June 15, 1982 – Plyler v. Doe Overturns Texas Law Disallowing State Funds for Non-Citizens

“A revision to the Texas education laws in 1975 allowed the state to
withhold from local school districts state funds for educating children
of illegal aliens. …[In Plyler v. Doe, decided [5-4] on June 15,
1982, t]he Court reasoned that illegal aliens and their children, though
not citizens of the United States or Texas, are people ‘in any ordinary
sense of the term’ and, therefore, are afforded Fourteenth Amendment
protections. Since the state law severely disadvantaged the children of
illegal aliens, by denying them the right to an education, and because
Texas could not prove that the regulation was needed to serve a ‘compelling state interest,’ the Court struck down the law.”