “A Great Honor to have just met with the Japanese Delegation on Trade. Big Progress!”

There was no immediate indication of what progress that might be.

Shares in Honda Motor Co. jumped 1.9% after the Japanese automaker said it plans to move its production of the five-door Civic hybrid electric vehicles for the U.S. market from Japan to the company’s plant in Indiana.

Honda Motor Co. didn’t say the move was in response to Trump’s tariff policies but stressed it moves production to where there is demand. Production of the U.S.-bound five-door Civic HEV began at the Yorii plant outside Tokyo in February. So far 3,000 vehicles have been produced there for the U.S. market.

Also Thursday, Japan’s Finance Ministry reported that the nation recorded a trade deficit i n its fiscal year through March, but racked up a surplus with the U.S. For the month of March, Japan recorded a trade surplus of $4 billion. Exports climbed nearly 4% from a year earlier, for the sixth straight month of gains, although the increase was slower than in February.

Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 gained 0.8% to 7,819.10. South Korea’s Kospi edged up 0.9% to 2,470.41. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng added 1.6% to 21,395.14, while the Shanghai Composite edged up 0.1% to 3,280.34.

On Wednesday, U.S. stocks fell after Nvidia warned new restrictions on exports to China will cost it billions of dollars. The S&P 500 sank 2.2% and the Dow shed 1.7%. The Nasdaq composite lost 3.1%.

Many investors are bracing for a possible recession because of Trump’s tariffs, which he has said he hopes will bring manufacturing jobs back to the United States and trim how much more it imports from other countries than it exports. A survey of global fund managers by Bank of America found expectations for recession are at the fourth-highest level in the last 20 years.

In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude rose 50 cents to $62.33 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, gained 45 cents to $66.30 a barrel.

In currency trading, the U.S. dollar rose to 142.73 Japanese yen from 141.88 yen. The euro cost $1.1371, down from $1.1401.

By DÁNICA COTO, Associated Press

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Crews worked early Thursday to restore power to Puerto Rico after a blackout across the entire island that affected the main international airport, several hospitals and hotels filled with Easter vacationers.

The outage that began past noon Wednesday left 1.4 million customers without electricity and 328,000 without water. At least 231,000 customers, or 16%, had power back at the end of the day. Officials expected 90% of customers to have power back within 48 to 72 hours after the outage.

“This is a shame for the people of Puerto Rico that we have a problem of this magnitude,” said Gov. Jenniffer González, who cut her weeklong vacation short and returned to Puerto Rico on Wednesday evening.

The blackout snarled traffic, forced hundreds of businesses to close and left those unable to afford generators scrambling to buy ice and candles.

It’s the second islandwide blackout to hit Puerto Rico in less than four months, with the previous one occurring on New Year’s Eve.

“Why on holidays?” griped José Luis Richardson, who did not have a generator and kept cool by splashing water on himself every couple of hours.

The roar of generators and smell of fumes filled the air as a growing number of Puerto Ricans renewed calls for the government to cancel the contracts with Luma Energy, which oversees the transmission and distribution of power, and Genera PR, which oversees generation.

González promised to heed those calls.

“That is not under doubt or question,” she said, but added that it’s not a quick process. “It is unacceptable that we have failures of this kind.”

González said a major outage like the one that occurred Wednesday leads to an estimated $230 million revenue loss daily.

Ramón C. Barquín III, president of the United Retail Center, a nonprofit that represents small- and medium-sized businesses, warned that ongoing outages would spook potential investors at a time that Puerto Rico urgently needs economic development.

“We cannot continue to repeat this cycle of blackouts without taking concrete measures to strengthen our energy infrastructure,” he said.

Many also were concerned about Puerto Rico’s elderly population, with the mayor of Canóvanas deploying brigades to visit the bedridden and those who depend on electronic medical equipment.

Meanwhile, the mayor of Vega Alta opened a center to provide power to those with lifesaving medical equipment.

It was not immediately clear what caused the shutdown, the latest in a string of major blackouts on the island in recent years.

Daniel Hernández, vice president of operations at Genera PR, said Wednesday that a disturbance hit the transmission system shortly after noon, a time when the grid is vulnerable because there are few machines regulating frequency at that hour.

Puerto Rico has struggled with chronic outages since September 2017, when Hurricane Maria pummeled the island as a powerful Category 4 storm, razing a power grid that crews are still struggling to rebuild.

The grid already had been deteriorating as a result of decades of a lack of maintenance and investment.

During a city council hearing, immigrants and their advocates shared stories of fraud, much of which is conducted over social media.

Christian, who did not give his last name for fear of being targeted by the federal government, told a New York City Council hearing Tuesday about how he was scammed by immigration fraudsters. (Screenshot from NY City Council hearing webcast)

During a New York City Council hearing about immigration services fraud on Tuesday, one asylum seeker testified about how he had been tricked by someone who claimed to be his attorney. 

“I was desperate to find someone to help me file for asylum,” said Christian through an English interpreter during a joint hearing of the council’s immigration and consumer and worker protection committees. (Christian, along with other immigrants who testified, provided only his first name to the council for fear of retaliation from federal government agencies.)

The person who had posed as his lawyer, he said, not only charged him money — a common practice among people who defraud immigrants — but also forged paperwork, like notices to appear, and even set up a fake court hearing through Google Meet.

“My attorney told me to dress formally for the virtual court hearing,” Christian said.

On the day of the virtual hearing, he said, a fake judge appeared, wearing a black robe. Fortunately for Christian, he did not log on alone: A law student who had previously been helping Christian with other matters accompanied him during the virtual hearing.

Christian said that by the end of the fake court hearing, the judge told him in Spanish that he’d have to pay just over $5,000 in the next eight days — or else the required payment would rise to $25,000. The law student flagged the scam to Legal Aid Society lawyers, who intervened and stopped it.

Christian was one of several migrants who testified about times they said they’d been victimized by immigration fraud. This can include legal services-related scams by attorneys and non-attorneys, as well as translators or providers of other services like public notaries posing as legal experts, who exploit the fact that lawyers often run notary services in many Spanish-speaking countries. 

“Over the past year, complaints of immigration services fraud in New York have increased, and advocates have consistently been ringing the alarm on these growing threats,” said Councilmember Alexa Avilés, chair of the council’s Committee on Immigration. “Oftentimes, immigration services fraud becomes more rampant in periods where demand for legal services increases.”

Councilmembers Shahna Hanif and Julie Won have each introduced legislation to address immigration fraud. Hanif’s bill, Intro 205, would educate the public about fraudulent schemes perpetrated by providers of immigration legal services; Won’s, Intro 980, would increase penalties for first and subsequent violations. 

The Department of Consumer and Worker Protection (DCWP), which handles civil fraud cases in the city, said complaints submitted about immigration service providers have increased over the past three years, with 23 complaints in 2022, 36 in 2023, and 46 in 2024.

During the council hearing, DCWP Commissioner Vilda Vera Mayuga said the department has “stepped up” investigations against employment agencies and immigration service providers.

DCWP said it recently completed a sweep of nearly 500 businesses advertising immigration or related services and issued more than 60 summonses.

“We look at what’s happening right now, and we know that ever since the change in administration in Washington, this is an area where we should focus on,” Mayuga said. 

Since January, the department explained, DCWP has received eight complaints, with most cases involving unauthorized practitioners.

DCWP conducts field inspections in response to complaints, and investigations can lead to summonses before the city’s Office of Administrative Trials and Hearings. Officials at DCWP acknowledge that prosecuting fraudulent immigration service providers and employment agencies remains an ongoing challenge. 

“Due to their fly-by-night nature, many operate out of temporary storefronts, residences, instant messaging apps or online platforms, only to disappear after being paid by a consumer,” Mayuga explained.

In Christian’s case, he found someone posing as a lawyer on Facebook. She told him through WhatsApp messages that she could help with his case for $1,750, which he paid.

Later on, he received what he later determined was a fake receipt notice, with an official-looking seal. 

The fake receipt had “some grammatical errors,” explained Deborah Lee, attorney-in-charge at the Legal Aid Society’s immigration law unit. Moreover, she said, “they had forgotten to translate parts into English.”

Still, it looked official enough to fool many asylum seekers, said Lee, who has been handling the case since the law student flagged it. “At first blush, especially if you’re not a native English speaker or reader, you wouldn’t necessarily be able to pick it up,” she said.

Lee said this was the first time they’d seen these types of fabricated court hearings, while DCWP acknowledged they haven’t received complaints that detail fake immigration hearings in the past.

“We haven’t seen something to this extent before,” Lee said.

During the oversight hearing, advocates noted that because many of these scams are taking place on social networks, they’re more difficult for city officials to punish, because there are no brick-and-mortar locations to inspect.

Lee and other advocates warned that scammers are also creating what appear to be either fraudulent or alternative immigration-related sites. Some, Lee explained, look like an immigration court site, while others look similar to a USCIS application tracker, “but it’s just a private site.” 

Asked by Avilés about its investigation of scams conducted over social media, Mayuga responded that DCWP relies on complainants to confirm the information they provide and help identify the person behind the account.

Other DCWP officials acknowledged that social media only exacerbates the fly-by-night aspect of this problem and stressed the importance of preventative measures such as education. Mayuga said the department is running a digital education campaign across social media platforms to educate New Yorkers about protections related to immigration service providers. Over the past three years, DCWP has coordinated a citywide day of action and has held 600 immigrant-focused outreach events.

Advocates and city officials each recognized immigrant communities’ hesitancy to file complaints due to fear of government interaction and reminded people that third parties, such as family members, friends, people from community organizations can submit them, anonymously if they prefer. Complaints can be filed by calling 311, at nyc.gov/Consumers or with the New York Attorney General’s Office at ag.ny.gov/file-complaint or by calling 1-800-771-7755. (A spokesperson for the attorney general’s office explained that it can take civil action against individuals or businesses who commit large-scale fraud on immigrant communities.)

Won’s chief of staff, Nick Gulotta, testifying in his personal capacity as someone who’s worked on this issue for years, recommended a sort of “worst landlords watch list” approach to this issue, or the creation of a fraud database.

“That’s a great idea,” Avilés seconded. “I’d like to call it the ‘shame list.’”

To reach the reporter behind this story, contact daniel@citylimits.org. 

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