ICE raids in Schools? For real?
Image created with AI. Very dramatic right?
Last Thursday I received an email from our school district addressing fears and uncertainties around the possibility of ICE raids in our schools. For context, our high school represents one “district”, while the feeder elementary and middle schools are subdivided into multiple districts. My kids are in elementary school. So, when I write “our school district,” I am referring to a district that consists solely of five elementary schools (k-6) and a middle school (7-8). I’ll pause here to let that sink in….
Our school district, consisting of only elementary aged children felt compelled to address its parents regarding the possibility of ICE raids in its elementary schools…
This is how far we have fallen as a people, as a country. Parents, communities, teachers and school districts have to determine how to address the possibility of elementary aged children being detained by federal immigration agents at school.
Certainly, some people may read this and think that this is simply hysteria or histrionics. But these fears are based on real policy changes rolled out by Trump last week. On Tuesday, 1/21/25, Trump’s Department of Homeland Security reversed a policy that prevented ICE and the CBP from carrying out enforcement actions in “sensitive locations”, meaning - schools and churches.
In case you doubt me here is a link to the DHS website: https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/01/21/statement-dhs-spokesperson-directives-expanding-law-enforcement-and-ending-abuse
The acting Secretary of the DHS actually wrote: “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement, and instead trusts them to use common sense.” For context, those sentences appear immediately after a sentence describing some “criminal aliens” as “murderers and rapists.” As I have stated before, the language is reflective of an intentional and knowing degradation and dehumanization of immigrants for political purposes. However, to take their words at face value here - I am not aware of any issue with elementary-aged murderers and rapists “hiding” in our schools.
Look, I have always believed that there were some basic values that connected us as Americans. Are there not certain matters on which we can all agree. For example - elementary-aged children should not be subject to detention by federal agents in school. I would have thought that was a basic principle that we could all agree on. Whether you are an “open borders” liberal (though those are mostly a fiction) or a “deport-them-all” conservative, isn’t the arrest of elementary aged children in school just a step too far for all of us? Aren’t there humanitarian and moral limits to how we enforce laws against non-violent children? In fact, I believe that would be 100% consistent with any and every legitimate version of Christianity.
It turns out I am wrong. Ensuring that young and vulnerable children can attend school without fear, or the possibility of being traumatically detained by federal agents, is not a value shared across the political spectrum.
Now, I am far from certain that ICE will ever raid an elementary school. But there can be no doubt that it is now conceivable… It is now possible… Moreover, it is now the official policy of the Trump administration that it is acceptable. This is beneath us as Americans. Afterall, we have a well-known statue located in the Upper New York Bay and inside this statue is a plaque that states:
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
I always thought that was what we were supposed to stand for. I’ll never get used to being wrong about that.
