Representative Dale Folwell of Forsyth chose to attack children by introducing HB 744. This bill serves no other purpose than to discourage parents from enrolling their children in public school by forcing them to reveal their child’s status to educators. For this reason, we have chosen to name him “North Carolina’s biggest school bully."
Full press release after jump:
Motive behind HB 744 is to prevent student enrollment
After bill and altercation at NCGA, NC DREAM Team declares Folwell “NC’s biggest school bully”
RALEIGH — Representative Dale Folwell of Forsyth chose to attack children by introducing HB 744. This bill serves no other purpose than to discourage parents from enrolling their children in public school by forcing them to reveal their child’s status to educators. For this reason, we have chosen to name him “North Carolina’s biggest school bully.”
Although supporters of HB 744 emphasize that it will not prevent undocumented students from attending school outright, it is clear that is their goal. As Folwell plainly acknowledged, "The main thing I want is to answer the question: What policies are there at the state level that are making North Carolina a magnet for illegal immigration?" […] "I want to demagnetize this state."(Bertrand M. Gutierrez, "Illegal Students Targeted," Winston-Salem Journal, June 1, 2011).
The education of immigrants — no matter their status — is not a state policy, but a federally protected right. Folwell has attempted to undermine this right six times as a legislator. Knowing will not “demagnetize” the state, so there is no point in making educators spend their precious time collecting it. Not educating undocumented immigrants will create an uneducated and criminalized subclass living within the state.
Completely in line with being a school bully, Folwell physically confronted a member of the NC DREAM Team at the General Assembly. In response to a press release in which we called supporters of this bill “unprincipled cowards,” Folwell tracked down one of our members who spoke on HB 744 the previous day to confront him.
“You don’t have the balls to call me a coward to my face, do you?” Folwell said, exasperated. “I want to talk to you man to man.” Folwell also demanded the home addresses of everyone who opposed the bill.
This is the behavior and agenda of a bully, not the speaker pro tem of the NC House. We need legislators to act and legislate thoughtfully.
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