Trump’s School Improvement Plan: Deport American Students
There’s an innate tension between school safety and students’ civil rights. The 74’s Mark Keierleber keeps you up to date on the news you need to know
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Even as student enrollment declines drive staggering public school closures nationally, one group of students in particular — children from immigrant households — have been blamed for straining education budgets.
Politically aligned media sources are laying the groundwork for President-elect Donald Trump’s mass deportation plans. The Fox News station in El Paso, Texas, for example, ran a story this week stating that America’s public schools have endured a massive financial hit “by accommodating illegal migrant children” and removing these students would be an “attempt to alleviate the problem.” Its only source: an interview a right-wing pundit from the Leadership Institute gave to the conservative Sinclair Broadcast Group.
With the estimated arrival of more than half a million school-aged children to the U.S. since 2022, according to an October Reuters report, some districts have described budget constraints and challenges in accommodating language barriers and unmet educational needs.
Trump and his allies, who plan to use the military to carry out massive deportations at the onset of his second term, have made clear their intention to:
- End the constitutional right to citizenship for anyone born in the U.S.
- Overturn the 1982 Supreme Court case affirming undocumented children’s right to a free public education.
- Give immigration agents permission to carry out raids in classrooms.
U.S.-born children could become targets, too.
In a Sunday interview with NBC News, Trump floated the possibility of removing immigrants’ American-born relatives during deportations because he doesn’t “want to be breaking up families.”
“The only way you don’t break up the family is you keep them together and you have to send them all back,” said Trump, who was widely condemned for separating families at the southern border during his first term.
On the ground: In an in-depth investigation this year, my colleague Jo Napolitano exposed how hundreds of schools across the country illegally denied entry to older immigrant students, expressing “pervasive hostility and suspicion” toward these new arrivals. In an update this week, Jo explores how the Oakland, California, school district works to welcome — rather than reject — its newcomers.
Click here to read Jo’s latest story.
In the news
As schools nationwide deploy surveillance tools to monitor students online, the youth mental health crisis is being met with late-night home visits from the police and hospitalizations. | The New York Times
- “The majority of cases that I saw were serious or concerning enough to merit hospitalization, and that in the majority of cases the parents were not aware of the child’s suicidality,” said Dr. Leticia Ryan, the director of pediatric emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center.
‘Child executions’: Police say the man who carried out a religiously motivated shooting last week at a Christian elementary school that left two kindergarteners wounded wrote that he was acting in response to “America’s involvements in genocide and oppression of Palestinians.” | Los Angeles Times
In a new lawsuit against tech company Character.ai, parents accuse its AI chatbot of encouraging their children to commit self harm and murder. | The Washington Post
It’s a bird … it’s a plane … it’s a drone spewing pepper spray. Aerial support could soon hover over Texas schools under a bill that seeks to increase state spending on campus security from $10 to $100 per student. | KVUE
Andrew Ferguson, tapped by Trump to chair the Federal Trade Commission, promised in a memo to the incoming administration to “hold big tech accountable,” “protect freedom of speech and fight wokeness” and “the trans agenda.” | The Verge
- Advocates with the nonprofit Fight for the Future said Ferguson’s statements bolster LGBTQ+ advocates’ opposition to the bipartisan Kids Online Safety Act, legislation designed to prevent childrens’ access to social media content deemed harmful. The bill was revived for the umpteenth time in Congress this week. | National Review
- “It is unbelievably insulting that after years of this conversation about KOSA, young queer and trans people are still being gaslit about the harms that this legislation poses to their online communities,” Fight for the Future campaigner Sarah Phillips wrote. | Fight for the Future
More from the FTC: The commission has reached a settlement with school “weapons detection” company Evolv Technology after accusing the maker of AI-powered security screens of misstating its ability to identify threats and keep kids safe. | The 74
A 12-year-old girl was handcuffed for three hours inside her New York City elementary school after law enforcement officials said she hit a school safety officer during a fight with a classmate. | New York Daily News
A 33-year-old Connecticut school resource officer died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound hours after he was arrested and accused of luring a child online. | New Haven Register
- Related: New Justice Department guidance urges police departments to train campus cops on keeping appropriate boundaries with kids following an investigation into predatory officers who use their positions to groom students. | The Washington Post
The socioeconomics of cybercrime: Children from affluent households “are at greater risk of being targeted and compromised by cybercriminals,” according to new Javelin research, because they have greater access to social media and credit cards linked to digital accounts. Yet, “society’s most vulnerable children, those in foster care, are ideal candidates for exploitation by cybercriminals.” | Javelin
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