The Feds Are Coming for Immigrant Kids

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

As federal immigration officials carry out mass arrests in Los Angeles and President Donald Trump unilaterally calls in the military to confront protesters — prompting civil unrest across the country this week — the city’s school chief vowed to protect immigrant kids in his care. 

• L.A. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho announced he would create “perimeters of safety” around high school graduations, my colleague Ben Chapman reports. 
  
• “Our schools are places of education and inspiration, not fear and intimidation,” Carvalho, once an undocumented immigrant himself, said while announcing an order for school police officers to “intervene” against any Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should they attempt to detain or arrest anyone at school functions. “Many of us here are immigrants or children of immigrants.”   
  
• Some parents in the district — which enrolls an estimated 30,000 immigrant students — said they planned to sit out their children’s graduation ceremonies due to immigrant enforcement fears. 
  
• In April, Carvalho spoke out against federal immigration officials who paid visits to two L.A. elementary schools to conduct “wellness checks” on unaccompanied minors who came to the country without their parents. 

For students graduating high school this spring, the anti-immigrant climate has raised new fears for the future, including worries about their ability to pursue college or job-training programs.

They’re coming for the youth: The 74’s Jo Napolitano reported this week on the detention of immigrant high schoolers in New York, Massachusetts and other states, and the pain that followed. 

• “For other communities, this is a wake-up call,” immigrant rights activist Adam Strom said. “The unimaginable is happening in communities like their own, to students not so different from the kids in their own classrooms.”
• Among them is 9-year-old Mártir García Lara, an L.A. fourth grader who was deported to Honduras with his father. The father and son were detained by immigration officials when they showed up to a routine immigration hearing. | KTLA
• Some 500 children who arrived in the U.S. as unaccompanied  minors have been taken into federal custody following “welfare checks” like the ones at L.A. schools. 
• The Trump administration has said the checks are to protect migrant children they believe are now “slaves, sex slaves or dead.” Immigrant rights advocates say they’re being used as “bait” to deport the adults around them. 

In Colorado, Gov. Jared Polis ordered the state labor department to hand over data about unaccompanied immigrant children after it received a subpoena from the Trump administration, a whistleblower lawsuit alleges.

---

In the news

A ‘misconfiguration,’ kept under wraps: BoardDocs, a software tool used by thousands of school boards to publicize meetings and store confidential information, suffered a technical glitch that exposed the sensitive records of school districts nationally, I revealed this week. Multiple districts that are BoardDocs customers said they were unaware of the incident until I contacted them and, in several instances, received confirmation only after reaching out directly to parent company Diligent. | The 74

• Nineteen-year-old Matthew Lane pleaded guilty in Massachusetts federal court for his role in a recent cyberattack on education technology behemoth PowerSchool, which led to a data breach exposing the personal information of millions of students, parents and teachers globally. | Telegram & Gazette

David Hogg, an outspoken survivor of the Parkland, Florida, school shooting, said he will not run again for vice chair of the Democratic National Committee after he faced fierce pushback for funding the campaigns of candidates running against sitting lawmakers in primary races. | The New York Times

New Jersey schools place children with disabilities in separate educational settings away from their nondisabled peers at the highest rate in the country, potentially in violation of a federal law that affirms the children’s right to learn in general ed classrooms “to the maximum extent possible.” | Hechinger Report

Following outcry, the U.S. Naval Academy has reversed its decision to scrap from its library 381 books that mentioned diversity, equity and inclusion. | The 19th

My colleague Linda Jacobson reported in depth this week on a California mom whose three-year crusade against a school district that supported her child’s social transition from female to male is at the heart of the Trump administration’s forceful effort to clamp down on educators who withhold changes in students’ gender identity from their parents. | The 74

Aggressive enforcement despite layoffs: Trump’s pick to lead civil rights enforcement at the Education Department, Kimberly Richey, said at a Senate hearing last week she is “always going to advocate” for the office even as the administration guts its staff. | The 74

• “If I am confirmed, the department will not stand idly by while Jewish students are attacked and discriminated against,” Richey said. “We will stop forcing schools to let boys and men into female sports and spaces,” she continued, referring to inclusive school policies that allow transgender students to participate in school athletics and use restrooms that align with their gender identities. | The 74

The Supreme Court announced it would not consider a case that challenged Maryland’s ban on semiautomatic rifles like the AR-15 and imposed 10-round limits on gun magazines, rules that were implemented in response to the 2012 mass elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. | Reuters

Firearms deaths among children have surged since a 2010 Supreme Court decision gave states more control over gun laws, a new study finds. | ABC News

---

ICYMI @The74

• New Research: Childhood Vaccination Rates Drop Across 1,600 U.S. Counties

• Despite the Law, Nebraska School Districts Denied Transfers to Special Ed Kids

• Texas’ Undocumented College Students No Longer Qualify for In-State Tuition

---

Emotional Support

Don’t forget to practice good posture!

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