Trump’s ICE Plan Sows ‘Chaos and Fear’ in Schools

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As President Donald Trump reportedly mulls an executive order to eliminate the Education Department, the federal government’s role could shift from ensuring children have equal educational opportunities to making it easier to deport them. 

One closely watched avenue where that could happen is allowing immigration enforcement in schools. Trump last month did away with a longstanding restriction barring federal agents from conducting raids in sensitive locations like churches, hospitals and schools. 

A protest Thursday against the administration targeting schools in its mass deportation pledge was sparked in part by claims that 11-year-old Jocelynn Rojo Carranza’s suicide death last month was precipitated by rampant classroom bullying, with the student’s peers claiming the Texas girl’s family was undocumented and would get deported.

“The presence of immigration enforcement in our classrooms will not make schools safer, it will actually do the opposite,” Alejandra Gonzalez Rizo, an eighth-grade teacher in Washington, D.C., and a former DACA recipient, said during a Thursday press call organized by two advocacy groups, United We Dream Action and The Immigration Hub. “It will create chaos and fear, forcing students and teachers to look over their shoulders instead of focusing on learning.” 

Click here to watch the full discussion. 

The big picture: To date, I’m not aware of any cases during Trump’s second term where immigration officials carried out enforcement actions inside a school. Advocates warned of a greater fallout to come. 

• School police in Texas have opened an investigation into Jocelynn’s death. | CNN
• Now you see it, now you don’t: The Trump administration implemented — then walked back just days later — an order that sidelined a federal program that allows nonprofits to provide legal representation to undocumented children who are in the country without their parents. | The Washington Post
  • The young migrants, called unaccompanied minors, have become a central target in Trump’s immigration crackdown. | Reuters
  • Prohibiting ICE activities at or near schools or bus stops “could significantly limit immigration enforcement in Denver,” the Trump administration said in response to a lawsuit from the city’s school district seeking to prevent an end to the sensitive locations policy. | Denver Gazette
  • In February, a federal judge blocked immigration officials from conducting raids and arrests at a handful of churches and places of worship that sued to halt the policy shift. Trump’s directive, the judge ordered, likely denied religious freedoms protected by the First Amendment. | Politico

Emboldened states: Decades ago, the Supreme Court ruled that all children in the U.S. are entitled to a free public education regardless of their immigration status. Conservative state officials want that to change — with lawmakers in Tennessee, Oklahoma, Indiana and Texas introducing bills to bar undocumented kids from classrooms. | Immigration Impact

The Pinellas County, Florida, police department has reportedly applied for a federal program that deputizes local officers with immigration enforcement powers. | Florida Phoenix 

• On Thursday, Pinellas school officials said they would cooperate with ICE but would stop short of instructing its officers to work alongside federal immigration agents. | Tampa Bay Times

Departing gifts: From soccer balls to handwritten letters, educators across the country have been giving heartfelt mementos to multilingual learners whose families have chosen to leave their schools and their homes rather than risk scrutiny from immigration agents. | The 74

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In the news

R.I.P. ED? Trump is expected to sign an executive order as early as today calling for an end to the Department of Education, throwing into uncertainty an agency that enforces federal civil rights laws and distributes financial support to low-income schools and students with disabilities. But here’s the thing: The department was created by Congress — and bringing down a federal agency will take a lot more than a few scribbles on a piece of paper. | The New York Times

Now you see it, now you don’t (again): The department appeared to walk back a controversial order that threatened to strip federal funding from schools with diversity, equity and inclusion policies. | The 74

• In response to the original order, some educators said they had no intention of playing along. In Long Beach, California, for example, school officials moved forward with plans to open the Center of Black Student Excellence despite federal pressure. | The 74
  
• In a lawsuit Wednesday, the ACLU and the nation’s largest teachers union alleged Trump’s anti-DEI order stifled educators’ free speech rights. | Higher Ed Dive

In a first-in-the-nation move, Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds has signed a law that strips state anti-discrimination protections from transgender and nonbinary students. | Des Moines Register 

A lawsuit has accused a former security guard at a Milwaukee private school of secretly recording underage girls in a campus locker room. | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

• More from Milwaukee: City officials approved a $1.6 million plan to station police officers in public schools — more than 400 days after a state law went into effect requiring cops on campuses. | WISN

The Senate failed to pass legislation that sought to bar transgender students from participating in school athletics programs consistent with their gender identity. | The 74

Free from gun-free zones: A new Wyoming law has banned “gun-free zones” in schools and other public spaces. | WyoFile

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Kept in the Dark

For a recent investigation for The 74 and Wired, I fell down a dark web rabbit hole and chronicled more than 300 school cyberattacks in the last five years — and revealed the degree to which school leaders in virtually every state repeatedly provide false assurances to students, parents and staff about the security of their sensitive information. 

This week, I highlighted my investigation into a ransomware attack on the Providence, Rhode Island, school district — where educators denied a massive student data breach in plain sight. 

As a result of that 18-month-long investigation, I was interviewed last week on KARE 11, the NBC affiliate in Minnesota’s Twin Cities. Public records I obtained from Minneapolis Public Schools uncovered sharp disparities in what district leaders told the FBI after a 2023 data breach and what it communicated to the public. You can watch the newscast here.

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ICYMI @The74

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• 1st Confirmed Death in Texas Measles Outbreak Is Unvaccinated, School-Aged Child

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Emotional support

Oh hey, springtime, is that you? The 74 editor Andrew Brownstein’s pup Sagan is already out in the yard waiting for longer, warmer days. 

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