Educators have been rushing to keep students safe and support anxious parents, as fear of deportation ramps up. Parents were picking up kids early, or parking a few blocks away — fearful immigration raids will target the pickup rush. In a city that has received thousands of new immigrant students in recent years, teachers made house calls to check in on families that were terrified of leaving their homes.
As the Trump administration moves forward with its immigration agenda, rescinding longstanding protections against immigration raids on school campuses and deploying hundreds of federal agents into residential neighborhoods and quiet suburban enclaves, educators across the US are scrambling to maintain safe spaces for students to learn.
In some cities and states with hardline immigration policies, educators and civil rights groups are fighting to keep public education accessible to students regardless of immigration status. In Oklahoma , teachers and elected leaders are fighting the passage of a proposed rule requiring schools to ask for proof of US citizenship during enrollment. So how do you explain these things to them?
Teachers and school administrators coordinated safety plans, and brushed up on their legal rights. As images of Ice agents ramming down the doors of undocumented immigrants circulated online and in the news, Perez — who is the director of clinical services at Brighton Park neighborhood council — said children began increasingly expressing worry that their parents would be taken away.
She recently visited with a family that had not come to school for more than a week after inauguration day, and coaxed them to start sending the kids in by reviewing all the ways that teachers could protect them, and offering to help walk all the kids to and from campus. Many of his students are new arrivals from Venezuela, who wound up in his classroom after a long, and often traumatic migration. The Guardian is not publishing his full name and the school where he teaches due to concerns his students and their families could be targeted by immigration enforcement.
