By JOCELYN GECKER, BIANCA V. ZQUEZ TONESS, MORIAH BALINGIT, and OLGA R. RODRIGUEZ, The Associated Press
AP’s San Francisco Some families are questioning if it is safe to send their kids to school as President Donald Trump strikes down on illegal immigration in the United States.
Despite the president’s campaign promise to carry out mass deportations, educators in many districts have worked to reassure immigrant parents that schools are safe places for their children. However, when the Trump administration declared on Tuesday that it would permit federal immigration officials to make arrests at hospitals, schools, and places of worship, ending a decades-old practice, some people’s anxieties grew.
God, please! After learning that the Trump administration has repealed the ban on arrests in sensitive areas, Carmen, a Mexican immigrant, remarked, “I don’t understand why they would do that.”
Unless school officials tell her otherwise, she intends to accompany her two grandkids, aged four and six, to their San Francisco Bay Area school on Wednesday.
According to Carmen, who spoke on the stipulation that only her first name be used because she is afraid of being singled out by immigration officials, “knowing that the school stands with us and promised to inform us if it’s not safe at school has helped calm my nerves.”
Trump’s promise to deport millions of people has caused anxiety among immigrants nationwide. Although there were no raids on the first day of the government, the swift changes in immigration policy have left many people perplexed and unsure about their future.
Many school systems are keeping an eye out for affects on student attendance at a time when many migrant families, even those who are lawfully in the country, are deciding whether and how to behave in public. Although it was too early to determine whether a significant number of families are keeping their children at home, several schools reported that they were receiving calls from anxious parents over concerns that immigration officers will attempt to enter classrooms.
The action taken on Tuesday to allow arrests at schools overturns a ruling that prohibited two federal agencies, Customs and Border Protection and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from conducting enforcement in sensitive areas. “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.
Daniela Anello, the principal of the nation’s capital’s D.C. Bilingual Public Charter School, expressed her surprise at the news.
“It’s terrible,” Anello remarked. It is impossible to hide anyone. It hasn’t happened and doesn’t happen. It’s absurd.
The Migration Policy Institute estimates that 733,000 school-age children are in the United States illegally. Many more are citizens of the United States yet have parents who are not authorized to be in the nation.