{"id":37146,"date":"2025-01-13T02:35:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T08:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=37146"},"modified":"2025-01-12T23:53:42","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T05:53:42","slug":"educators-worry-about-how-to-talk-immigration-with-families-facing-mass-deportations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=37146","title":{"rendered":"Educators worry about how to talk immigration with families facing mass deportations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The morning after Election Day last year, Melanie Claros, a civics teacher and ESL coordinator at a South Florida school where half the students are Latino<\/a>, found herself having to do a job beyond her usual duties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By the end of the day, she recently told NBC News, more than two dozen students had separately approached her to ask about changes to immigration enforcement ahead of another Donald Trump presidency<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c\u2018Are they going to deport all of us now?\u2019 \u2018Who is going to get deported first?\u2019\u201d she recalled students asking her during class.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concerns have not abated since then, Claros said, noting she knows of at least one student who has already stopped showing up to school for immigration-related reasons. \u201cI am very suspicious that we will have [more] kids that will be withdrawn or just stop showing up to school,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Claros is one of several educators across six states who told NBC News they have found themselves in the uncomfortable position of fielding questions about potential mass deportations under the Trump administration<\/a>. Many teachers and administrators are aware of a variety of scenarios that could start playing out very soon: immigration officials asking about a student; a kid who leaves school for the day only to discover that their parents have been detained and no one is home to care for them; students worried about deportation who simply stop coming to class. Educators and advocates say they feel they have to be prepared for these situations, but they are also keenly aware of the risk of backlash that can come with talking about a political issue like this publicly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This dilemma has left teachers like Claros in disbelief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She became a teacher knowing she\u2019d have to talk about civics, she said, but \u201cI never in a million years thought that they [students] would ask me and have fears about immigration.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Supporters of Trump\u2019s plans for mass deportations say an increase in immigration enforcement is necessary to decrease the incidence of crime committed by migrants and deter individuals from illegally crossing the border in record numbers. However, critics say they\u2019re concerned about the possibility of family separations and widespread fear among certain communities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Several educators told NBC they feel it\u2019s in a community\u2019s best interest that kids, regardless of legal status, have the opportunity to go to school. Jasmin Baxter leads the communications office in the Hattiesburg, Mississippi, school district, which has a significant English-learner population. She said the district is committed to making sure all students feel supported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou come to school, you\u2019re supposed to feel safe at school. Those outside factors you\u2019re not supposed to be thinking about while you\u2019re getting an education,\u201d Baxter said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s been easy for school districts to answer questions from families on immigration or talk about what they\u2019re doing to prepare for possible mass deportations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt definitely is tricky for us to talk about it,\u201d said one assistant principal in California who asked that their name not be used so they could talk freely about the issue. \u201cBecause even if it is like, \u2018Here is how we support our students,\u2019 we\u2019d be getting pushback from families and community members.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Viridiana Carrizales, co-founder of the nonprofit organization ImmSchools, says she\u2019s also seen reluctance from schools to be seen seeking out information on immigration and what to do in the event of an encounter with federal officials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMany of them are saying the moment we put our names out there, we become a target,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this, in the days following the election, ImmSchools received messages from 37 schools it hadn\u2019t previously worked with asking about training opportunities and information for their staff, she said. Just before Christmas, the organization also held a virtual training session with 29 superintendents about how to prepare for any immigration raids or deportations that affect their student populations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c[Schools] are really afraid and they are trying to figure out ways to best support families through this,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Educators are also expecting students to begin disappearing from their classrooms altogether, as Claros has already seen happening in her school. Parents may be nervous about being separated from their children if either are detained, or think that their child\u2019s presence in school could lead to authorities learning they are in the country without authorization.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Michigan, ESL teacher Karen Iglesias said she\u2019s heard students ask if they are going to get deported and had parents tell her they\u2019re scared to drive to their kids\u2019 school.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cinthya Longoria, an elementary school teacher in north Texas, says she\u2019s trying her best to support parents who feel anxious about the future as she remains uncertain about her own. Longoria is currently a recipient of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary legal protection against removal for some immigrants brought to the U.S. without documentation as children. She recently had a parent ask her for reassurance that their family would be OK under the new administration, she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI just told her I hope so,\u201d Longoria said. \u201cBecause I couldn\u2019t tell her yes. That\u2019s when I told her I was a DACA recipient. At that moment, that was the only thing that I could tell her without being dishonest.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Federal laws prohibit schools from denying students free public education based on immigration status and regulate the disclosure of students\u2019 personal information. Those laws, in addition to Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable search and seizure, are meant to serve as safeguards for undocumented families concerned about enrolling their kids into schools, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTaken together, these are a fairly robust set of protections against immigration enforcement actions against students in school, especially where the school district is committed to protecting its noncitizen students,\u201d said Nayna Gupta, policy director for the nonprofit American Immigration Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Under current policy, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement generally steers clear of areas where people receive public services, including schools, hospitals and churches. But under the Trump administration, this \u201csensitive locations\u201d or \u201cprotected areas\u201d policy is slated to go away, three people familiar with the plan to end it previously told NBC News.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Denver Public Schools in Colorado and the Canutillo Independent School District in Texas both issued statements about the possible policy change, emphasizing the need to have \u201cdisruption-free learning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This isn\u2019t the first time schools have found themselves at the center of immigration issues. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, a series of ICE raids resulted in the arrest of about 700 workers from seven Mississippi food processing plants. As a result, district officials told NBC News<\/a> at the time, local organizations and schools had to find safe spaces for children to go in the absence of their parents. One Mississippi school district said it had instructed bus drivers to ensure that they saw a parent or guardian present at the time a child was being dropped off \u2014 if not, they brought the child back to school to spend the night there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This history has shaped the way some advocacy groups and educators are now preparing families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Tucson, Arizona, a coalition of nonprofits is helping families make \u201cemergency packets\u201d containing key information in case a parent is detained or deported, including a power of attorney for guardianship, emergency contacts and instructions about how to talk to children about who will be responsible for them in their parents\u2019 absence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The assistant principal in California told NBC News she and some of her colleagues have even offered up their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have spoken to families that have come forward about their status and have made it clear that their child can stay with one of us if their family were to be deported as an option for them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The morning after Election Day last year, Melanie Claros, a civics teacher and ESL coordinator at a South Florida school where half the students are Latino, found herself having to do a job beyond her usual duties. By the end of the day, she recently told NBC News, more than two dozen students had separately approached […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":37147,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1154],"tags":[2283,1297,1425],"class_list":["post-37146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-day","tag-her","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37148,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37146\/revisions\/37148"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}