Educators work to calm students' and parents' fears about immigration raids by sharing policies and ICE limitations

Children from Africa, Latin America and Asia are
part of the U.S. unauthorized population. (Adobe photo)

U.S. educators, students and parents live with anxiety and fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will raid their schools or homes since the "Trump administration reversed a longstanding policy that directed immigration agents to avoid sensitive locations such as schools, churches and hospitals," reports Ray Sanchez of CNN News. The change has left teachers "scrambling for guidance on what to do if agents appear and how to reassure worried students and parents."

Acting Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman said the policy shift prevents criminals from hiding in sanctuary places; however, the threat of ICE agents coming into schools has "contributed to a recent drop in classroom attendance in some communities," Sanchez writes. While there have been "no confirmed reports of ICE agents at U.S. schools," their looming threat can be traumatizing for any educational community.

To help students and families, educators "have been dispensing information on the type of warrant ICE agents must have to gain access to schools," Sanchez reports. Deb Gesualdo, president of the teachers union in Malden, Massachusetts, told Sanchez, "Agents don’t get unfettered access. . . 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.”

Educators in Barren County Schools in Warren County, Kentucky, are working to calm fears by sharing their policies on how ICE agents will be managed should they appear on campus. "BCS stated that in addition to following state and federal guidelines for student’s safety and well-being, it has procedures for if federal immigration officers arrive at a school," reports David Mamaril Horowitz of Bowling Green Daily News. BCS said it would require ICE agents to present a "valid warrant or court order for the district's legal team to review before any action is taken."

Sanchez notes, "About 733,000 school-aged undocumented children live in the U.S., according to the Migration Policy Institute think tank."