Trump Turns Schools Into an Immigration Battleground

Kids are being pulled from school, there is fear of agents coming, and quiet prep is taking place to avoid drawing the gaze of the Trump administration.

(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

IN CHICAGO, PARENTS WHO JUST SAW ICE raids hit their neighborhoods have begun worrying about picking up their kids from school.

In New York City schools, the official policy is for security to alert the principal if ICE agents arrive at the school doors, but some school officials are considering having the principals stall to alert teachers of any students in danger, a Queens teacher told The Bulwark.

In Austin, Texas, white parents are thinking about how to tell their children about what could happen to some of their classmates without scaring them.

In Denver, news that a parent was detained by ICE near a school sent a chill through a meeting organized by the Colorado governor’s office, state agency officials, and community immigration and legal groups, according to a source at the meeting.

And in Virginia and Maryland, administrators have stopped touting “Know Your Rights” training sessions being held by lawyers and advocates, for fear of retribution from Trump.

A climate of fear and desperation—relayed in interviews with teachers, principals, parents, teacher’s unions, and lawyers—has rapidly emerged as the Trump administration has ramped up immigration enforcement efforts. What’s shaken communities is how quickly schools themselves have become one of the main battlegrounds.

“This is just so heartless,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) told The Bulwark. “By targeting schools for immigration enforcement, this administration is destroying that sense of safety. This is not just policy—it’s cruelty, plain and simple. They say they’re targeting dangerous criminals, but let’s be honest: Who in a classroom is a criminal? Who among the parents dropping their kids off in school is a murderer or a rapist? There is no evidence to back up this claim.”

The idea that schools could be thrust into the forefront of the debate over immigration enforcement was something that immigrant rights groups warned about prior to the election. Under the Biden administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had been prohibited from going into sensitive areas, including schools, churches, and hospitals. But Trump was expected to rescind that memo. And within days of taking office, he did.

The impacts of that decision have, nevertheless, been profound.

In my conversations with educators, parents, teacher’s unions, and legal experts from New York to Baltimore, Chicago, Austin, Virginia, and Denver, I could sense a psychic toll.

Those individuals still had an appetite to fight Trump’s policies. But they also seemed to recognize that they must do so quietly to avoid drawing undue scrutiny from the most retributive administration in American history.

“In 2017, I felt a certain amount of protection by staying in the light,” a Baltimore teacher told The Bulwark. “In a way, it protected you. But I don’t feel that way this time, because Trump is being extraordinarily vindictive.”

Few teachers or administrators were willing to use their names for fear of drawing hostile attention to their school and the students they’re working to protect.

In Chicago, a principal said fear over ICE in schools has led attendance to drop nearly 25 percent.

“Attendance has bombed. We serve a high rate of newcomers. Then there are birthright kids, whose parents don’t have legal immigration status,” the principal told The Bulwark. “So the parents are not sending kids to school because they don’t feel safe bringing them to and from school everyday, and if they do [bring them], the fear of separation is very real. Other parents who feel their child needs structure and access to education ask, ‘What is your plan?’ Or they say, ‘Here is my contact information sheet. Here are all the people to contact if something happens to me.’”

The principal likened this state of growing, ambient fear to the anxious vigilance they have developed over the years around school shootings. Both destroy the sense of safety that is meant to be inherent in schools and is critical for learning.

“It’s 100 percent a violation,” the principal said. “We’re sitting inside a bubble that’s going to pop.”

During the school’s weekly meeting last week, “everyone was crying,” the principal said, so the meeting turned into a conversation about giving teachers resources and clarity in this moment. Among the questions educators are now asking administrators is whether they have looked outside for ICE agents before dismissing classes each day.

“Criminal or not, immigrant or not, a kid deserves to get picked up by their parent everyday,” the principal said. “I think to myself, ‘How am I prepping myself to talk to that child if something happens? Am I hiding kids tomorrow if ICE comes?’ Then I get home and feel guilt over my own kids who are so happy, with not a care in the world.”

In Virginia, a school board member said that all school systems in the area were communicating, exchanging best practices, and working with the nonprofit sector on “Know Your Rights” training. If ICE agents arrive, schools have been instructed to contact the school system’s lawyer. The source said establishing widely understood processes was important because of the rapid spread of viral TikTok videos of teachers pledging to stand in the way of ICE agents, which has been contributing to misinformation about teachers’ responsibilities in such a situation.

“There are videos of teachers saying ‘I will stand up for my students, I will defend my students.’ That’s also not good because it’s leading teachers to believe this is an additional responsibility, and that’s not the case. If law enforcement comes, it’s not your job to face an ICE agent,” the source said.

In nearby Maryland, Montgomery County Public Schools issued guidance assuring parents that there are strict protocols in place for how to handle immigration enforcement agents coming “to a school to inquire about students.” The guidance, shared with The Bulwark by a parent, also said families would be contacted should this occur. “Our schools are and will always remain safe places where every child—regardless of immigration status—is welcomed, valued, affirmed, validated, respected, and loved.”

In Baltimore, some high school students have taken it upon themselves to organize “Know Your Rights” trainings from experts as well.

That training may seem like it’s not enough in the face of a daunting and punitive federal enforcement policy. But it was apparently enough to annoy Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who told CNN Monday night that Chicago raids had been made more difficult because of the pervasiveness of “Know Your Rights” training.

“For instance Chicago, very well educated, they’ve been educated how to defy ICE, how to hide from ICE. I’ve seen many pamphlets . . . here’s how you escape ICE from arresting you, here’s what you need to do. They call it, ‘Know Your Rights.’ I call it, ‘How to escape arrest.’”

In some cities, fears over immigration enforcement near schools is not new. In May 2017, just months into Trump’s first term, Jesus Pedraza, a father of three, was followed home by ICE agents after picking up his son at Hampstead Hill Academy in Baltimore. He was charged over a 12-year-old deportation order for fleeing Honduras after witnessing a murder at the age of 17 and having his own life threatened, WYPR reported.

With this palpable fear as a backdrop, a Baltimore teacher assigned her students to write notes on how they’re feeling. The teacher shared those notes (written in both English and Spanish) with The Bulwark.

“I think ‘La Migra’ is like a gun being shot in the wrong direction,” one male student wrote. “People who genuinely want to work are being deported. I know it’s for America’s safety, but a force for good is being aimed wrong.”

“I think it’s unjust because many parents of students came for the American Dream, and since 2020 it feels like these dreams have died,” another male student wrote in Spanish. “The government isn’t the same as before, they don’t treat us equally.”

“I don’t understand what the point is of using violence to take away our right to study and our right to live,” a female student wrote in Spanish. “Just because we don’t have a piece of paper. No human is illegal on stolen land.”

One of the students was undocumented. Instead of giving his thoughts, he drew an angry cat holding a sign with ICE crossed out.

Baltimore students share their feelings about the prospect of ICE in schools

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LAST WEEK IN NEWARK, ONE OF THE FIRST ICE RAIDS swept up a U.S. citizen—a Puerto Rican warehouse manager and military veteran. Afterwards, the city’s black mayor, Ras Baraka, held a press conference on the benefit of immigrants to our nation’s economy. The moment was fleeting. But it showed, to many advocates, the power in non-Latinos or non-immigrants stepping up to call out abuses of the law and the reckless implementation of radical policy.

In Austin, Texas, Ken Zarifis, the president of a local teachers’ union called Education Austin, said he, too, was trying to rally the community around protecting its undocumented members, many of whom were his students when he served as a teacher for a dozen years. He has moved to “rebuild and renew alliances” between schools and the community to prepare for what’s coming.

“My rage and frustration reaches beyond my ability to change things,” he said, reflecting on what he could do as a white man with a child in fifth grade. “I live in the community where ICE is very likely to show up. While I have great privilege as a white guy in this nation, no one is coming at me directly, but everything I’ve built my life and my family around is connected to this community.”

Zafarias has concluded that everything comes down to the door to the school, where on one side ICE is waiting, and on the other side there are administrators, a principal, teachers, custodians, food service workers, and students.

“What happens at that moment is what we’re trying to impact right now—what procedures are in place so, to the greatest extent possible, our children are protected,” he said.

He called the prospect of ICE descending on a father picking up their kid from school “chilling,” noting that his own Greek immigrant grandfather, who emigrated in 1918 to escape poverty and lack of access to opportunities, never had to deal with this.

“It’s the most appalling, gut-wrenching thing as an educator that I can imagine,” he said, his voice slow and full of emotion. “I have a hard time conceiving it—how can anyone think this is valuable?”

One Last Thing

Recapping a weekend of ICE enforcement actions, NBC News reports that the Trump administration says “nearly half of those detained don’t have criminal records.” Perhaps not surprising, after a Washington Post report revealed Trump officials have “issued quotas to ICE officers to ramp up arrests.”

In response to a question about this ratio, Trump Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt articulated something we knew was coming before this administration took power—an expansion of who is considered a criminal.

Asked how many of those detained in recent raids had criminal records as opposed to simply having been in the country illegally, she said, “All of them, because they illegally broke our nation’s laws, and therefore they are criminals, as far as this administration goes.”