Fear and Longing: Life for Students with Undocumented Parents
With parents targeted for deportation, students are traumatized, often
unable to learn - and increasingly turn to educators for solace and advice.
— J UL Y 1 0 , 2 0 17 • B Y M A R Y EL L E N F L AN N ER Y —
AUSTIN, Texas—”Would you go?”
This is the question that silences 16-year-old Jacqui, tightens her wide smile into a
thin line, and provokes a low sigh.
Her mother sits next to her—motionless—her gaze transfixed on a crack in the
sidewalk.
The answer is no. Simply, reluctantly, painfully, no. If push comes to shove, and
federal immigration agents deport Jacqui’s parents to Mexico, a country they left
18 years ago to find work, she would not go.
Jacqui would stay in the U.S., alone, to finish high school, go to college, and make
good on her considered plans to earn a law degree. She is a citizen. They are not.
It’s a no-win situation that promises nothing but agony for millions of
undocumented U.S. immigrant parents and their children.
“It is not something I like to think about,” says Jacqui quietly, closing the topic of
conversation. Her mother still does not speak.
We are not criminals. We are mothers, and we are fathers. We are people who work, and
who take care of our children. That’s it! Not criminals. Not criminals.” – Jacqui’s mother
About one in 14 students, or 6.9 percent from kindergarten through twelfth grade,
have at least one undocumented immigrant parent, according to a 2014 Pew
Research Center report. Most are U.S.-born, American citizens, like Jacqui, while a
much smaller number (1.4 percent) are undocumented themselves.
Their numbers vary widely across the U.S., from nearly 18 percent, or about one in
five students, in Nevada, to 0.1 percent in West Virginia.
For the most part, their parents are like Jacqui’s. They crossed the border to find
work at least a decade ago, statistics show, and then put down roots as their
children grew. Jacqui’s mom has worked for years at a local dry cleaner, while her
dad travels around Texas, installing specialized bathrooms.
Meanwhile, they go to church, shop at the H-E-B for groceries, stop occasionally
for a lemonade at Starbucks, and volunteer often in their communities, including
their schools and Parent Teacher Associations (PTA).
“We are not criminals,” Jacqui’s mother emphasizes. “We are mothers, and we are
fathers. We are people who work, and who take care of our children. That’s it! Not
criminals. Not criminals.”
Until recently, these undocumented parents felt safe mostly, or at least not so
exposed, or hated, as they do now. But this spring and summer, as federal
immigration raids increased, and as reports of immigration agents following school
buses spread, a radiating fear unfurled in homes and schools.
With parents targeted, students are traumatized, unable to learn, educators say.
“One of our kindergarten teachers had a little boy who brought a suitcase with him
to class for two days,” says Colorado Education Association Vice President Amie
Baca-Oehlert. “When she asked him what it was for, he said ‘I want to make sure I
have my special things when they come to get me.’”
Printed on this small card, tucked into the corner of a picture frame in an Austin
house, are sentences that 15-year-old Cristal, or 10-year-old Nicolas, must read
aloud—through the locked door—if ICE agents come for their parents.
“These shocked and frightened families are our friends and our neighbors,”
says NEA President Lily Eskelsen García of the shameful treatment. “As the
Trump administration threatens our students, their families, and our way of life, we
will not stay silent. As families turn to educators for solace and advice, we are
going to accelerate our ongoing efforts.”
In Austin, an effort called “Know Your Rights,” led by Education Austin and
funded, in part, by an NEA grant, provides much-needed, practical information to
students, parents, and other community members on how to respond to
immigration enforcement. Their work has been shared in Illinois, Arizona, and in
Colorado, where the Colorado Education Association has partnered with advocacy
groups to offer similar, statewide trainings. It also has been adapted by NEA for
use across the nation.
Elsewhere, from Nebraska to New Mexico, Milwaukee to Maine, NEA members
are using sample “Safe Zone” school board resolutions and district policies
developed by NEA’s Office of General Counsel. The language is strong, legally
defensible, student-focused, and relies on existing Supreme Court case law.
This is how educators care for their students, and this is how educators’ unions
support that work, says Austin first-grade teacher Maria Dominguez.
“Our parents and students are scared. This is reality,” she says. “And if we’re a
union that fights for our students, we need to do this work.”
Know Your Rights
Tucked into the corner of a picture frame, mounted inches from the front door of
an Austin house, is a small card, about the size of a typical business card, from
Education Austin’s “Know Your Rights” campaign.
Printed on the card are the sentences that 15-year-old Cristal, or 10-year-old
Nicolas, must read aloud—through the locked door—if federal Immigration and
Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents come for their parents.
I do not wish to speak with you, answer your questions, or sign or hand you any
documents based on my 5th Amendment rights… I do not give you permission to
enter my home based on my 4th Amendment rights under the United States
Constitution, unless you have a warrant to enter, signed by a judge or magistrate
with my name on it that you slide under the door…
Nicolas and Cristal’s mother has been afraid to go to the nearby grocery store.
Instead their dad drives, parks, and sends in the kids with a shopping list and
money.
Nearby, on the dining room table, is a folder where Cristal’s mother, the president
of her neighborhood school’s PTA, has collected all of the papers recommended by
her children’s teachers. This includes copies of her children’s U.S. passports, as
well as a power-of-attorney statement that would allow Cristal and Nicolas to stay
in Austin, under the guardianship of their godmother, if their parents are deported.
A visitor does not ask what would happen to 5-year-old sister Stefanie, who
somersaults across the sofa to nestle near her mother.
[Editor’s note: NEA Today is using first names only, in an effort to protect these
students and their families.]
Be prepared is the message from their teachers. Get ready. Know your rights. Yes,
you have rights, too! Led by Education Austin’s vice president, early-education
teacher Montserrat Garibay, a former undocumented student who, in 2012, became
a U.S. citizen after 20 years here, Austin educators have shared their message of
empowerment with hundreds of parents and students. They also have provided
trainings for their members and interested school and city officials.
“We advocate for our students to get glasses if they can’t see. We advocate for
them to get special resources if they have dyslexia. This is just another way for us
to advocate for them to get what they need,” says Dominguez, who herself was an
undocumented student, brought here by her mother as a fourth grader.
Practical information is needed—and wanted. Education Austin’s trainings for
educators and their meetings for families have been packed for months. On one
Saturday in February, union leaders readied the library at Austin’s Becker
Elementary for an expected 50 educators and school officials. But at 9 a.m., when
the training was scheduled to begin, the line stretched out the door, the Austin
Statesmanreported. Garibay and others scrambled to move the event to the cafeteria
to fit the 120-plus who showed up.
Five-year-old Stefanie is the least fearful—and aware—member of her family, but
she senses the disruption in their routines.
The training for educators, which has been adapted by NEA for use in any
community, by any local NEA affiliate, provides at least 12 specific actions that
educators can take to help their immigrant students. They include providing a safe
space for students to wait if their parent or sibling has been detained, but also
helping parents to prepare for possible deportation. Their model “rapid response”
packet will include everything from updated school emergency contact forms to
records of their children’s food allergies.
Cristal, a high school freshman, has been volunteering to help at Education
Austin’s trainings, where she passes out contact information for attorneys,
counselors, social workers, and others.
Her mother and father, who came to the U.S. nearly two decades ago for work, are
terrified, she says. Her uncle hasn’t left his house in a month. “My parents want me
to stay, in case, you know…They don’t want me to leave here. They say, ‘You go
to college,’” Cristal says. Her dream school is Texas State University in San
Marcos. Her dream job is to be a social worker. “I want to help families,” she says.
Two Things You Can Do (Now!) for Immigrant Students
1. Learn more about Safe Zone school board policies, get the answers to frequently
asked questions, and download NEA’s sample school board resolution.
2. Check out NEA’s toolkit for “Know Your Rights” events.
But, she acknowledges, it’s hard to focus on school these days. “Teachers have to
stop what they’re teaching to calm us down,” she says. But lately, many of her
friends haven’t even been going to school. “Last month, I had just four kids in my
class,” she says. Everybody else stayed home, hiding behind drawn curtains and
locked doors.
This isn’t just an issue in Austin. During mid-February, one day after teams of ICE
agents swept into a Las Cruces, N.M., trailer park and other homes, nearly 2,400
Las Cruces students stayed home from school.
“I went to the Wal-Mart last month and it was empty. Nobody is going there.
Nobody is going anywhere. Our neighbor, she has depression, but she won’t even
leave the house to pick up her medicine,” says Cristal.
“ICE could be anywhere.”
A Life Interrupted
Deportations during the Barack Obama years weren’t uncommon, but they focused
on recent arrivals and criminals—those convicted of felonies or at least three
misdemeanors. Law-abiding, here-for-decades parents of U.S. citizens weren’t
targets.
Indeed, two years after creating the DACA program to protect students who had
been brought to the U.S. as children, the Obama administration created DAPA,
which offered work permits to their undocumented parents. The sense of relief that
families would stay together was real.
“Nobody is going anywhere. Our neighbor … won’t even leave the house to pick
up her medicine,” says Cristal. “ICE could be anywhere.”
But, in June 2016, with a 4-4 vote, the Supreme Court dismantled DAPA. And
then, five months later, after promising to build a 50-foot-high wall along the
1,000-mile Mexican border, Donald Trump was elected president.
During the first weeks of his administration, arrests of immigrants rose 32.6
percent. But scarier to people like Cristal’s and Jacqui’s parents, the arrests of
immigrants without criminal records more than doubled. Around Atlanta alone,
ICE agents arrested 700 without criminal records—up from 137 the prior year.
Recent detainees include an El Paso, Texas, woman who was handcuffed at the
county courthouse where she had gone to get a protective order from her abusive
boyfriend—the very person who likely tipped off ICE agents to her presence,
reported USA Today. Her only criminal offense was crossing the border illegally
after deportation.
They also include Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, a 48-year-old father of four girls, all
born in the U.S., who had just dropped off his 12-year-old at school when he was
pulled over on a Los Angeles street by two black, unmarked cars. In a video of his
arrest, his 13-year-old daughter, who was in the car on her way to a different
school, can be heard sobbing. Her father, who has lived in the U.S. for 25 years,
has an 8-year-old misdemeanor drunk-driving conviction, the Los Angeles
Timesreported.
It is our job to make sure our most vulnerable students feel safe, supported, and
in a place where they can learn” – Ed Ventura, library science teacher, Omaha,
Neb.
Even more troubling, in April, the first confirmed deportation of a DACA
recipientwas reported by USA Today. Juan Manuel Montes, a 23-year-old
community college student, was waiting for a friend to pick him up on the street
when he was grabbed by ICE and just three hours later escorted across the
Mexican border. More than 750,000 DACA recipients wondered if they were next.
But, in June, Trump said he would leave DACA alone, reversing course on a
campaign promise to dismantle it.
“I can feel how hollow my reassurances must sound when I tell [my students]
everything should be fine,” writes Areli Zarate, a “DACAmented” Austin teacher
who was brought here as an 8-year-old. “Truth is, I don’t know that. Nobody
knows. Nobody can say whether some or all of my family will be torn from
Austin.… No one can say definitively if I’ll be able to teach here come August, or
if my students will be able to pursue their dreams.
“Try imagining yourself in my place, in this life interrupted, where the future is
measured not in years, months, or even weeks but in days, sometimes hours.”
This fear is why Cristal’s mother stopped leaving the house to shop. Instead,
Cristal’s father drives the 15-year-old to the grocery store, parks his pickup truck
far from the entrance, and sends his daughter inside with the family’s shopping list.
Nicolas’ mother, the president of her neighborhood school’s PTA, has collected all
of the papers recommended by her children’s teachers that would allow Cristal
and Nicolas to stay in Austin, under the guardianship of their godmother, if their
parents are deported.
How Can We Help?
Can we draw invisible lines around our schools to create safe zones for students?
Can we construct spaces where they can focus on learning?
Educators are doing exactly that, across the nation. This spring, at the urging of
hundreds of students and Milwaukee Teachers’ Education Association members,
the Milwaukee School Board unanimously passed a “safe haven” resolution.
Among other things, it bars district staff from assisting ICE in detaining people
“whose only violation of law” is that they are—or are suspected of being—
undocumented. It also prohibits sharing information about a student’s or guardian’s
status without a valid court order or signed release.
Similar “safe zone” resolutions and policies have passed in at least 25 states. (See
NEA’s map of safe zone districts.)
“It is our job to make sure our most vulnerable students feel safe, supported, and in
a place where they can learn,” says Omaha, Neb., library science teacher Ed
Ventura. “We all watch the news and see the hateful rhetoric and actions, and
frankly, it’s scary. That is why I worked with our school board on this resolution.”
The Omaha Public Schools board resolution, which was based on NEA’s draft
resolution, passed in February. But even if your school board is hostile, educators
still can help their students feel safe, says Jacqui, the Austin tenth grader.
“Just knowing that they support me, that they know my situation, and they
understand why I might act a little weird some days, or have difficulty
concentrating…this is helpful,” says Jacqui.
This spring, Jacqui organized a walkout at her high school, in protest of Trump’s
words and actions. She hopes to inspire others to also speak up.
“If you don’t talk, or make noise, they can’t hear you,” she says.
—NEA EdJustice writers Sabrina Holcomb, David Sheridan, and Kate Snyder contributed to
this report.
Photos: Luis Gomez
How Do You Talk to Your Students?
If you’re wondering what to say to students who are anxious about immigration
enforcement efforts, Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law
Center, offers some advice. For more, visit their blog..
“Your voice—and other students’ voices—matter.” It’s important to give your
students a safe space to voice their fears. Depending on your grade level, this could
be through academic conversations around a text or article, opinion writing
prompts, artwork, journaling, or simply a one-on-one during recess or lunch.
“I’m here for you.” Students of all ages need to know they have an advocate and an
ally in you. Also remind students that there are other people on their side. Find
examples of office holders, volunteer attorneys, community members, activists,
and protesters who have issued statements in support of students or students’
identity groups.
“You have the right to be in this school, learning, no matter where you are from or
what your citizenship or residency status is.” Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of
1964 and the landmark 1982 Plyler vs. Doe court case ruled that public schools must
enroll and register every child who resides in their geographic boundaries,
regardless of the student’s or parents’ immigration status. This means students are
safe while they are at school, and it is important to emphasize that repeatedly to
students.
“Here are the facts.” It’s important not to let students repeat false information or
perpetuate myths about immigrants and Muslims, as this can cause more anxiety
and tension. Curate accurate, reliable articles for your students, and insist that they
engage with facts.
“There is a lot happening right now. It’s okay to be confused.” While we want the
best for our students and their families, it’s important not to promise them anything
you cannot guarantee. These are uncertain times and new policies and protests are
happening simultaneously.