If immigration agents arrive on the doorstep of a New York City public school, principals have been told what to do. Ask the officers to wait outside, and call a school district lawyer. The school system has enrolled 40,000 immigrant students since 2022. As President-elect Trump prepares to take office with promises to deport millions of undocumented immigrants, the district has shared with school staff a protocol to try to shield students who have a tenuous legal status. Emma Vadehra, the district’s chief operating officer, told principals, “We hope using this protocol will never be necessary.” Still, New York and other school districts across the U.S. are readying educators and immigrant families for a potential wave of deportations, reports the New York Times. Public schools serving clusters of migrant children have already dealt with a dizzying set of challenges in recent years, as an influx of hundreds of thousands of migrants crossed the southern border. Some are educating students who speak Indigenous languages and may have never before been enrolled in formal education. Others are trying to prod teenagers to class, when they may face intense pressure to earn money. And many have assisted newly arrived families with finding shelter, food and winter clothes. Now, these schools are facing an additional challenge: convincing parents to send their children to class when some are so anxious about deportation that they are reluctant to separate from their children for even part of the day.
“We have parents who are afraid,” said Superintendent Adam Clark of the Mount Diablo Unified School District, northeast of San Francisco. “We are trying to inform them of what their rights are.” About 20 percent of students in the district are still learning English, meaning they are most likely recent immigrants. After Election Day, attendance fell, he said, though he emphasized that it was not clear exactly why students were missing. This month, the district will host a legal information session for parents. Its social workers have explained to families that under current law, undocumented immigrant children have the right to a public education, and federal immigration agents generally cannot arrest students or family members at schools. They have also noted that public schools do not typically track the immigration status of students. Like other education leaders, Clark acknowledged that there was only so much reassurance he could offer. A longstanding policy prevents Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from making arrests at schools and other sensitive locations, such as hospitals and churches. Right-leaning policy advocates in Trump’s orbit, including the writers of Project 2025, a blueprint created for the new administration, have pushed to rescind the policy, arguing that to speed deportations, agents should be able to exercise judgment on where they operate. That has left educators worried that federal agents could arrive at their doors.
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