District Will Stop Querying Students on Immigration

Under intense pressure from state officials, an Illinois school district has agreed to stop asking about the immigration status of students who apply to enroll in school. It abandoned a 4-year-old practice of trying to screen out foreign students who are in the United States on tourist visas, according to a lawyer representing the district.

The state board of education voted on Feb.23 to cut off state funding to Elmwood Park Community Unit School District No. 401, about three months after it learned that the 2,800-student district’s high school had denied enrollment to a 14-year-old student from Ecuador, referred to as Sharon M. in court papers.

The girl left the district, in a working-class inner suburb of Chicago, according to John J. Murphy, the lawyer for the district. According to the Chicago Tribune, she moved to Florida for fear that the district would report...