Since 2011, Homeland Security has upheld the practice of refraining from entering and engaging in immigration arrests in what are deemed “sensitive areas.” This includes schools and places of worship with the addition of places where children gather — playgrounds, bus stops, care centers — and disaster relief sites as of 2012. This policy was in place throughout Obama’s second term, Donald Trump’s first term and the Joe Biden administration. On day two of President Donald Trump’s administration, Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Benjamine Huffman announced that the Department will roll back this policy which protects between 850 thousand to 4.4 million children across the country. The 1982 Supreme Court case Plyler v. Doe ruled that undocumented children have the right to public education, and it was believed that immigration arrests that took place in the school environment were unconstitutional. This is clearly not a belief of the Trump administration any longer, as Trump’s threats to commit a mass deportation — specifically against Latinx populations — become an increasingly likely reality.
Trump’s party was once hellbent on preserving the innocence of children through the regulation of drag shows and queer bodies for alleged proclivity to commit sexual abuse, which was unfounded. This is also the same pro-life party, forcing people to carry unwanted or unhealthy fetuses, believing that life begins at conception and that abortion is the murder of an infant regardless of the stage or state of the pregnancy. The Trump administration’s “protection of children” and “preservation of childhood innocence” stops when the child is brown and not from the United States. They do not care that most educators report observing emotional and behavioral issues from their immigrant students out of fear of the deportation of themselves, family and friends. They ignore the real trauma that comes from these events, forever tainting the lives of those Immigration and Customs Enforcement deports or who have had loved ones deported.
Immigration arrests and deportations are not pretty events. They, many times, are violent, brutal and traumatic. Yes, sometimes it is criminals and terrible people being whisked away, but it is also fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. They are pillars of the community who have given everything to those around them, staples in the lives of those who love them. It is your next-door neighbor or your child’s soccer coach, your best friend’s partner or your favorite waitress at the local bar. It is people who have been in the United States their whole lives, who have no memory of the country they left as an infant.
Unless you have had to sit in on meetings instructing you what to do if someone from ICE shows up, have witnessed people lose loved ones, have an acquaintance or friend disappear one day without a trace or watch people literally starve out of fear for their life, no one has any idea what it is really like. But if you have indirectly or directly been affected by deportation, there is no way you would ever want to inflict that trauma on children in school, who have a right to learn and have an environment where they can feel safe.
Chicago and Chicagoland school districts, where the alleged first ICE raids and arrests are to occur, are preparing protocols to protect their students and keep ICE out of the doors. Not only do teachers, students and administrators have to worry about educating their students and school shootings, but the Trump administration wants to add traumatic immigration events to the plight. Fortunately, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has said multiple times that he will protect his immigrant residents as best he can from the Trump administration, but what about cities and states where such a sentiment isn’t shared? There exist governors who will not step in the way of ICE, superintendents and police chiefs who are willing to fully cooperate with ICE as well, intending to let them arrest students and faculty inside the once-safe schools.
Chicago will not be the only city targeted, but other sanctuary cities too — cities or towns that intend to protect their immigrant populations and minimize information shared with ICE. This includes Pittsburgh, a city with a smaller undocumented population which, as of 2019, was believed to be around 15,000 people, many of which are likely to be students in the Pittsburgh Public Schools.
Schools must remain sensitive areas and ICE-free to actually protect children. If that was the real prerogative of Trump’s platform, then such would be the case, but we all know it is not. At least not for non-white children, that is.
The Pitt News editorial is a weekly article written by the opinions editors in collaboration with all other desk editors. It reflects the collective opinion of the current Pitt News editorial staff.