This week, the Trump administration reversed more than a decade of policy, saying it will no longer direct immigration agents to avoid “sensitive locations,” including schools, hospitals and churches. As a result, school leaders across the country are working to reassure immigrant families that it is safe to send their children to school amid growing fears that the Trump administration will target undocumented immigrants on school grounds, the Washington Post reports, But not all schools opposed Trump’s move. Ryan Walters, schools superintendent for Oklahoma, recently proposed that his state’s schools check students’ immigration status. This week, he said that stepped-up immigration enforcement will help the state “get our schools back. “President Donald Trump is ending sanctuary schools in Oklahoma,” Walters said in an emailed response to questions. “We will cooperate with all of President Trump’s policies to enforce immigration.” The Migration Policy Institute, a think tank, estimates there are 733,000 school-aged undocumented children living in the United States, and many more who were born here but whose parents are unauthorized.
In cities where Trump’s order is opposed, school leaders – fearful that some parents will choose to keep children at home – are emphasizing that districts will require that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents show a judicial warrant before being given access to school property or information. (Experts say that, though ICE routinely obtains judicial warrants when it is also investigating a crime, agents are unlikely to have them during routine immigration enforcement operations.) “I’m trying to make sure parents know that the safest place for their children is our schools,” said Pedro Martinez, CEO of the Chicago Public Schools. Despite those reassurances, parents are worried that a routine visit to their children’s school could end in deportation. “I am scared I will go to pick up my children, and they will be there taking parents from the schools,” an undocumented Guatemalan mother of two who lives in Los Angeles said in an interview. The mother, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect her family, is working with Our Voice, a local group helping immigrant families navigate this difficult moment. She said she is asking family members if they can take charge of her children, should she be deported. Evelyn Aleman, founder of Our Voice, said that fear is common and will be felt in schools. “Kids will be coming home or waiting at school for parents,” she said, but they will be gone.
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