Lara Evangelista remembers a high school student calling her to say his parents were picked up by immigration officers while selling clothes on the side of the road.
That was 2017, and Evangelista was then a principal. Now the executive director of Internationals Network, a nonprofit that works with schools to support immigrant youth, Evangelista is spending the final days of the Biden administration helping schools prepare to support newcomer families. That means laboring to help families understand policies and put plans in place for legal issues that may arise during the administration change, such as making sure they are updating and organizing any of their immigration paperwork.
In that way, Evangelista is like other advocates who work with newcomer students.
President-elect Donald Trump has pledged mass deportation, and his plans could impact many of the estimated 13 million families in the country who are undocumented or holding temporary visa status. And as Trump prepares to take office on Jan. 20, his rhetoric has created a climate of fear, according to advocates.
For newcomer students, that may mean more missed school time, advocates warn.
Schools have always been a safe haven for immigrant families, a place that is secure because it’s generally off-limits for immigration enforcement, says Wendy Cervantes, director of the immigration and immigrant families team at the Center For Law and Social Policy in Washington, D.C. If schools no longer feel like a secure environment, it could further prevent immigrant students — or children from immigrant families — from going to school, she says.
Compared to the previous Trump term, the immigration rhetoric is stronger and more focused on active deportations, Evangelista says.
Students hear adults around them discuss what the incoming administration is saying about immigrants, and they’re afraid, says Alejandra Vázquez Baur, director of the National Newcomer Network, a coalition seeking to improve educational access for newcomer students in K-12 public schools and a project of The Century Foundation. It’s not just deportation. From ending temporary protected status to increasing collaborations with local law enforcement, the Trump administration is considering a number of policies that worry newcomers, she suggests.
Worried that a climate of fear and confusion over immigration policy will harm education for newcomer students, these advocates are helping schools to prepare by bolstering schools’ understanding of rights and obligations under current law and helping students to confront their feelings of fear and hopelessness.
‘A Climate of Fear’
Even in the best of times, newcomer students face extra challenges.
It’s known that some newcomer immigrant students — particularly from places that have high poverty and potential violence and unstable educational systems — often come with interrupted or limited formal education, says Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, an associate professor of education at the Gevirtz Graduate School of Education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. And it also takes time for people to feel connected to school and feel like it’s a safe place, particularly for those who are undocumented and therefore more reticent to engage with public institutions, she says. Students may also have extra familial responsibilities, such as taking care of a younger sibling or acting as translator for household members at doctor appointments, Sattin-Bajaj says.
But across a number of districts around the country, absences for English language learners rose higher than for other students during the pandemic. In a particularly stark example in Huntsville, Arizona, highlighted by The 74, language learners saw a four-fold increase in absenteeism during the pandemic, while other students’ absenteeism actually decreased during the same period.
To advocates, these numbers mean that attendance for immigrant populations was hit harder than for other students. They worry that federal actions related to immigration could harm attendance further.
Cervantes’ organization, the Center For Law and Social Policy, found a link during the first Trump administration between immigration enforcement and absenteeism. Raids by immigration officers and fear of immigration enforcement both had a chilling effect on school attendance, the center concluded. After 2016, there was an uptick in immigration officers raiding work sites and homes, Cervantes says. Her team noticed that for days following a raid, immigrant students wouldn’t arrive at school. Center researchers also heard about immigration officers parking outside of elementary schools and early childhood programs to arrest parents they suspected of violating immigration rules. Fears like that spread, Cervantes says.
At the time, the Trump administration argued that it followed Sensitive Locations Policy, a federal rule restricting Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) from operating near locations like schools, child care centers and places of worship. Now Trump is reportedly planning to rescind the policy. Cervantes considers it unlikely that they will start raiding schools even if the administration scraps the policy. But simply revoking the policy will instill fear, Cervantes argues. Some would go further than simply increasing immigration enforcement. Texas Gov. Gregg Abbot previously floated the idea of overturning Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 Supreme Court decision that guarantees students access to public education regardless of immigration status. With a conservative Supreme Court that seems willing to throw away precedent, it feels possible, Cervantes suggests. Even the prospect creates confusion for families about who’s allowed to enroll in schools, she adds.
This has only fueled concern that newcomer students will feel less safe at school. When students perceive that their classmates and teachers view them as a problem, they can lose motivation to attend school, says Prerna Arora, an associate professor of psychology and education at Teachers College Columbia University. They are also vulnerable to more bullying, she says. For some students, it can seem a waste of time to attend school if they worry that they won’t be legally allowed to stay in the country, Arora adds. A student once looked at her and asked, “What’s the point?” Arora says. “It really stuck with me.” In the lead-up to the inauguration, Arora hears the sentiment more often. It doesn’t help that recent political rhetoric surrounds dramatic proposals such as dismantling the U.S. Department of Education, she adds. The outcomes are far from certain, but instability and uncertainty increase fears, especially in children and family members, Arora says.
For advocates, it’s a tense moment.
Some believe that threats to enrollment could also take away a potential lifeline for public schools. These communities can lift enrollment numbers for schools, which are suffering years of devastating declines, according to Baur at National Newcomer Network. As immigration patterns change, more families have moved across the country and settled in districts that traditionally haven’t seen large immigrant populations, Baur says. These families have reversed some enrollment losses and brought enrollment-dependent money back to public schools. Baur points to a recent Chicago Public Schools’ enrollment increase — buoyed by an 11 percent jump in English language learners. She isn’t alone in this opinion. In September, New York City Schools Chancellor David Banks described immigrant students as a “godsend” for schools, arguing that they staved off budget cuts and school closures. Baur believes immigration rhetoric will impact district budgets if it means immigrant students are too afraid to go to school.
But these students are resilient and can bounce back from these challenges, says Arora, of Columbia University Teacher’s College. For her, that means supporting students’ goals for their education, including their academic and social-emotional needs. It’s important to connect with members within that community to help build trust and collaboration among newcomer families, as well as to prepare teachers to do this, she says. Students need to know that they are welcome and wanted in the school and that they can achieve their goals by attending, Arora adds.
Confronting Hopelessness
Evangelista, of the Internationals Network, believes that preparing families for the administration changeover will help stabilize attendance. During the last Trump term, the New York City schools Evangelista worked with did not take drastic hits to attendance, which she credits to clear communication about school policies and their plans to follow those policies.
It’s a strategy that many of these advocates have embraced.
At the National Newcomer Network, Baur is focused on reinforcing immigrant students’ rights in school. One way of accomplishing this is to make sure people are aware of those rights by sharing resources and partnering with school and district leaders to help them implement immigrant protective policies, she says. In 2017, the New York City Department of Education released a regulation that spelled out clear steps for how schools should deal with immigration officers. It also established a process by which you can and should call or contact parents or families or students to let them know what’s going on, and provided training for school security officers and front desk staff, Baur says. The policy is great because it coordinates efforts across the school community to ensure that everybody knows the rights of students, she adds.
Schools should let families know that they are open to all children, Cervantes says. And if the Trump administration rescinds the sensitive locations policy — now known as the Protected Areas Policy — schools still have rights and the ability to restrict immigration officers from coming into their building, she says, adding: They continue to have legal obligations to protect the data of all students and families in their systems — that information will not be shared with immigration enforcement agents. None of those policies or rights will change no matter what the administration does on Day One, Cervantes says.
In anticipation, some districts have released statements that aim to fortify families. For instance, Jason Reimann, superintendent of Hayward Unified, a district in California’s Bay Area, published a statement in November that stressed a desire to support newcomer communities. “During this year’s presidential campaign, immigration emerged as a top issue,” Reimann wrote. “I want to affirm to the HUSD community that—as required under federal law—we are committed to providing all students access to a safe, supportive and whole learning experience.”
Some educators have leaned into small acts that make students from immigrant families feel welcome. Many educators have put up posters that say “All are welcome” or which depict a butterfly, a symbol of immigration, Baur says. Others encourage Spanish and other languages during appropriate times in the classroom, she adds. Even small welcoming behaviors like that can have a huge impact on students feeling like learning is for them, Baur says.