Washington, D.C. – Following Trump’s joint session address to congress this week, a group of teachers, students, parents, and immigrant rights experts hosted a press call today to demand an end to enforcement in schools. The call comes just weeks after the tragic death of 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza, a young student in Texas who committed suicide after facing relentless anti-immigrant bullying in school, as well as news of a middle school science teacher in Miami who was kidnapped from his community and classroom.
Trump’s policies, including his order allowing ICE agents to enforce mass deportations near and at schools, have bred a climate of uncertainty and worry, driving families into the shadows, kids out of classrooms, and creating chaos in local communities. Now, as Trump and Congressional Republicans push forward a $350 billion mass deportation budget, they are diverting funds from education and healthcare to dramatically escalate raids and militarized enforcement.
To watch the press call, please visit this link.
Beatriz Lopez, Co-Executive Director of the Immigration Hub, said:
“Trump’s cruel mass deportation agenda is infiltrating our schools, turning classrooms from places of learning into sites of fear and disruption. Families are being pushed into the shadows, students torn from their desks, and educators placed in an impossible bind. Now, as Trump and his allies push a $350 billion slush fund for mass deportations, they are diverting resources from education and healthcare to fuel this assault on immigrant families.”
Alejandra Gonzalez Rizo, 8th grade teacher in Washington, D.C. and former DACA recipient, said:
“Our schools are under threat, not just from a lack of resources and underfunding, overcrowded classrooms, or outdated materials, but from something much worse: the threat of armed immigration agents intimidating families and abducting children and teachers from our learning spaces. ICE in schools does nothing to address the real concerns teachers like myself have raised for years. We don’t need immigration agents, we need solutions to student hunger and student’s mental wellbeing. We need more funding for teachers, smaller class sizes, and afterschool programs. We need arts and music classes back. We need resources to support students with learning differences, more EL teachers, safer school buildings, and more guidance counselors to help students plan for their futures.
As a teacher, I am here to teach. I should not have to serve as shields against government overreach, but make no mistake, I do everything I can to protect my students. It’s time to stand with students and teachers and say: No ICE in our schools. No CBP in our classrooms. No more fear in the spaces where children are meant to feel safe, grow, and thrive.”
Daniela Silva, high school teacher and former DACA recipient, said:
“As a teacher, I’ve asked for more pencils, paper and tissues. But I’ve never once asked for armed agents on campus. The presence of ICE and CBP agents in schools will not protect our students; it will isolate them. We’ve already seen drops in attendance as children and their families are afraid of what might happen between leaving home and entering the classroom. As someone who was once undocumented, I understand what it’s like to fear never seeing your friends again. But that fear paled in comparison to the constant worry I felt as a student about whether today might be the day I go home and my parents have disappeared. Schools should promise safety, not harm. In my classroom, we are a community. We support each other through the good and the bad, and losing any part of that community would be a traumatic loss. I call on our elected officials at every level to invest in keeping our schools safe and reject any and all efforts –including more government funding– that would further embolden immigration enforcement in our schools.”
Suma Setty, Senior Policy Analyst of Immigration and Immigrant Families at CLASP, said:
“We need to ask, who really benefits from ICE agents at schools? The administration and their Congressional allies are scapegoating immigrant families to justify cutting critical programs like public education, health care, and nutrition. They are diverting resources to fund a reckless mass deportation agenda that enriches wealthy investors and contractors while harming children nationwide. Schools exist to educate all children, and immigration enforcement has no place near them. If we don’t protect schools and child care facilities from such misguided enforcement policies, children across the country–U.S. citizen and immigrant alike–will be harmed and our country will pay the price for generations to come.”
Angel Barragan, high school principal and current DACA recipient, said:
“‘What’s going to happen to you Mr. Barragan?’ is a question I often get from my students. It breaks my heart that my students feel fear over what might happen to me, especially if the DACA program were to end, and if immigration agents come into our school. My high school students deserve to focus on being teenagers; they deserve to focus on their school work, who they’re going to take to prom, when they’ll get to hangout with their friends, not whether their principal will suddenly disappear overnight. All teachers, students, and staff deserve to feel safe in our schools. As a country, we must defend our communities against any anti-family, anti-immigrant and anti-education policies.”
Alexander Fuerte, high school student and student organizer, said:
“As student organizers, we aim to use whatever means we have in order to magnify the voices of our school communities. We desire to educate ourselves and the community about the threats placed against us, and as a child of immigrants, I take pride in my roots. We are fighting for our futures and to keep each other safe.”
Bruna Sollod, Senior Political Director of United We Dream Action, said:
“Teachers deserve to teach. Students deserve to learn and thrive. As we speak, our education system in this country is under severe threat by the Trump Administration and Trump’s cult of billionaires who have been relentless in their pursuit to gut billions of dollars worth of funding for our schools, our teachers, and our children and use it to turbocharge mass abducting immigrants from our communities in order to make themselves richer. Attacking immigrants means attacking our schools; it means attacking the teachers with DACA, the students who are undocumented, the parents and families who have mixed statuses. We urge elected officials from the local, state and federal levels to reject Trump’s efforts to kidnap our immigrant loved ones and neighbors, and rob our communities of vital funding for our education system.”