How teachers are preparing themselves and their students for immigration sweeps

Protesters opposed to immigration raids in schools outside the State Department of Education in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, last month. (Nick Oxford/Reuters via CNN Newsource)

A 6-year-old first grader in New York City has been asking to visit the school nurse almost every day for the last month, hoping to be sent home. Her teacher eventually figured out why.

“She is afraid if she waits to the end of the day, she’s not going to be able to see her mother – that something will happen and her mother will not be able to pick her up” if she or family members are caught up in an immigration enforcement operation, Katie Kurjakovic, an English language learners specialist with the United Federation of Teachers, recalled a colleague telling her.

In New York and other cities across the nation, educators are grappling with fear among students and parents that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will show up at schools – or their homes – as the Trump administration vows to deport millions of undocumented immigrants.

“All the teachers can do is to try to make this little girl feel as safe as possible,” Kurjakovic told CNN. “She invites the girl to sit with her during as much of the day as possible … It’s very upsetting, but its what teachers are finding themselves having to do in the classroom – make kids feel safe.”

Anxiety around America’s classrooms has only increased since the administration last month reversed a longstanding policy that directed immigration agents to avoid sensitive locations such as schools, churches and hospitals – leaving educators scrambling for guidance on what to do if agents appear and how to reassure worried students and parents.

“Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman said in a statement last month. “The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.”

The White House and ICE, among several other federal agencies, have splashed multiple photos and videos of their enforcement actions on social media in a PR blitz intended to showcase the administration’s deportation push.

There have been no confirmed reports of ICE agents at US schools, but educators said widespread alarm over deportations appears to have contributed to a recent drop in classroom attendance in some communities.

“It’s like this terrible Charlie Brown rain cloud looming over everyone,” said Deb Gesualdo, president of the teacher’s union in Malden, Massachusetts, a diverse, working-class city of about 65,000 north of Boston – where more than 70 languages are spoken in the public schools.

In Virginia, the president of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, David Walrod, said teachers are having to confront their students’ traumatizing fears about deportations.

“It’s, you know, students not knowing, ‘Is my best friend going to be here tomorrow?’” he said. “When you have a situation with somebody from law enforcement at a school, that’s not just traumatizing to that one individual student they are getting, it’s traumatizing to the thousands of other students that are also in the building and see what’s happening.”

‘Everything is so topsy turvy’

From Massachusetts to California, educators and advocates have been dispensing information to teachers and parents on the type of warrant ICE agents must have to gain access to schools and on the right all children have to an education regardless of immigration status and what to do and say in the event of an encounter.

“Whether they’re teachers or support professionals, everyone is really, really worried,” said Gesualdo, a music teacher with 22 years in the public school system. “I have never seen or heard of anything like this … Everything is so topsy turvy.”

In Malden, New York City and other places with large numbers of immigrant families, teachers and principals have been instructed to immediately contact district officials if federal agents appear on school grounds.

“They don’t get unfettered access. They don’t get just free information handed to them,” Gesualdo said of immigration agents. “We refer them to the superintendent’s office … It would be so damaging for any of our students not only to be detained at school but to witness that happening.”

About 733,000 school-aged undocumented children live in the US, according to the Migration Policy Institute think tank.

Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell has put out guidance on how school officials should respond should immigration agents attempt to question or remove students. “As part of a school district’s broader planning efforts related to circumstances that might make it unsafe for a child to return home, they should prepare for the event in which a parent is arrested or detained by ICE,” the guidance states.

Gesualdo added, “Even if there’s no ICE raids happening in our schools and maybe there’s no ICE agents lurking outside the schools, it still disrupts the school environment significantly. That fear of students possibly being taken from their families or students finding that while they were at school their parents were detained.”

Not all US education officials, however, oppose the Trump administration’s push to allow ICE agents into schools. Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, has vowed to comply with the efforts.

Additionally, the Oklahoma State Board of Education – which Walters oversees – voted in late January to approve a proposal requiring parents to report their immigration or citizenship status when enrolling their children in school. The proposal still needs the approval of the legislature and governor.

“Schools are crippled by the flood of illegal immigrants and the Biden/Harris open border policy. Oklahomans and the country elected President Trump and we will do everything possible to help put Oklahoma students first,” Walters said in a statement.

‘I don’t know what the future holds’

In New York City – where nearly 45,000 migrant children have enrolled in public schools since July 2022, according to the city Department of Education – Yensy Lopez said her three children have grown weary of random door knocks at a Manhattan hotel serving as a temporary shelter. She is worried even though she has a work permit and asylum proceedings in the works.

“This has all been a psychological trauma for them and for me,” the migrant from Colombia told CNN on a recent morning. “I am just afraid. I don’t know what the future holds.”

Thousands of migrants began arriving in New York City in the summer of 2022 after being bused north from the Texas border. New York Mayor Eric Adams has been outspoken about the city’s migrant crisis. He has expressed an openness to working with the Trump administration.

On Tuesday, when Adams was asked at a budget hearing before state legislators about children being afraid of going to school, he responded: “I think that we need to let these children know that they can continue their education. Our administration has stated this over and over again.”

The country’s largest school system sent a memo to principals last month reiterating that ICE agents are not permitted on school grounds “without proper legal authority.” The letter also stressed the school system does not collect information about the immigration status of students.

In an email to members with information on New York City Department of Education guidance last week, the president of the United Federation of Teachers, Michael Mulgrew, wrote: “We will continue to fight for schools to remain safe zones. Our students deserve an education free from fear, humiliation and trauma.”

Viridiana Carrizales, co-founder of ImmSchools, a nonprofit that works with schools across the country on ways to serve immigrant students and families, said the organization has been inundated in recent weeks with calls from worried parents and educators.

“While there’s no place right now that is the safest for immigrant families, in many ways, schools are safer than even our own homes,” she said. “That’s one of the things that we’re trying to tell families: Your kid might have more protections or might be even safer at school than if you keep them at home.”

Teacher vows to protect kids ‘by any means necessary’

In Chicago, Chief Education Officer Bogdana Chkoumbova has said city public schools are committed to protecting students and families, and will not ask about or share immigration status with ICE. In November, the city board of education passed a resolution saying the school system will not assist ICE agents nor permit them on campuses without a criminal warrant.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Tuesday said the state will defend educators and immigrant students against Trump administration policies that have “created fear and uncertainty in our immigrant communities.”

“California’s schools are and will remain a welcoming, inclusive and safe place for all, regardless of your sexual orientation, gender identity or immigration status,” Bonta told reporters. “The federal government does not dictate what we teach, and does not write our curricula. We do that here in California.”

Diana Herrera, a high school teacher from California’s Central Valley, last week vowed to protect her students “by any means necessary” should ICE agents come to her classroom.

“Whether that’s locking them out, pushing them away,” she said. “I just have a very big fear that they are going to come to my door, and it is going to be, you know, me at the front line … I’m going to protect my students and do what I can to keep them away.”