Fears Grow Over ICE’s Reach Into Schools

School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here.

Two developments this week have upped the anxiety over how far President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown will go to ensnare students and young children. In New York City, a  Bronx high school student from Venezuela showed up for a routine immigration court date and was promptly arrested afterward by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Chalkbeat’s Michael Elsen-Rooney, who broke the story Monday, reports that the arrest has sent shock waves through the 20-year-old’s small, close-knit high school, which caters to older newcomers learning English.

Meanwhile, ICE agents have been showing up unannounced at schools, homes and migrant shelters from New York to Hawaii to interview children, some as young as 6, who arrived in the U.S. alone, The New York Times reported yesterday. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for the children’s care and has historically been kept separate from immigration activities, is now assisting in them, according to ProPublica. The Trump administration is calling these surprise visits “welfare checks,” but educators, advocates and others see them as a means of accelerating deportations. 

Propelling Trump’s deportation agenda has been a priority for Florida officials, from Gov. Ron DeSantis all the way down to the St. Petersburg school district police chief. An investigation I published last week revealed that the chief instructed officers to assist in the crackdown.

The revelation, included in a batch of public records I obtained from Pinellas County Schools, came after district officials claimed that an application to deputize campus cops with Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest authority was a mistake. The records show efforts to cooperate with ICE run deeper than school officials have previously acknowledged — and that the district’s top leaders were aware of it.

Immigrant rights groups and privacy advocates have for years warned that school-based police officers could share information about undocumented students and their families with federal immigration officials, especially as Trump bolsters a program that grants ICE powers to local cops. More than 550 law enforcement agencies nationwide have what are known as 287(g) agreements with ICE, including at least one in every Florida county.

Civil rights attorneys say the directives given to Pinellas school police — which include orders to detain and question anyone with federal deportation orders — could violate constitutional protections against unreasonable detention and children’s legal right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status. 

---

In the news

School cybersecurity experts told me they were surprised by how quickly federal authorities arrested 19-year-old hacker and Massachusetts college student Matthew Lane. Lane pleaded guilty last week to carrying out a massive cyberattack on the deep-pocketed ed tech company PowerSchool, which gave into his ransom demand. They also criticized the company for its slower-than-previously-known response and public notice about the breach, which exposed the sensitive records of millions of students and educators. 

• The Department of Justice alleges Lane and co-conspirators demanded a $2.85 million ransom in Bitcoin. He pleaded guilty to cyber extortion, unauthorized access to protected computers and aggravated identity theft. | BleepingComputer

• More than 100 school districts have filed lawsuits against PowerSchool alleging negligence and breach of contract. | K-12 Dive

• In just the last month, districts nationwide were the targets of extortion demands despite PowerSchool’s decision to pay the ransom to prevent files from being shared publicly. | The 74

• A prize nobody wanted: The education sector has come in first place … for being the slowest to report data breaches after ransomware attacks — averaging nearly five months. | Comparitech

• Kept in the dark: Meet the hired guns who make sure school cyberattacks stay hidden. | The 74

‘Take it down’: Trump has signed a new federal law that requires tech platforms remove non-consensual, sexually explicit deepfakes as teen girls nationwide are the victims of disturbing AI-generated images. | CNN

Red Cloud Indian School, which operates on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, has filed a lawsuit seeking to halt the Trump administration’s cuts to AmeriCorps. The suit charges the cuts would put job training programs and teaching assistants at “serious risk” in one of the country’s most impoverished regions. | South Dakota Searchlight

Some seven years after the mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, the Broward County school district plans to cut about 100 security positions as part of an effort to slash its budget by $65 million. | South Florida SunSentinel

On the list of alleged violations of students’ civil rights that may never be investigated after Trump gutted the Education Department: The case of a substitute teacher who was arrested on battery charges after she was captured on video dragging a 6-year-old boy with autism down the hallway of his Illinois school. | ProPublica

• Picking up the slack: The National Center for Youth Law has launched an initiative to help the families of students whose civil rights complaints to the department are no longer being investigated. The nonprofit’s “fellowship program” will connect fired Office for Civil Rights attorneys with families to provide pro bono legal services. | The 74

A Minnesota school resource officer was accused of helping to cover up allegations that a former middle school teacher was sending sexually explicit images to a dozen male students over Snapchat. | WCCO

‘Nazi swastikas and things like that’: A 33-year-old Texas mother was arrested on terrorism-related charges after police say she bought guns and tactical gear for her 13-year-old son as he allegedly planned a shooting at his middle school. Officials said they found “some very disturbing” stuff in the mother’s home. | Associated Press

---

ICYMI @The74

• Trump Official’s Autism Schools Secluded and Restrained Students at High Rates
  
• Head Start Teacher and Civil Rights Lawyer Turns Her Social Justice Lens to Math
  
• Heat, Floods, Storms Limit Outdoor Play for Young Children, Surveys Show

---

Emotional Support

Met a new friend, Elmer, spotted in Ohiopyle, Pennsylvania, while biking the 333 miles from Pittsburgh to Washington, D.C., this week.

Nice guy!

Get stories like these delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter