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  • Schools should not be battlegrounds for immigration enforcement

    Schools should not be battlegrounds for immigration enforcement


    It’s graduation week in Los Angeles — a time that should be filled with joy and celebration for students and their families. Instead, fear and uncertainty have taken hold in many of our communities.

    Since June 6, federal agents have been conducting extensive raids across Los Angeles, targeting areas many of our students call home. In response, some of our schools mobilized community volunteers or were forced to offer virtual graduation options because families were too afraid to attend in person.

    These actions have shattered the sense of safety that schools work so hard to build. These raids and subsequent arrests have sparked protests.

    I recently stood with staff, students, teachers and parents in Sacramento, urging legislators to pass legislation that would boost protections for immigrant communities.

    Among the group was an undocumented mother of two U.S.-born students who spoke about the emotional changes she has seen recently in her 10-year-old son. “My kids are scared that something might happen during drop-off or pickup, or that immigration officers will try to come into their schools,” she said. “Schools are supposed to be their second homes — places where kids grow, learn and feel safe. But when immigration officials show up like this, it is hard to feel that way.”

    Her son now suffers from panic attacks, clinging to his mother after school, terrified she won’t come home. In response, his mother has done everything she can to protect her children, from seeking therapy for her son, to traveling to Sacramento with the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools (a nonprofit that manages 20 LAUSD schools in historically under-resourced communities) to advocating for stronger protections against recent immigration enforcement. “I am afraid, too, but I do not show it,” she said.

    This family’s feelings reflect broader experiences across Los Angeles Unified — not just for undocumented families, but also for U.S.-born students and American citizens who are feeling the ripple effects of these raids. This past April, authorities were denied entry into two elementary schools after they showed up unannounced and sought to get in touch with students who allegedly entered the country without documentation.

    “I’m still mystified as to how a first-, second-, third-, fourth- or sixth-grader would pose any type of risk to the national security of our nation,” said LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, who was an undocumented immigrant as a teenager from Portugal.

    There are an estimated 133,000 undocumented students enrolled in California, and roughly 1 million live with a parent or caregiver who is undocumented. This will not be the last time we hear a story about agents attempting to enter schools.

    Without clear laws and protections, there will be more stories of schools being invaded, more confusion, more fear, and more trauma.

    No family should have to live in fear like this. In 1982, the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that states cannot constitutionally deny a free and public education to undocumented students. Families are trying to exercise that right.

    Today, the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools and its partners are urging lawmakers to protect young people when they go to school by not allowing immigration enforcement to be left to the discretion of individual ICE agents. Such actions should be authorized in writing by a judge. Further, when student safety is in doubt, students and their families should have the right to be forewarned and be given the freedom to stay home without schools being punished with funding cuts.

    These common-sense measures would help ensure that schools continue to be what they were always meant to be: institutions of learning. When students are scared, they cannot learn. When families fear being torn apart, they are reluctant to engage with educators. And when the government sends agents to schools, trust is broken.

    Many states and districts have issued new or updated guidance this year, building on pledges they made to be “safe zones” for immigrant communities during Trump’s first term. Several have published guidance about how schools can comply with federal and state laws and respond to the presence of ICE on campuses and what type of student and parental information can be shared.

    LAUSD has continued to be a leader in California and nationwide. In addition, the district board has passed resolutions stating that LAUSD will be an “immigrant sanctuary.” The state has prepared guidance to help school districts comply with state law limiting participation in immigration enforcement activities.

    But much more will be needed if we are to keep students and their families safe in an increasingly hostile environment. Join us in urging state lawmakers to support several immigration-relsted, including AB 49, which passed the Assembly last month and will be voted on by the Senate Education Committee on June 18.

    •••

    Guadalupe Guerrero is CEO of the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, a nonprofit that manages 20 LAUSD schools in historically under-resourced communities.

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





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  • Trauma, upheaval, fear: Students and families caught in the crosshairs of immigration enforcement

    Trauma, upheaval, fear: Students and families caught in the crosshairs of immigration enforcement


    Teacher Laura Brown, second from right, speaks at a rally for Miguel Angel Lopez, alongside teacher Betsy Wilson, Lopez’s wife Rosa Lopez, and son-in-law Jimmy Silva.

    Courtesy of Becca Esquivel Makris

    Top Takeaways
    • Some schools across California report that parents — and sometimes students — have been detained by immigration officials.
    • Teachers and other school staff are stepping up to help families get the resources they need.
    • When a parent is detained or deported, students may become eligible for homeless services.

    The day before final exams started at Granada High School in Livermore, special education teacher Laura Brown got word that a student’s father had been detained by immigration officers.

    Brown didn’t hesitate. She immediately called the student’s mother, Rosa Lopez, and went over to her house that night. She had known the family for 12 years, ever since the oldest son had been her student. The youngest, who just finished his sophomore year in high school, stops by her classroom regularly just to say hi.

    Together, Brown and Lopez wrote a message calling for help. Within hours, they had contacted their local congressional representative, mayor and local activists. Another teacher, Betsy Wilson, helped organize a rally to protest Miguel Angel Lopez’s detention. Days later, he was deported to Tijuana. As his wife travels to Mexico to help him, Brown and Wilson are still trying to support the family.

    “That’s the call of a teacher,” Brown said. “Your students need you and that’s it.”

    She would do the same for any student, she said.

    “Right now, if a student has anyone in their family that has an unknown legal status, it would be really hard for us to expect that their brains are going to be capable of learning and taking in content when they’re in such a traumatized and fearful state,” Brown said.

    SUPPORTING IMMIGRANT FAMILIES

    As U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids ramp up across California, so have reports of students grappling with trauma, upheaval and fear after family members — and sometimes students themselves — are detained.

    A fourth grader in Torrance and his father were sent to a detention center in Texas after an appointment with federal immigration officials on May 29. They were later deported to Honduras. 

    In San Francisco, at least 15 people, including four children, were detained by ICE at scheduled immigration check-ins on June 4, according to advocates. In May, a first grader in the district was deported with his mom to Nicaragua after attending an immigration appointment as part of their application for a visa. 

    “There was no chance for them to return home to get any of their belongings or to say goodbye,” said Maggie Furey, a social worker in the district. “The first grader left school Friday not knowing that they were never going to see their friends, teacher or community again.”

    Furey said the child’s deportation hit his classmates and teachers hard.

    “A lot of the adults were extremely distraught, and we saw heightened anxiety in our community because we have other families that have immigration appointments coming up and were really fearful,” Furey said. “The kids really missed the student, and you’re having to have really big conversations on a first-grade level with kids.”

    She said the child’s teacher set up an international video call so his classmates could say goodbye.

    We’ve had to call upon our therapists, our social workers at our school site to be able to have those heart-to-heart conversations with their students when they’re feeling anxious, stressed or very worried

    Efrain Tovar

    In Los Angeles, dozens of people have been detained by ICE in recent days, and raids on businesses near schools have sparked fears that immigration agents may target graduation ceremonies. A Los Angeles Unified School District high school sophomore was detained last week, alongside her mother and sibling. She has since been sent to a detention center in Texas.  

    The effects on students extend beyond the communities where the most publicized raids have occurred. Efrain Tovar, who teaches English language development to English learners and immigrant students at Abraham Lincoln Middle School in Selma, in the Central Valley, said he’s seen an increase in fear and uncertainty.

    “We’ve had to call upon our therapists, our social workers at our school site to be able to have those heart-to-heart conversations with their students when they’re feeling anxious, stressed or very worried,” said Tovar. “It’s a reality that our students are facing, and students cannot learn when these types of events flare up in the classroom.”

    He said, in addition, many immigrant students are unsure of where they will be next school year, which makes it hard for them to plan for high school or the future.

    “There’s this feeling among the newcomers that ‘we don’t know if we’ll be back next year.’ As we end the school year, there’s a lot of what-ifs,” Tovar said. 

    Jesús Vedoya Rentería, who teaches English at Hanford West High School in the Central Valley, said in response to the fear among their peers, some of his students have decided to pass out “know-your-rights” cards outside Mexican markets or at the swap meet on weekends. He said it makes them feel more empowered.

    “They were concerned a lot of raids were going on and said we owed it to our immigrant population to make sure they’re informed,” Vedoya Rentería said.

    School staff are anxious to know what they can do to help students and families, said Ana Mendoza, director of education equity and senior staff attorney at ACLU of Southern California. She said the organization has worked with several school districts to provide presentations on students’ and families’ rights regarding immigration enforcement and training for school employees.

    “Schools have the obligation to ensure families know that students have the right to attend California public schools,” Mendoza said. 

    Federal law gives all children the right to a free public education, regardless of immigration status. Under California law, school districts must notify parents and guardians of that right. The state attorney general recommends that schools also work with parents to create a plan for who should have custody of the child if parents are detained, and that school staff connect families with legal help or other resources. 

    A family separated

    When Granada High School teachers stepped up to help Rosa Lopez, the mother in Livermore, it meant a lot, she said.

    “If it wasn’t for them, I would [have] probably be[en] home with my arms crossed just waiting for Miguel or the lawyer to call,” said Lopez. “That really motivated me and hyped me up, because I was like, ‘OK, I got this and I know I can do this, and we’re going to bring Miguel home.’”

    Lopez said her husband’s detention and deportation have deeply affected her kids, who are 24, 23 and 17 years old. 

    “We’ve never been apart from each other,” she said. “He is the one always making sure we’re OK.”

    Miguel Angel Lopez (center) with his daughter Stephanie, wife Rosa and sons Julian and Angel. Credit: Courtesy of the family
    Courtesy of Rosa Lopez

    Her youngest son, Julian, had to take final exams the day after his dad’s detention, but it helped that his teachers knew what he was going through, she said. 

    “My oldest son, he doesn’t know how to express his emotion, but I can see the sadness in his face, and he said he feels like the house isn’t home because his dad’s not here,” she said.

    The couple’s granddaughter, who is 3 years old, doesn’t understand why her grandfather isn’t home. “She grabs his picture and says, ‘I want to go with Papa,’” her name for her grandpa, Lopez said.

    Lopez, who is a U.S. citizen, said she applied for her husband to become a permanent legal resident after getting married in 2001, but the government initially denied the application, and the couple has been battling that decision in court for years. She said her husband was originally taken to a detention center in McFarland, but early Saturday morning, he called her from Tijuana and told her he was left there by immigration authorities without his Mexican passport or his California driver’s license. 

    “I lost it when he told me,” Lopez said. “This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.”

    She immediately booked a flight to Mexico to bring her husband clothes and his birth certificate and help him complete paperwork to get a new Mexican passport. She plans to continue to fight the deportation in court.

    Students may be eligible for McKinney-Vento resources

    Mendoza, from the ACLU, said after a family member is detained, school staff should check if a student’s housing situation has changed, which could then make them eligible for services for homeless students, under the federal law known as the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act.

    If a student’s parent or guardian is detained, they may have to live with a new family member, for example, or the loss of income of one parent may require a student’s family to move to a new home. In that case, students have the right to stay in the same school even if they have moved farther away, and they may need help with transportation to get to school, Mendoza said.

    “Stability is really important,” said Mendoza. “But if they [school staff] don’t inquire about why an address has changed, they might miss that it’s a housing instability that would then trigger McKinney-Vento.”

    School personnel at a school district in Ontario, outside of Los Angeles, said they were recently approached by a grandmother who was caring for her grandchildren and needed food and clothing for them. Only after inquiring about their living situation did the district learn that the children’s parents had been detained by ICE. Their particular situation qualified them for homeless assistance resources.

    “I think there’s this hesitancy to talk about ‘what does this mean for our immigrant students?’ But I think it’s even more important now because we never know who students will feel comfortable sharing that information with,” said Karen Rice, a senior program manager at student-advocacy organization SchoolHouse Connection.

    So many of our members want to know, what do I do in the event that ICE does get past the office and into the classrooms?

    Yajaira Cuapio

    At Coachella Valley Unified School District, an uptick in fear of immigration enforcement is contributing to homelessness among families. Karina Vega, a district support counselor, said immigration-related changes in students’ lives vary widely. Some parents have had to temporarily leave the country as part of the residency process; others have a deported parent, leaving the remaining parent struggling to make ends meet on their own; others are constantly moving to stay off the radar of immigration officials. 

    The information from the state attorney general about how to help immigrant students and families is not always getting to teachers, said Yajaira Cuapio, a social worker with the San Francisco Unified School District. She said the teachers union, United Educators of San Francisco, is asking the district to include training on sanctuary policies in the teachers’ contract.

    “So many of our members want to know, what do I do in the event that ICE does get past the office and into the classrooms?” Cuapio said. “What are our rights? What do I do as an educator?”





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  • Research: Immigration enforcement hinders schoolwork; schools offer support 

    Research: Immigration enforcement hinders schoolwork; schools offer support 


    March for immigrant rights in Los Angeles in September 2017.

    Credit: Molly Adams / Flickr

    Immigrant students’ schoolwork and experience in the classroom often suffer in the presence of immigration enforcement — with 60% percent of teachers and school staff reporting poorer academic performance, and nearly half noting increased rates of bullying against these students, UCLA-based researchers found.

    “Instead of focusing on their education, these students struggle with this uncertainty and, as a result, are often absent from school or inattentive. Their teachers also struggle to motivate them and sometimes to protect them,” reads a recent policy brief by UCLA’s Center for the Transformation of Schools, Latino Policy and Politics Institute, and Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles.

    “The broken immigration system hurts schools and creates victims across the spectrum of race and ethnicity in the United States, but it is especially acute for these students.”

    According to UCLA’s policy brief, children of “unauthorized immigrants” between the ages of 6 and 16 are 14% more likely to repeat a grade, while those aged 14 to 17 are 18% more likely to drop out of school altogether. 

    One of the most common reasons for students to miss class or drop out is the pressure to work full time to support family members financially, said Yesenia Arroyo, the principal of LAUSD’s RFK School for the Visual Arts and Humanities, where roughly 80% of students are immigrants. 

    She added that she works closely with her school’s counseling staff to connect regularly with students about their academic progress. They also try to find Linked Learning opportunities, where students develop real-world experience, and paid internships — which can help students earn while remaining in school or pursuing their interests.

    “A part of it is really understanding the community that we serve,” Arroyo said, “understanding the students that we serve, understanding what are the challenges and ensuring that we are matching resources, that we’re listening first — that we’re really listening.” 

    Schools and community organizations throughout Los Angeles have taken various approaches to support students who are undocumented or have family members who are — including running a one-of-a-kind high school in Korea Town with an onsite immigration clinic and engaging the services of community organizers to help connect families with resources. 

    “What’s happening in one school, unfortunately, is not something that’s always happening in other schools. And I’m sure that there’s other great leaders that are doing great things. It would be nice to learn from what others are doing,” Arroyo said. 

    “There’s so many different tasks, so much work that we need to do. I wish we had more time to collaborate with other leaders to ensure that we are sharing resources and ideas, so that we are not working in isolation.”

    ‘Wraparound’ support 

    While it is impossible for teachers, administrators and the district as a whole to always know which students are undocumented and in need of support, schools and community organizations have taken various approaches to provide basic assistance. 

    A spokesperson for the Los Angeles Unified School District said that while the district follows the law and does not “collect information or inquire about immigration status,” it supports all students, irrespective of their immigration status. 

    “Schools assist families with affidavits, for example, to ensure students are enrolled, and families are connected to appropriate services and support, even if enrollment documents aren’t available,” the spokesperson said. 

    Meanwhile, 34 of LAUSD’s schools are also community schools, which provide “wraparound” services — from meals to medical assistance — that advocates say are critical for students who are undocumented. 

    Rosie Arroyo (not related to Yesenia), a senior program officer of immigration at the California Community Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles that aims to address systemic challenges facing various communities throughout the region, said housing and mental health resources are in especially high demand for these students and their families.

    “It’s about survival,” Arroyo said. “And right now, there’s a lot of multilayered challenges communities are facing, from being able to make it on a day-by-day basis and having access to resources around just food.”

    As a community school, the School for the Visual Arts and Humanities holds workshops for families every Wednesday, covering a range of topics, from housing to special education and how to access community resources.

    At least a fifth of the school’s parents attend, which principal Arroyo said is particularly difficult to achieve with parents who often work multiple jobs, and because parental involvement usually decreases as students get older.

    Mental health support has also been a big concern at the school — especially as a lot of the students are grappling with serious trauma and lack confidence. Roughly 65% of the behavioral incidents reported to the district by the schools are related to students’ struggles with mental health issues, the principal said, adding that the Covid-19 pandemic only exacerbated those challenges. 

    The school now has a QR system posted throughout campus that students can scan to schedule a visit with the school counselor. About a fifth of the students request to see a counselor on a weekly basis, Arroyo added. 

    “A lot of them have been through a lot of trauma on their way into the country. They’ve been abused; they’ve seen death,” she said. “It would be great if we had a system in place to address all these issues that our students come with and provide them with resources.”

    Legal backing 

    Beyond receiving assistance with basic needs, access to legal services and some understanding of individual rights is critical for students, advocates say. 

    In addition to the support it provides its students as a community school, the School for the Visual Arts and Humanities partnered with UCLA in 2019 to launch a permanent one-of-a-kind legal clinic. The clinic space is specifically designed to support students whose families need legal guidance or backing. 

    The RFK Immigrant Family Legal Clinic “is a blessing for our families and for our students, because they have resources that they, perhaps, would not go out on their own to get,” Arroyo said, adding that more than 80% of the students at her school were not born in the U.S., and about 20% immigrated within the past two years. 

    Most of the recent arrivals are from southern Mexico, Central America and South America, though there are students from other parts of the world, including Korea, Russia and Bangladesh. 

    The legal clinic’s team — comprised of a director, manager, two staff attorneys and up to a dozen law students — provides students and families with one-time consultations and, in some cases, legal representation. They are also present in classrooms, during “coffee with the principal” events and during weekly workshops for families — allowing the clinic to become “a trusting face” which Arroyo said is “key to ensuring that our families are actually taking advantage of those resources.” 

    “The clinic has allowed us to relieve stress and anxiety, but there’s just so many kids who don’t have that,” said Nina Rabin, the clinic’s director who also teaches at UCLA. 

    “I just love the school. It’s such a special place.” 

    As more students arrive from around the world and the clinic earns more trust from the communities it serves, the demand grows. The clinic recently expanded to a second location on the same campus.

    Currently, the team has more than 120 cases on its docket, many of them already prepared and sitting in a long, backlogged process that can take years, Rabin said. 

    In any given week, the clinic has roughly a dozen “really active cases” — and they prioritize families that are seeking asylum and students who are eligible for certain visas that only people under the age of 21 can apply for. 

    While “there’s definitely a need beyond what we can currently fill,” Rabin said, the clinic also tries to give more immediate attention to high-need families, unaccompanied minors and those with imminent hearings. 

    “The kids are just kind of incredible — what they take on and how much they’re just survivors and resilient,” Rabin said. 

    “They have so much potential and … there’s so much that’s so, so difficult and unfair about their situation in this country. And so, being able to intervene with this possibility of getting full status at this really prime time in their life, I think is really rewarding when it works, and it has been working. We’ve been getting a lot of kids on that pathway.”

    Through her Facebook group Our Voice/Nuestra Voz, Evelyn Aleman organizes live-streams and virtual workshops every Friday. Most of the group’s LAUSD parents, she said, are either in fully undocumented or mixed-status families and are looking to find ways to support and advocate for their children in school. 

    Usually, she said, 20 to 30 parents attend the Zoom sessions, while up to 400 might opt to stream them later. 

    “We continuously ask our parents ‘OK, what information would you like us to bring to Our Voice?’” Aleman said. “Consistently, they’ll say, in addition to education, but primarily, they’ll say, immigrant rights.” 

    This year, Aleman is partnering with the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles to host a 10-workshop series — each week discussing a different topic. 

    The topics related to immigration status will include: “know your rights,” “public charge,” “DACA,” “resources for undocumented students,” “citizenship” and “notario fraud prevention + referrals for non-profit immigration legal services.” 

    Building trust with undocumented and mixed-status families is critical, she said, because many remain wary of fraudulent attorneys and notaries because of their prior experiences or the experiences of people they know. 

    “They take their money, and they run,” Aleman said. “The families lose hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars investing with the hope … that they’ll help them.” 

    Moving forward 

    To support students who are undocumented or from mixed-status families, the UCLA brief emphasizes the importance of investing in community schools, participating in partnerships with community-based organizations and providing “Know Your Rights” guidance from the California Department of Education. 

    The brief also urges school districts to hire more counselors and school support staff, improve diversity in the ranks of teachers and offer more professional development opportunities. 

    Lucrecia Santibañez, the faculty co-director of the Center for the Transformation of Schools, co-author of the brief, said expanding support for teachers is key because some may not know how to handle a situation where an undocumented student comes forward. 

    “Teachers themselves have to be really careful about having these conversations. They obviously want to support the kids, they want to support their families,” Santibañez said. These situations add to teachers’ stress and create more work for them. Being better prepared to handle them would be a big help, she said.

    Santibañez also emphasized the negative psychological impacts of anti-immigrant rhetoric — not only for students who might be undocumented or come from mixed-status families, but for all students. 

    “If I’m here legally, I may get comfortable in saying, ‘Well, that’s somebody else’s problem, right? I’m not going to get deported. My kids aren’t going to come home and not see me because I got sent back,’” Santibañez said. 

    “It is actually our problem. It is everybody’s problem because kids in schools, even when they themselves are not undocumented, they’re feeling the fear, they’re feeling the uncertainty.”





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  • California leaders reject Trump administration order to allow immigration enforcement in schools

    California leaders reject Trump administration order to allow immigration enforcement in schools


    Protesters in Bakersfield rally against an extensive Border Patrol operation held on Jan. 14,.

    Credit: Emma Gallegos / EdSource

    This article has been updated with information from the California Department of Education, Long Beach Unified and San Diego Unified.

    Este artículo está disponible en Español. Léelo en español.

    California state officials and leaders of county offices of education and school districts quickly rebuked the Trump administration’s new guidance allowing immigration enforcement near or in schools.

    “Schools must be safe spaces, not sites of fear,” said Alex Traverso, director of communications of the State Board of Education. “Every child deserves to learn without intimidation, and California will do all we can to protect our students.”

    The directive issued Tuesday by Department of Homeland Security acting Secretary Benjamine Huffman reverses guidance that dates back to 2011, restricting Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies from detaining immigrants near locations like schools, child care centers, playgrounds, hospitals and churches.

    “This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murderers and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement Tuesday.

    Under California law, school officials are not required to allow immigration agents to enter schools without a judicial warrant, according to recent guidance issued by California Attorney General Rob Bonta.

    “It is disappointing, but unfortunately unsurprising that President Trump, in his first days in office, is focusing his time and energy on making his inhumane and irresponsible mass deportation agenda a reality. My team is actively reviewing his executive orders, and we stand ready to defend the rights of Californians if we find that the President has in any way violated the law — starting with our lawsuit, filed today, challenging the President’s unconstitutional executive order on birthright citizenship,” Bonta said.

    The Association of California School Administrators issued a statement saying they are “troubled and deeply disappointed” in the Trump administration’s order allowing immigration enforcement near schools.

    “This is an abuse of power and goes against the constitutional right of every child to have a public education,” the statement reads. “Schools are meant to be safe spaces where children can learn and grow without fear. … We know from past experience that this decision will result in some students not attending school, families disengaging, academics being disrupted, and severe impacts on social-emotional well-being.”

    In response to requests for support from school districts and county offices of education, the California Department of Education sent a letter Tuesday to all county and school district superintendents and charter school administrators with resources for immigrant students and families and reminders about their rights.

    “Our schools must be a safe place for children to learn and educators to teach. In line with federal and state law, California’s schools can take actions to ensure that all students have access to school campuses and educational opportunities without fear of deportation,” State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond said.

    “In light of the new administration’s action today to overturn the sensitive locations policy, I want to reassure our education community that the Los Angeles County Office of Education (LACOE) remains steadfastly committed to ensuring that every student, regardless of their immigration status, has access to a safe, secure and nurturing learning environment,” said Debra Duardo, superintendent of schools for Los Angeles County, in a statement.

    “The change to the policy does not overrule the student’s constitutional right to an education. It also does not overrule state constitutional protections,” Duardo continued. “It is important to reinforce that all students possess the right to a public education, independent of their immigration status. Our schools are mandated to ensure that no student is denied enrollment or faced with barriers to their educational opportunities based on their or their family’s immigration status.”

    Many school districts, including Los Angeles Unified, Long Beach Unified, San Diego Unified and San Francisco Unified have reaffirmed “sanctuary resolutions” or sent letters to families in recent weeks, explaining their rights and sharing legal resources. Seventeen Santa Clara County superintendents and school board members signed a letter earlier this month, saying schools will continue to support immigrant students and families and reminding the public of a 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe, which found that all children present in the United States have a right to a public education, regardless of their immigration status or their parents’ immigration status.

    A spokesperson for Los Angeles Unified School District said the district has begun training all staff in how to respond if federal immigration officers show up at schools and will be distributing cards to students explaining their rights if approached by immigration agents.

    “Los Angeles Unified School District is compelled by legal, professional, and moral obligations to protect rights of its students and employees, including privacy rights under FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act), and state and federal constitutional rights, which include rights of all students to a free and public education,” a district spokesperson wrote in an email. “School officials do not collect or share information about the immigration status of students and their families. Since 2017, LAUSD has had a policy to not voluntarily cooperate with immigration enforcement actions by federal agencies.”

    Fresno Unified School District is holding a series of workshops for families about immigrant rights. District spokesperson Diana Diaz wrote, “We want to urge our families who are concerned about possible detainment or deportation to please make a family preparedness plan NOW. This includes updating your child’s emergency card with their school so they can be released to another trusted adult if parents are unable.”

    Teachers’ unions also rejected the Trump administration’s change.

    “As educators and union members, we are committed to protecting our students — every single student, regardless of their immigration status,” said David Goldberg, president of the California Teachers Association, which represents 310,000 teachers, nurses, counselors, psychologists, librarians and other education staff across the state. “We have a professional and moral responsibility to keep our students safe if ICE comes to our communities. We will always come together in our union to ensure every public school is a safe space and to uphold the constitutionally protected right of all students to access a public education.”

    Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers, the state’s second-largest teachers union, said in a statement, “Trump’s first day in office showed us that he is exactly who he told us he would be. His first actions as president direct hate and aim to stoke fear in the hearts of immigrant families and our LGBTQIA+ community.  We can’t expect students to learn when they fear being separated from their parents, being bullied for being LGBTQIA+, or being treated differently based on the language they speak or the color of their skin.

    “While we still hope to see Congress and our courts block these blatantly unconstitutional actions,” Freitas continued, “we won’t wait for them to act. Educators and school staff stand ready to fight back against every single action that stands to harm our members, our students, and our communities.”

    EdSource reporter Diana Lambert contributed to this article.





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