Attorney General steps in after students with undocumented parents denied enrollment in Hempstead

HEMPSTEAD (WABC) -- It's been a rough year for so many students on Long Island who are the children of undocumented immigrants. They are trying to navigate a maze of laws and politics and some are being denied entry into public schools.

That is, they were being denied until the Attorney General stepped in.

Mirna Valladares remembers exactly how she felt when school administrators in Hempstead, Long Island refused to enroll her 7-year-old daughter and teenage son.

"They requested a lot of information from me, and I brought it to them and they always requested something else, and once I brought them that they said that they needed this other thing and they kept me doing that for about two months," said Mirna Valladares through an interpreter.

Mirna asked not to appear on-camera because she and her family are undocumented immigrants from El Salvador. Her children were among dozens denied enrollment there in violation of federal law.

"I felt I was being discriminated against because of the way that we entered this country," Valladares said.

The Attorney General agreed. Although the district is now under state mandate to enroll everyone, community advocate Lucas Sanchez says delays persist.

"I think that people are still being given the runaround," said Sanchez, of NY Communities for Change.

Legal experts are also worried.

"Policies don't mean anything if their practices don't match them, that's our biggest concern," said Jason Starr, of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

"We are working with the District," said the Attorney General's spokesperson, "to ensure that they fulfill requirements called for under last month's settlement."

School officials admit it's been a struggle.

"We are doing everything we can to ensure that all students who live in the Village of Hempstead are enrolled in our schools," said Lamont Johnson, President of the Hempstead School Board.

Advocates in the Latino community say that the real test will come in the fall, when a new wave of immigrant children is expected to pose new challenges to an underfunded school district that is already overwhelmed.