Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM OPINION JUSTICE, District Judge. Procedural History This civil action began in September, 1977, when plaintiffs, a group of Mexican children who had entered the United States illegally and currently reside in Smith County, Texas, sought injunctive and declaratory relief from this court by and through their parents, as next friends, against their exclusion from the public schools in the Tyler Independent School District (“Tyler I.S.D.”). The defendant Board of Trustees of Tyler I.S.D. had refused to enroll any undocumented child, absent a tuition fee of $1,000 per year, pursuant to section 21.031 of the Texas Education Code (Vernon Supp.1976) (“section 21.031”). This statute provides, in pertinent part: (a) All children who are citizens of the United States or legally admitted aliens and who are over the age of five years and under the age of 21 years on the first day of September of any scholastic year shall be entitled to the benefits of the Available School Fund for that year. (b) Every child in this state who is a citizen of the United States or a legally admitted alien and who is over the age of five years and not over the age of 21 years on the first day of September of the year in which admission is sought shall be permitted to attend the public free schools of the district in which he resides or in which his parent, guardian, or the person having lawful control of him resides at the time he applies for admission. (c) The board of trustees of any public free school district of this state shall admit into the public free schools of the district free of tuition all persons who are either citizens of the United States or legally admitted aliens and who are over five and not over 21 years of age at the beginning of the scholastic year if such a person or his parent, guardian or person having lawful control resides within the school district. Although section 21.031 had been enacted in 1975, the Tyler I.S.D. continued to enroll undocumented children, free of charge, until the 1977-1978 school year, when they observed the increasing number of such children. In July, 1977, fearing that the Tyler I.S.D. would become a “haven” for illegal aliens, the Board of Trustees of the school district adopted the following policy, designed to implement the statute: The Tyler Independent School District shall enroll all qualified students who are citizens of the United States or legally admitted aliens, and who are residents of this school district, free of tuition charge. Illegal alien children may enroll and attend schools in the Tyler Independent School District by payment of the full tuition fee. A legally admitted alien is one who has documentation that he or she is legally in the United States, or a person who is in the process of securing documentation from the United States Immigration Service, and the Service will state that the person is being processed and will be admitted with proper documentation. A complaint and motion for preliminary injunction were filed by plaintiffs on September 6,1977. The complaint alleged that the Texas statute, as implemented by the Tyler I.S.D. policy, denied plaintiffs equal protection of the laws and, further, that the statute was preempted by the federal Immigration and Nationality Act, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101 et seq. On the same day, the court set a hearing on the application for preliminary injunction for September 9, and immediately notified the Attorney General of the State of Texas, the United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Texas, and the United States Department of Justice of the pendency and nature of the lawsuit. At the September 9 hearing, the court granted the state’s oral motion to intervene as a party defendant, made by and through the Attorney General. All parties, as well as the United States Department of Justice, were represented. Fearing disclosure of their identities, plaintiffs had filed their complaint under pseudonyms, and at the hearing moved for a protective order limiting the circumstances under which, and the persons to whom, plaintiffs’ true names might be revealed. The motion was granted and the order issued; however, the court advised the Department of Justice representatives that the order did not bind any officer of the United States who might desire to take action against plaintiffs and their parents for violations of the federal immigration laws. The court thereupon proceeded to receive evidence, including testimony by the parents of the plaintiffs. Finding that plaintiffs had shown probability of success on the merits as to their equal protection claim, and that they would suffer irreparable harm should interim relief be denied, the court granted the application for preliminary injunction. Findings of Fact and Conclusions of Law were entered on September 12, 1977. A final hearing was scheduled for December 12, 1977. The final hearing continued for two days. The State of Texas, by the Attorney General, had filed an answer and participated fully as a defendant. The United States Department of Justice, pursuant to motion, was granted leave to participate as an ami-cus curiae. While the attorney representing the Government questioned several of the witnesses, he did not produce any independent witnesses. Plaintiffs offered into evidence the record of proceedings at the September hearing and, in addition, presented testimony of four expert witnesses. Plaintiffs’ witnesses testified on the following topics: (1) the historical framework of illegal emigration from Mexico into the United States; (2) the general characteristics of illegal immigrants; (3) school financing in Texas; and (4) the educational needs of Mexican children. The defendant school board presented testimony from the Superintendent and Business Manager of the Tyler I.S.D. The State of Texas presented witnesses from the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Texas Education Agency, and the Houston Independent School District (“Houston I.S.D.”), as well as two expert witnesses, who testified as to immigration and educational needs of Mexican students. In her opening statement, the Assistant Attorney General described the nature and scope of the state’s evidence: Basically, what we will attempt to show or what we will show is the impact on the educational system, that it impacts to the detriment of the citizens, the legally admitted child, particularly in the border areas, and the areas in which you find large Mexican-American enclaves, which Tyler is not one of those areas. That’s why you don’t see the impact from Tyler like you see in the Houston I.S.D., Brownsville, San Antonio, Eagle Pass, Abilene — different places around the state where there are Mexican-American enclaves, mostly the border areas. Record of Proceedings, Dec. 12, 16, 1977 (“Tr. 12/12”), at 163. At the conclusion of the hearing and after consultation with the attorneys, the court issued a briefing schedule. Early in January, 1978, plaintiffs moved to amend their complaint to conform to the evidence and to add the Governor of Texas and the Commissioner of Education of the State of Texas as parties to the action. The motion was granted on January 5,1978, and the amended complaint filed the same day. More than two months later, the State of Texas filed a motion for reconsideration and a motion to present additional evidence, based on the grounds that the Attorney General’s office represented neither the Governor of Texas nor the Commissioner of Education; that counsel for the state and the prospective witnesses had always assumed that the instant civil action would affect only the Tyler I.S.D. and not other school districts throughout the state; and that the evidence offered at trial had been consciously limited by this understanding. Immediately prior to the trial on the merits, plaintiffs filed a brief which included references to the evidence they would offer at trial. The United States filed a post-trial brief, including substantial references to the evidence, in which it took the position that defendants’ statute and policy violated the fourteenth amendment guarantee of equal protection of the laws, but were not invalid under the federal preemption doctrine. The United States had already submitted to the court and the parties copies of the Preliminary Report of the Domestic Council Committee on Illegal Aliens, December 1976 (“Preliminary Report”). The State of Texas chose to submit its briefs filed in a similar challenge to section 21.031, Hernandez v. Houston Independent School District, 558 S.W.2d 121 (Tex.Civ.App.-Austin 1977, writ ref’d n.r.e.). The Hernandez case had been brought more or less concurrently with the instant action by a group of undocumented children living within the Houston I.S.D. The State Board of Education denied relief, and its order was affirmed by the District Court of Travis County, 126th Judicial District of Texas, which granted summary judgment. Additional defendants in the state, court action were the Texas Education Agency and the State of Texas. Subsequent to this court’s entry of the preliminary injunction in the instant case, the Court of Civil Appeals for the Third Supreme Judicial District of the State of Texas affirmed the judgment of the district court and upheld the constitutionality of section 21.031. Hernandez v. Houston Independent School District, supra. The Supreme Court of Texas refused an application for the writ of error, with the notation, “No reversible error.” Defendants have not argued that the Hernandez decision is in any way binding on this court in the case before the court. Findings of Fact The minor plaintiffs herein are all school-aged children, born in the Republic of Mexico, who reside with their parents within the boundaries of the Tyler I.S.D. None of the minor plaintiffs possesses documentation that he or she is legally in the United States or is in the process of securing such documentation. There are probably thirty to forty undocumented school-aged children residing in the Tyler I.S.D. in addition to the named plaintiffs. Each minor plaintiff is represented in this civil action by his or her parents, as next friends. All of the parents in question are aliens of Mexican origin, who illegally entered and remained in the United States, and who reside within the boundaries of the Tyler I.S.D. The families represented in this civil action have lived in the city of Tyler for a period of three to thirteen years. Each such family includes at least one child, not of school age, who is a citizen of the United States by virtue of his or her birth in the United States. The Tyler I.S.D. constitutes a public school district, which receives some federal funding in addition to state and local funds. James Plyler is the Superintendent of the Tyler I.S.D. The managing board of the district is the Board of Trustees. Section 21.031 of the Texas Education Code (Vernon Supp.1976), effective September 1, 1975, limits the benefit of the state’s “Available School Fund” to children between the ages .of five and twenty-one, who are citizens of the United States or legally admitted aliens; it limits admission to the public free schools in any district to such citizens or lawfully resident children whose parents or guardians reside within the district. (Section 21.031 is set forth in the procedural history of this case, supra.) On July 21,1977, acting in furtherance of and pursuant to section 21.031, the Tyler 1.5. D. Board of Trustees promulgated a policy concerning the financing and control of education for illegally admitted aliens. This policy, set forth in full, supra, permits the enrollment of illegal alien children only upon payment of tuition. The policy defines illegal alien children as those who neither possess documentation that they are legally within the United States nor are in the process of successfully securing such documentation. The Tyler policy has been implemented by defendants and their agents since the beginning of the 1977 school year. In accordance with that policy and based upon an educational expense analysis conducted by the Administrative Office of the Tyler 1.5. D., an amount of tuition of $1,000.00 per year has been set as a fee for each child residing within the Tyler I.S.D. who is neither a citizen of the United States, a legally admitted alien, nor an illegal alien who has begun processing his papers for legal admission with the United States Immigration Service. The sum of $1,000.00, representing the approximate proportional cost of educating a single child in the Tyler I.S.D., was arrived at by dividing the district’s annual operating budget, $18.5 million, by the approximate number of enrolled students, 16,-000. All of the parents of the plaintiffs were informed by school officials that their children could not attend school without either producing the required documents or paying the $1,000 tuition fee. There is no reasonable expectation that any of the named plaintiffs or their parents can obtain the required documents from the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. Except for the existence of section 21.031 and the Tyler I.S.D. policy, all named plaintiffs would be eligible for admission to the Tyler I.S.D. on a tuition-free basis and would currently be enrolled in the Tyler public schools. All minor plaintiffs, with the exception of two, attended the Tyler 1.5. D. schools in the school year 1976-1977. The two excepted children attended the Tyler I.S.D. Head Start Program in the summer of 1977, preparatory to entering the first grade. Because of their poverty, none of the parents of the named plaintiffs can afford to pay the tuition fee of $1,000 or any other significant sum. None of the minor plaintiffs possesses independent resources to pay such tuition. Prior to the issuance of the preliminary injunction in this civil action, none of the named plaintiffs was attending school in the Tyler 1.5. D., except for J. D. Doe. Two undocumented children are currently attending the Tyler public schools as tuition-paying students. Were the preliminary injunction issued by this court not in effect, none of the named plaintiffs, with the exception of those children identified as Doe, would currently be attending any school. The Doe children, except for J.D. Doe, were enrolled in a Catholic school after being rejected for admission to the Tyler I.S.D. on a tuition-free basis. Doe works for the Catholic school in Tyler on weekends, in exchange for his children’s attendance. The parents of plaintiffs Doe are owners of real and personal property in the Tyler I.S.D. All other parents of minor plaintiffs rent housing within the Tyler I.S.D. At least one parent of those children identified as Doe, Roe, and Loe is employed, and federal income and Social Security taxes are withheld from his or her paycheck. Three of the four families represented had purchased at least one automobile and could produce registration and title documentation. The primary purpose of section 21.031, as characterized by the State of Texas, is to employ public educational funds to provide education to United States citizens and legally admitted aliens. The Tyler I.S.D. policy was implemented pursuant to the state statute, in order to prevent the potential drain on local educational funds should Tyler become a haven for illegal aliens. The court finds, however, that neither the statute nor the policy has either the purpose or the effect of keeping illegal aliens out of the State of Texas. Increasing numbers of Mexican nationals have emigrated into the United States in recent years. A large portion of these immigrants have settled in Texas, resulting in significant increases in public school enrollment. For example, Defendants’ Exhibits 2 and 3 show that the number of Mexican alien students enrolled rose from 44,799 in 1975-76 to 51,348 in 1976-77, increasing the statewide percentage of Mexican alien children in the public schools from 1.59 to 1.8 percent. The great majority of such children are assumed to be legal residents. Tr. 1/16 at 184. This wave of migration has presented grave problems for the public schools in Texas. The mere increase in population, without regard to any special characteristics of Mexican immigrant children as a class, has meant that existing school facilities in the impacted areas are physically inadequate. The failure of some school districts to build new facilities or augment existing ones has necessarily resulted in overcrowding of school buildings and classrooms. The State of Texas is deeply concerned with the growing impact of Mexican migration on its public schools. Defendants’ Exhibit 6, the Mexican Immigrant-Alien Student Study, 1975-76, chronicles the development of this concern, which prompted a resolution of the State Board of Education in July, 1975, recognizing the need for further study of the problem. Subsequently, an in-depth investigation of the problem in the districts bordering the Republic of Mexico was conducted by the Region One Education Service Center, in Edinburg, Texas. The Texas Education Agency effected a survey of the problem in the remainder of the state. These studies, introduced into evidence by the State, reveal that overcrowding has reached serious, indeed “atrocious”, proportions in the border areas and in metropolitan districts. The Region One Study identifies further characteristics, peculiar to Mexican immigrants, exacerbating the problem: the children generally speak little or no English and are badly educated and overage for their grade level. Special bilingual education for these children is indispensable, yet it is difficult to find qualified personnel for such programs, which also require a disproportionate amount of teacher attention. Additionally, these children tend to come from poor families. Their residence in a school district thus does little to offset the additional cost by adding to the tax base. The state’s witnesses, Thomas Anderson (a representative of the Texas Education Agency), John Eaton (Associate Superintendent of Houston I.S.D.), and Jim Bob Hensley (author of Defendants’ Exhibit 6), expressed the opinion that the major justification for section 21.031 was its partial solution to the educational difficulties caused by migration from Mexico in general. No convincing testimony was presented, however, that singled out undocumented children as particularly problematic. The characteristics of legally admitted, Mexican-born children, as a class, are very similar, if not identical, to those of undocumented Mexican-born children. Typical of the undifferentiated analysis of the problem is the testimony of Jim Bob Hensley that a “national policy had permitted a flow of immigrants into the country, and a local school district was being penalized for that,” Tr. 12/12 at 302, and of John Eaton that “it would impact, if we had more Hispanic children coming in . Tr. 12/12 at 259. The evidence discloses that the exclusion of all undocumented children from the public schools in Texas would eventually result in economies at some level; but the savings are unpredictable both in amount and distribution. Approximately twenty-five percent of educational expenditures in Texas are in fixed cost areas, i. e., administrative, maintenance, and operational costs, which are not diminished by moderate declines in student enrollment. The largest item in variable costs is teacher salaries, which require substantial and concentrated decline in enrollment before any economies result. Generally, a decrease of twenty to thirty students at one time, in a given grade and in a given school, is required in order to justify the dismissal of one teacher. Even then, systems of tenure and seniority operate to minimize savings, since the first teachers to be dismissed are ordinarily those with the lowest salaries. Hence, the proportional cost (operating budget divided by enrollment) is a very inaccurate indicator of the incremental expense of educating additional students. The connection between the “economy measure” of excluding undocumented children from the benefits of the Available School Fund and increasing educational quality for the remaining students was shown to be unreliable, and often perverse in operation. Educational funds in Texas come from state, local and federal sources. A local district’s allotment from state funds depends, in part, on its average daily attendance (“ADA”). Prior to the enactment of section 21.031 in 1975, a district could include undocumented children in its ADA and receive state funds accordingly. Under section 21.031, however, a district is required to exclude undocumented children from its ADA, decreasing the amount of state funds it receives. Meanwhile, the diminished enrollment, by reason of the factors described above, is unlikely to have resulted in any savings to the local district. The school district is then forced to choose between increasing its own contribution, so as to maintain the current level of expenditures, or cutting back on its programs. Although the state will have saved money, it will not necessarily have, improved the quality of education. The federal government funds the free breakfast, lunch, and clothing programs for which many children of Mexican origin are eligible, whether or not they are legal residents. The largest single source of funds for bilingual education is the federal government, which pays for approximately forty-five percent of the cost. Approximately eighty percent of the remainder is paid from local funds; twenty percent is paid by the state. In the Tyler I.S.D., the impact of the undocumented children on the school system (at most sixty out of an enrollment of 16,000 in 1977) has been negligible, as were the savings to the district after exclusion of the children. Dr. James Plyler, Superintendent of Tyler I.S.D., testified that the admission of undocumented children would raise the number of children of limited English-speaking ability to twenty-two kindergarten students and twenty first-grade students, triggering the implementation of a formal bilingual education program under state law. The district is already, from its own sense of educational priorities, employing three bilingual teachers. Implementation of the statutory program would require additional teachers arid compliance with certain administrative procedures. In 1976 the Immigration and Naturalization Service (“I.N.S.”) estimated that approximately four to five thousand undocumented children resided in the Houston I.S.D., which had a total enrollment of 206,998 students. The total proportional cost of educating a needy Mexican child, whether a legal or an illegal resident, was $1,740.41 (including free lunch, free breakfast, free clothing, and bilingual education, in addition to the regular curriculum); this is $400 to $500 more than the proportional cost of educating what Associate Superintendent Eaton designated as the “average pupil”. The predictable effects of depriving an undocumented child of an education are clear and undisputed. ' Already disadvantaged as a result of poverty, lack of English-speaking ability, and undeniable racial prejudices, these children, without an education, will become permanently locked into the lowest socio-economic class. Furthermore, witnesses from both sides testified that the illegal alien of today may well be the legal alien of tomorrow. According to Dr. Gilbert Cardenas, plaintiffs’ expert on migration, the majority (fifty to sixty percent) of current legal alien workers were formerly illegal aliens. Roland Heston, District Director of the Houston District of I.N.S., a witness for the state, confirmed that undocumented children can and do live in the United States for years, and adjust their status through marriage to a citizen or permanent resident. The court also takes judicial notice of various presidential and legislative proposals that would legalize the status of many currently undocumented children. See, e. g., Office of the White House Press Secretary, President’s Message to the Congress on Undocumented Aliens at 5 (Aug. 4, 1977). Generalizations About Illegal Aliens Testimony and exhibits received into evidence during the trial of this case attempted to describe the alien population illegally in Texas. There is little dispute about most such generalizations, but they are made in the face of what the Domestic Council’s Preliminary Report calls a “dramatic lack of reliable information” (Preliminary Report at 235); thus this court does not desire to vest them with the certainty and authority ordinarily associated with findings of fact. However, the following tentative conclusions revealed by various studies have been of interest to the court in its consideration of the case. Estimates of the number of illegal Mexican aliens in the United States vary widely and are inherently unreliable by reason of the clandestine nature of the illegal population. Marion Houstoun, one of plaintiffs’ migration experts and co-author of the North-Houstoun Study, estimated that there are 2.7 million Mexicans illegally in the United States and 675,000 in Texas. This was thought to be a conservative estimate by other witnesses questioned about the matter. The I.N.S. no longer makes estimates. The impetus for illegal migration is predominantly economic, and consequently its principal impact in the United States is on the labor market. The vast majority of illegal Mexican immigrants are young adult males (averaging around thirty years old) seeking employment opportunities in this country. Indeed, the great majority of the illegal alien class is not of concern in this case, since these workers are either single or leave their families in Mexico and come to the United States for short periods of time. Much of the earnings of these illegal immigrants is sent to their dependents in Mexico. This case mainly concerns a very small sub-class of illegal aliens with very different characteristics, that is, entire families who have migrated illegally and— for all practical purposes — permanently to the United States. A few available studies tend to refute— although not conclusively — allegations that illegal aliens, as a class, produce a substantial drain on public services. Two reasons are advanced for this phenomenon: (1) they are unwilling to risk exposure and hence shy away from any institutional involvement; and (2) there is no welfare tradition in Mexico to which they may have become accustomed. Conclusions about the tax contributions of illegal aliens in general are necessarily more intuitive than scientific. There is no state income tax in Texas, but it is impossible to live in a state such as Texas without paying consumer taxes, and nearly impossible to work without paying Social Security taxes. Normally, families with many children do not pay large amounts of federal income tax, regardless of the legality of their residence in the country. However, Social Security taxes are the major source of tax revenues the federal government collects from the poor in general. Preliminary Report at 162. Conclusions of Law Plaintiffs urge that section 21.031, implemented by the Tyler I.S.D.’s policy of charging undocumented children a tuition fee, denies them their right to equal protection of the laws, as guaranteed by the fourteenth amendment. Plaintiffs also argue that the challenged statute and policy should be subjected to close judicial scrutiny because: (1) plaintiffs are being absolutely deprived of any education; and (2) they are a politically powerless minority, forced to suffer because of the misdeeds of parents over whom they have no control. The fiscal justifications advanced by the Tyler I.S.D. in support of their policy, plaintiffs contend, are insufficiently compelling to justify the discrimination imposed. Defendants counter with the argument that illegal aliens are not entitled to equal protection of the laws, but that even if they were, the challenged statute and policy are merely “state regulation in the social and economic field, not affecting freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights,” thereby requiring only relaxed judicial scrutiny. Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. 471, 484, 90 S.Ct. 1153, 1161, 25 L.Ed.2d 491 (1970). Defendants also maintain that their decision to spend public funds to provide high quality education for United States citizens and lawful residents, instead of sharing it with people who have no right to be in the state at all, should be subjected to, and easily satisfies the long-established rational basis test. See, e. g., Goesaert v. Cleary, 335 U.S. 464, 466, 69 S.Ct. 198, 93 L.Ed. 163 (1948). Neither the language nor the logic of the fourteenth amendment supports the proposition that the guarantee of equal protection of the laws does not extend to illegal aliens. The United States Supreme Court has indicated that illegal aliens are entitled to the protection of the due process clause. See, e. g., Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 77, 96 S.Ct. 1883, 48 L.Ed.2d 478 (1976) (dictum); Wong Wing v. United States, 163 U.S. 228, 16 S.Ct. 977, 41 L.Ed. 140 (1896). The structure of section one of the fourteenth amendment does not indicate a different result for the guarantee of equal protection of the laws: No State shall make or enforce any laws which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. (Emphasis added.) While due process is afforded to “any person,” equal protection extends only to “any person within its jurisdiction.” Yet this apparent narrowing of the equal protection guarantee, by virtue of its very specificity, should not be read to exclude a class of persons that fits within the narrowed language. People who have entered the United States, by whatever means, are “within its jurisdiction” in that they are within the territory of the United States and subject to its laws. Joining Judge Friendly in Bola nos v. Kiley, 509 F.2d 1023, 1025 (2d Cir. 1975), this court “can readily agree that the due process and equal protection clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment apply to aliens within the United States [citations omitted] and even to aliens whose presence here is illegal.” Accord, Holley v. Lavine, 529 F.2d 1294 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 954, 96 S.Ct. 3181, 49 L.Ed.2d 1193 (1976); United States v. Barbera, 514 F.2d 294, 296 n. 3 (2d Cir. 1975). Cf. Williams v. Williams, 328 F.Supp. 1380 (D.V.I.1971) (illegal aliens entitled to access to divorce courts); Martinez v. Fox Valley Bus Lines, 17 F.Supp. 576 (N.D.Ill.1936) (illegal alien allowed to sue to recover for personal injuries in negligence action); Commercial Standard Fire and Marine Co. v. Galindo, 484 S.W.2d 635 (Tex. Civ.App.-El Paso 1972, writ, ref’d n. r. e.) (illegal alien not barred from workmen’s compensation benefits). But see Burrafato v. United States Department of State, 523 F.2d 554 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 910, 96 S.Ct. 1105, 47 L.Ed.2d 313 (1976). The conclusion that illegal aliens are entitled to equal protection of the laws in no way means, however, that illegal aliens are entitled to precisely the same treatment afforded U.S. citizens and lawfully resident aliens. As Mr. Justice Jackson described the “salutary doctrine” of the equal protection clause, “cities, states and Federal Government must exercise their powers so as not to discriminate between their inhabitants except upon some reasonable differentiation fairly related to the object of regulation.” Railway Express Agency v. New York, 336 U.S. 106, 112, 69 S.Ct. 463, 466, 93 L.Ed. 533 (1949) (concurring opinion). Viewed in this light, as a guarantee only that unreasonable, arbitrary lines will not be drawn, the content of the right to equal protection of the laws, not its application vel non, becomes the salient question, and one that must be assessed with respect to each individual case. The fairness of the legislative classification contained in the challenged statute and policy must be measured within the framework of the well established two-tiered test. If the challenged law threatens a fundamental right or creates a suspect classification, the court must subject the state’s interests served by the law to strict scrutiny. In such a case, the law will be upheld only if it is precisely tailored to further a compelling government interest. Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. 618, 638, 89 S.Ct. 1322, 22 L.Ed.2d 600 (1969). Absent a fundamental right or suspect classification, a law need only be supported by a rational basis. San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez, 411 U.S. 1, 40, 93 S.Ct. 1278, 36 L.Ed.2d 16 (1973). As implemented by the Tyler I.S.D., section 21.031 has created a distinct class of poor, undocumented children who are absolutely deprived of any education whatsoever. While the level of scrutiny appropriate for reviewing this kind of total deprivation of education has never been explicitly identified by the Supreme Court, several elements in this case invite a close examination of section 21.031. The first of these elements lies in the benefit denied, education. In San Antonio Independent School District v. Rodriguez the Court said that “[ejducation, of course, is not among the rights afforded explicit protection under our Federal Constitution. Nor do we find any basis for saying it is implicitly so protected.” 411 U.S. at 35, 93 S.Ct. at 1297. Yet the holding of Rodriguez was explicitly and repeatedly limited to the sort of relative deprivation of education challenged in the case itself. Under the Texas school financing scheme, children in property-poor school districts attended schools with access to fewer funds than those in property-rich school districts; but no children were prevented from attending school altogether. Indeed, the opinion is conspicuous in its efforts not to foreclose strict scrutiny in response to constitutional challenges to absolute deprivation of educational opportunity: If elementary and secondary education were made available by the State only to those able to pay a tuition assessed against each pupil, there would be a clearly defined class of “poor” people— definable in terms of their inability to pay the prescribed sum — who would be absolutely precluded from receiving an education. That case would present a far more compelling set of circumstances for judicial assistance than the case before us today. 411 U.S. at 25 n. 60, 93 S.Ct. at 1292. Whatever merit appellees’ argument might have if a State’s financing system occasioned an absolute denial of educational opportunities to any of its children, that argument provides no basis for finding an interference with fundamental rights where only relative differences in spending levels are involved and where— as is true in the present case — no charge fairly could be made that the system fails to provide each child with an opportunity to acquire the basic minimal skills necessary for the enjoyment of the rights of speech and of full participation in the political process. Id. at 37, 93 S.Ct. at 1299. See also Mills v. Board of Education, 348 F.Supp. 866, 876 (D.D.C.1972). An additional indication that heightened scrutiny may be appropriate arises from the contention that the challenged policy of charging tuition to undocumented children constitutes discrimination on the basis of wealth. Relatively wealthy undocumented children are able to attend school despite the Tyler I.S.D. policy — two such children are actually doing so — , while poor undocumented children are excluded. In Rodriguez, the Court distinguished prior eases in which the class discriminated against “shared two” distinguishing characteristics: “because of their impecunity they were completely unable to pay for some desired benefit, and as a consequence, they sustained an absolute deprivation of a meaningful opportunity to enjoy that benefit.” 411 U.S. at 20, 93 S.Ct. at 1290. Such absolute deprivations imposed only on poor people have long been considered deserving of judicial solicitude, see, e. g., Griffin v. Illinois, 351 U.S. 12, 76 S.Ct. 585, 100 L.Ed. 891 (1958), and such a tuition requirement was explicitly distinguished in Rodriguez when the Court declared that the existence of “a clearly defined class of ‘poor’ people” would “present a far more compelling set of circumstances for judicial assistance” than the San Antonio case itself. 411 U.S. at 25 n. 60, 93 S.Ct. at 1292. Similarly, in Shapiro v. Thompson, 394 U.S. at 633, 89 S.Ct. at 1330, the Court observed that a state “could not, for example, reduce expenditures for education by barring indigent children from its schools.” Furthermore, although it is not inaccurate to characterize section 21.031 as “state regulation in the social and economic field,” Dandridge v. Williams, 397 U.S. at 484, 90 S.Ct. at 1161, as defendants urge, this case does not follow the pattern of those in which such a characterization has triggered relaxed rather than heightened review. In Dandridge, as in Rodriguez, the deprivation was relative rather than absolute, i. e., some families received less aid in proportion to the number of children than others, but no discrete class of needy families was completely cut off from benefits. See also Jefferson v. Hackney, 406 U.S. 535, 92 S.Ct. 1724, 32 L.Ed.2d 285 (1972). A more exacting scrutiny of the Texas law also appears warranted when consideration is given to the decisions of the Supreme Court refusing to penalize and stigmatize children who are not in a position to prevent the wrongful acts of their parents. As Mr. Justice Powell said of laws disfavoring illegitimate children: [VJisiting this condemnation on the head of an infant is illogical and unjust. Moreover, imposing disabilities on the . child is contrary to the basic concept of our system that legal burdens should bear some relationship to individual responsibility or wrongdoing. Weber v. Aetna Casualty and Surety Company, 406 U.S. 164, 175, 92 S.Ct. 1400, 1406, 31 L.Ed.2d 768 (1972) (footnote omitted). See also St. Ann v. Palisi, 495 F.2d 423, 425 (5th Cir. 1974) (invalidating school board’s decision to suspend two children from school because their mother had assaulted an assistant principal, on ground that “[fjreedom from punishment in the absence of personal guilt is a fundamental concept in the American scheme of justice.”). While the undocumented minor plaintiffs are of course legally culpable and subject to deportation, they can hardly be held morally responsible for their presence here. Many of them were hardly more than infants when they arrived in the United States, nor did they participate in their parents’ decision to emigrate; consequently they deserve no additional burdens or penalties. Finally, plaintiffs, together with the United States as amicus curiae, urge that strict scrutiny should be applied because illegal aliens are basically a suspect class. Illegal aliens as a class, they urge, meet all the “traditional indicia of suspectness,” in that, [t]he class is . saddled with such disabilities, or subjected to such a history of purposeful unequal treatment, or relegated to such a position of political powerlessness as to command extraordinary protection from the majoritarian political process. 411 U.S. at 28, 93 S.Ct. at 1294. Plaintiffs and amicus further maintain that illegal aliens are a suspect class because they are a sub-class of a suspect class, that is, of aliens in general. Nyquist v. Mauclet, 432 U.S. 1, 97 S.Ct. 2120, 53 L.Ed.2d 63 (1977). However, it is clear that illegal aliens are not a sub-class of the class of aliens granted suspect status in Graham v. Richardson, 403 U.S. 365, 91 S.Ct. 1848, 29 L.Ed.2d 534 (1971), and its progeny, for the Supreme Court in Graham referred specifically to the class of lawfully admitted aliens. Illegal aliens are, therefore, not a sub-class but rather a separate class, for which suspect status must be independently established. The State of Texas makes the provocative argument that it is the implicit holding of DeCanas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351, 96 S.Ct. 933, 47 L.Ed.2d 43 (1976), that illegal aliens are not a suspect class. At issue in DeCanas was a California statute (Cal.Lab.Code § 2805(a)) prohibiting the knowing employment of illegal aliens when lawfully resident workers would be disadvantaged. The Supreme Court held that the law was not unconstitutional as a regulation of immigration, see infra at 590. The State of Texas contends that the California law disfavors illegal aliens and would necessarily have fallen under an equal protection analysis if illegal aliens had been regarded as a suspect class. While the DeCanas opinion makes no mention of the equal protection clause, the case was, in the abstract at least, susceptible to equal protection analysis. It does not appear, however, that any of the parties in DeCanas had standing to raise the equal protection question. Employers of illegal aliens were defendants in a suit brought by displaced legal alien workers to enforce the California law; it was the defendant employers who raised the federal preemption argument as a defense. Nevertheless, even if DeCanas had been upheld squarely against an equal protection challenge, this court feels that the case is substantially distinguishable on both the general question of the constitutionality of section 21.031 and the particular question of whether illegal aliens are a suspect class, see infra. It seems clear that illegal aliens do not constitute a suspect class when they are in violation of state laws or regulations whose underlying purpose is in conformity with a federal objective or end. The issue of their suspectness as a class is raised, however, by the uncontroverted history of their abuse and exploitation in certain conditions and circumstances unrelated to the federal bases for their exclusion. A reconciliation of this conflict might be accomplished by recognizing illegal aliens as a suspect class — and requiring strict scrutiny — in situations where the state acts independently of the federal exclusionary purposes, accepts the presence of illegal aliens, and then subjects them to discriminatory laws. The law in DeCanas and section 21.031 clearly part company under this analysis, as an inquiry into the purposes and effect of federal law reveals. The cornerstone of federal immigration law remains the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952, also known as the McCar-ran-Walter Act, 8 U.S.C. §§ 1101 et seq. Insofar as the instant case is concerned, the most salient features of the Act are: limitation of immigration into the United States; exclusion of those aliens who are not granted visas; and assignment of criminality to foreigners who enter without permission. The McCarran-Walter Act identifies two main principles according to which the admission of prospective immigrants must be defined. First, the Act evidences a strong concern for family reunification, making a relationship with a United States citizen or permanent resident the primary means of obtaining a visa. Second, the Act contains a labor certification program “designed to protect the United States labor market from the influx of both skilled and unskilled foreign labor.” Note, Alien Labor Certification Proceedings: The Personal Preference Doctrine and the Burden of Persuasion, 43 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. 914 (1975). Section 212(a)(14) of the McCarran-Wal-ter Act originally placed the burden of certification on the Secretary of Labor. Aliens were not ineligible for admission until the Secretary so certified. In 1965, partly in response to requests from organized labor, see Note, 43 Geo.Wash.L.Rev. at 915 n. 9, Congress amended the provision to strengthen its protection of the domestic labor force. As amended, the labor certification program excludes an alien worker unless the Secretary of Labor makes certain determinations. Specifically, the section provides: (a) Except as otherwise provided in this chapter, the following classes of aliens shall be ineligible to receive visas and shall be excluded from admission into the United States: $ * * * * (14) Aliens seeking to enter the United States, for the purpose of performing skilled or unskilled labor, unless the Secretary of Labor has determined and certified to the Secretary of State and to the Attorney General that (A) there are not sufficient workers in the United States who are able, willing, qualified, and available at the time of application for a visa and admission to the United States and at the place to which the alien is destined to perform such skilled or unskilled labor, and (B) the employment of such aliens will not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of the workers in the United States similarly employed. The exclusion of aliens under this paragraph shall apply to special immigrants defined in section 1101(a)(27)(A) of this title (other than the parents, spouses, or children of citizens or of aliens lawfully admitted to the United States for permanent residence), to preference immigrant aliens described in sections 1153(a)(3) and 1153(a)(6) of this title, and to non-preference immigrant aliens described in section 1153(a)(8) of this title . 8 U.S.C. § 1182(a)(14) (1970). Since illegal aliens come to the United States to find employment, it is reasonable to assume that they would not emigrate if they did not expect to find employment. The prohibition of employment of illegal aliens is an important feature of major federal proposals to upgrade the effectiveness of congressional limits on immigration, indicating a consensus of opinion that such measures are effective. See also Preliminary Report at 241. The Supreme Court has repeatedly recognized the same phenomenon: “The assertion of an authority to deny to aliens the opportunity of earning a livelihood when lawfully admitted to the State would be tantamount to the assertion of the right to deny them entrance and abode, for in ordinary cases they cannot live where they cannot work.” Takahashi v. Fish & Game Commission, 334 U.S. 410, 416, 68 S.Ct. 1138, 1140, 92 L.Ed. 1478 (1948), quoting Truax v. Raich, 239 U.S. 33, 42, 36 S.Ct. 7, 60 L.Ed. 131 (1915). A state law prohibiting employment of illegal aliens may be entirely consistent with the federal scheme. The improved federal labor certification program was enacted, in the words of its proponents, to “protect . . . the American economy and the wages and working conditions of American labor.” Ill Cong.Rec. 24463 (1965) quoted in Note, Alien Labor Certification, 60 Minn.L.Rev. 1034, 1034 n. 3 (1975). The California legislature’s prohibition of the knowing employment of illegal aliens manifestly represents a local effort to deal with a particularly aggravated version of the dangers Congress has recognized and made one of its central concerns. Thus, although the DeCanas Court did not base its decision on this point, the state scheme, perhaps unwittingly, serves the basic purposes of the Immigration and Nationality Act, for section 2805(a) promotes not only the specific federal design of protecting the domestic labor market, but also the general function of exclusion. By contrast, the Texas statute at issue in the instant case is neither intended to, nor does it in fact, implement any express or apparent federal objective. The state does not attempt to justify section 21.031 as an effort to exclude or to discourage those aliens whom Congress has chosen to exclude, nor could such a justification be taken seriously. Charging tuition to undocumented children constitutes a ludicrously ineffectual attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigration, when compared with the California statute or the proposed federal equivalents. While the Texas legislature is in no way obligated to prohibit the employment of illegal aliens, its failure to do so is glaring and undermines any earnest attempt to argue an exclusionary motivation. In short, by its own admissions and the logic of its legislative scheme, the State of Texas has been content to leave to the federal government the task of excluding illegal immigrants and thus protecting the domestic labor market. This virtually ensures what is undisputably the case in Texas: the existence of a large number of employed illegal aliens, such as the parents of plaintiffs in this case, whose presence is tolerated, whose employment is perhaps even welcomed, but who are virtually defenseless against any abuse, exploitation, or callous neglect to which the state or the state’s natural citizens and business organizations may wish to subject them. In such a context, the state’s exclusion of undocumented children from its public schools, or, alternatively, its attempts to exact from such children a much larger sum of money than is in fact required to absorb them into an ongoing school system, may well be the type of invidiously motivated state action for which the suspect classification doctrine was designed. In the instant civil action, however, none of four indications that strict scrutiny is the appropriate level of review, as discussed above, exactly corresponds with any case in which the Supreme Court has applied such scrutiny. In any case, since it appears that defendants have not demonstrated a rational basis for the state law or the local school policy, it is not necessary to resolve finally the difficult conceptual problems posed by the two-tiered test. Defendants seek to justify section 21.031 by arguing that, in view of the limited revenues available within the state which can be used to achieve the social goal of educating Texas children, “[t]he legislature has determined that those funds are to be used to educate the United States’ citizens and the legally admitted aliens who reside in Texas.” Brief of Defendant Tyler I.S.D. at 16. Defendants attempted by their proof at trial to rationalize this decision by cataloguing a number of characteristics and special educational needs that make illegal alien children especially burdensome to educate. Notwithstanding, careful consideration of the evidence and applicable law compels the conclusion that neither of these approaches provides a rational basis for the state’s singling out of undocumented children to bear the brunt of whatever financial problems the Texas public schools may-have. It is not sufficient justification that a law saves money. This approach to the rationality test is well illustrated in the case of United States Department of Agriculture v. Moreno, 413 U.S. 528, 93 S.Ct. 2821, 37 L.Ed.2d 782 (1973), in which the Supreme Court struck down as irrational section 3(e) of the Food Stamp Act of 1964, which excluded from participation in the food stamp program any household containing an individual unrelated to any other member of the household. Clearly this exclusion would have saved the federal government money; a program affording benefits to all households costs more than a program affording benefits only to some. Despite this factor, the saving to the Government was not considered by the Court as a sufficient justification, absent some rational connection between the purposes of the Act and the group excluded. Emphasizing the purpose of the Food Stamp Act — the stimulation of the agricultural economy by the purchasing of farm surpluses — , the Court held that the relationships among persons in a household were irrelevant to that purpose and did not provide a rational principle of exclusion. The legislative history of section 3(e) revealed that the provision “was intended to prevent so-called ‘hippies’ and ‘hippie communes’ from participating in the food stamp program.” 413 U.S. at 534, 93 S.Ct. at 2826. Apparently, Congress chose not to subsidize living arrangements and lifestyles of a certain variety. But, “if the constitutional conception of ‘equal protection of the laws’ means anything, it must at the very least mean that a bare congressional desire to harm a politically unpopular group cannot constitute a legitimate governmental interest.” Id. The state’s first line of defense for its distinction between legal and illegal residents can be restated both in substance and tone, as “it goes without saying.” In its own words, “the legislature has determined that [educational] funds are to be used to educate the United States’ citizens and the legally admitted aliens who reside in Texas.” Brief of Defendant Tyler I.S.D. at 16. This, however, does not demonstrate a rational basis; it is merely a reaffirmation of the law itself. The Supreme Court recently rejected a similarly “rational” basis as a mere “assertion that discrimination may be justified by a desire to discriminate”. Examining Board v. Otero, 426 U.S. 572, 605, 96 S.Ct. 2264, 2283, 49 L.Ed.2d 65 (1976). Nor does the state’s adoption of a federal criterion, in this case the illegality of a child’s presence in the United States, in itself, provide a rational justification for differential treatment by the state. Mr. Justice Murphy explained this fallacy in his concurring opinion in Oyama v. California, 332 U.S. 633, 68 S.Ct. 269, 92 L.Ed. 249 (1948). Assuming that Congress had made a reasonable classification in exercise of its authority to regulate immigration, [y]et it does not follow . . . that California can blindly adopt those distinctions for the purpose of determining who may own and enjoy agricultural land. What may be reasonable and constitutional for Congress for one purpose may not be reasonable or constitutional for a state legislature for another and wholly distinct purpose. ... In other words, if a state wishes to borrow a federal classification, it must seek to rationalize the adopted distinction in the new setting. Is the distinction a reasonable one for the purposes for which the state desires to use itl To that question it is no answer that the distinction was taken from a federal statute 332 U.S. at 664-65, 68 S.Ct. at 284 (emphasis added). Because of the crucial distinction between federal and state power in the immigration area, defendants’ reliance on Mathews v. Diaz, 426 U.S. 67, 80, 96 S.Ct. 1883, 48 L.Ed.2d 478 (1976), to justify their use of plaintiffs’ illegal immigration status as a principle of exclusion, is wholly misplaced. In Mathews, the Court upheld a congressional decision to condition an alien’s eligibility for federal medical insurance upon continuous residence in the United States and admission for permanent residence. In so holding, the Court noted that “[njeither the overnight visitor, the unfriendly agent of a hostile foreign power, the resident diplomat, nor the illegal entrant, can advance even a colorable constitutional claim to a share in the bounty that a conscientious sovereign makes available to its own citizens and some of its guests.” 426 U.S. at 80, 96 S.Ct. at 1891. The opinion makes clear, however, that while distinctions in immigration status are legitimate bases for federal classifications, they are normally of no concern to the states. Insofar as state welfare policy is concerned, there is little, if any, basis for treating persons who are citizens of another State differently from persons who are citizens of another country. Both groups are noncitizens as far as the State’s interests in administering its welfare programs are concerned. Thus, a division by a State of the category of persons who are not citizens of that State into subcategories of United States citizens and aliens has no apparent justification, whereas, a comparable classification by the Federal Government is a routine and normally legitimate part of its business. Id. at 85, 96 S.Ct. at 1894 (footnote omitted). Subsequently, the Court reaffirmed the inappropriateness of state importation of immigration criteria, by holding that the State of New York “can draw no solace from [Mathews v. Diaz, supra], however, because the Court was at pains to emphasize that Congress, as an aspect of its broad power over immigration and naturalization, enjoys rights to distinguish among aliens that are not shared by the States.” Ny-quist v. Mauclet, 432 U.S. 1, 7 n. 8, 97 S.Ct. 2120, 2124, 53 L.Ed.2d 63 (1977). The question for determination in this case is, therefore, the one posed by Mr. Justice Murphy in Oyama: Is the federal distinction a reasonable one for the purposes for which the state desires to use it? Two main categories of state interests in discriminating against illegal aliens might satisfy this requirement. The first category is state interests which are concurrent with the federal interests for which the distinction was originally drawn. The second category includes state attempts to deal with problems generated by an alien’s illegal status, rather than merely with his presence. The California law upheld in DeCanas falls within and illustrates both categories, while the Texas statute challenged here belongs to neither. The rationality of California’s section 2805(a) is clearly revealed by the Supreme Court’s statement that “the State is not inhibited from making the national purposes its own purposes to the extent of exerting its police power to prevent its own citizens from obstructing the accomplishment of such purposes.” Gilbert v. Minnesota, 254 U.S. 325, 41 S.Ct. 125, 65 L.Ed. 287 (1920). Had section 2805(a) been subjected to an equal protection challenge, it might easily have been upheld as a means of preventing California citizens from encouraging illegal immigration, i. e., obstructing federal law by employing illegal entrants, or as a local measure dealing with congres-sionally-recognized problems of local labor. In the second category of rational state interests mentioned above, the class of illegal workers disfavored by section 2805(a) is clearly distinguishable from the class of lawfully resident workers, by virtue of their very illegality. The Supreme Court in De-Canas recognized that infiltration of illegal aliens into a labor market has marked effects on that market: “acceptance by illegal aliens of jobs on substandard terms as to wages and working conditions can seriously depress wage scales and working conditions of citizens and legally admitted aliens; and employment of illegal aliens under such conditions can diminish the effectiveness of labor unions.” 424 U.S. at 356-57, 96 S.Ct. at 937. The threat to labor standards posed by employment of illegal aliens is universally acknowledged. See sources cited supra at n. 10. Illegal immigrants, by virtue of their covert status and fear of exposure, cannot invoke state and federal laws enacted to improve conditions of employment. The nexus between violation of the immigration laws and the resultant adverse effects on a local economy is clear and well documented. Illegal aliens “live under the constant fear of detection and deportation, and are thus easily exploited by employers looking for persons to work at low wages and under poor conditions.” Miller, Immigration and National Law, 1977 Annual Survey of American Law 205, 228. In summary, California’s decision to require that employers give preference to lawful residents over illegal entrants is rational for two reasons. First, it borrows the federal criterion in order to deal with the same problems, on a local level, for which, on a national scale, the federal law was enacted. Second, the distinction drawn in section 2805(a) is rational because characteristics peculiar to illegal workers are central to the threat to labor standards which the law addresses. In contrast, Texas’ section 21.031 does not purport to serve any federal purposes. Neither has the state articulated the discrete considerations relating to the status of the class excluded by section 21.031 that make it reasonable for the state to refuse to educate it