Still at the Border: Institutional Bordering and the Fragility of Plyler v. Doe in Urban School Systems

More than four decades after Plyler v. Doe , the constitutional guarantee that all children, including those from families navigating precarious immigration conditions, may access public education remains legally intact yet increasingly fragile in practice. Drawing on critical qualitative policy analysis across five metropolitan districts—Chicago, Houston, Los Angeles, New York City, and Atlanta—this study examines how institutional processes shape the everyday enactment of this right. Analysis of 73 federal, state, district, and community documents shows how formal commitments to inclusion coexist with institutional bordering: administrative, communicative, and discretionary practices that regulate recognition as legitimate students. Administrative documentation requirements, translation gaps within communication systems, discretionary interpretation of enrollment policies, and politicized immigration discourse collectively enact legal violence, generating fear, confusion, and exclusion among families. The findings demonstrate that constitutional educational rights are enacted through the bureaucratic infrastructures of metropolitan school systems, indicating that safeguarding access requires institutional infrastructures that promote clarity, linguistic accessibility, and institutional trust.