Trump promised mass deportations. Educators across Aurora, the nation worry fear will impact migrant kids

AURORA | Last time Donald Trump was president, rumors of immigration raids terrorized the Oregon community where Gustavo Balderas was the school superintendent.

Word spread that immigration agents were going to try to enter schools. There was no truth to it, but school staff members had to find students who were avoiding school and coax them back to class.

“People just started ducking and hiding,” Balderas said.

Educators around the country are bracing for upheaval, whether or not the president-elect follows through on his pledge to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally. Even if he only talks about it, children of immigrants will suffer, educators and legal observers said.

If “you constantly threaten people with the possibility of mass deportation, it really inhibits peoples’ ability to function in society and for their kids to get an education,” said Hiroshi Motomura, a professor at UCLA School of Law.

That fear already has started for many.

“The kids are still coming to school, but they’re scared,” said Almudena Abeyta, superintendent of Chelsea Public Schools, a Boston suburb that’s long been a first stop for Central American immigrants coming to Massachusetts. Now Haitians are making the city home and sending their kids to school there.

“They’re asking: ‘Are we going to be deported?'” said Abeyta.

READ MORE ON MASS DEPORTATION THREATS EFFECTS IN AURORA

Many parents in her district grew up in countries where the federal government ran schools and may think it’s the same here. The day after the election, Abeyta sent a letter home assuring parents their children are welcome and safe, no matter who is president.

Immigration officials have avoided arresting parents or students at schools. Since 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has operated under a policy that immigration agents should not arrest or conduct other enforcement actions near “sensitive locations,” including schools, hospitals and places of worship. Doing so might curb access to essential services, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas wrote in a 2021 policy update.

The Heritage Foundation’s policy roadmap for Trump’s second term, Project 2025, calls for rescinding the guidance on “sensitive places.” Trump tried to distance himself from the proposals during the campaign, but he has nominated many who worked on the plan for his new administration, including Tom Homan for “border czar.”

If immigration agents were to arrest a parent dropping off children at school, it could set off mass panic, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles.

“If something happens at one school, it spreads like wildfire and kids stop coming to school,” she said.

Balderas, now the superintendent in Beaverton, a different Portland suburb, told the school committee there this month it was time to prepare for a more determined Trump administration. In case schools are targeted, Beaverton will train staff not to allow immigration agents inside.

“All bets are off with Trump,” said Balderas, who is also president of ASSA, The School Superintendents Association. “If something happens, I feel like it will happen a lot quicker than last time.”

What about the kids in Aurora?

Federal laws prohibit public schools from discriminating against students because of their national origin. That keeps classrooms and other benefits such as free lunches and social services open to immigrant children. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials historically have treated schools — like hospitals and places of worship — as safe spaces, and has avoided raiding them. 

Migrants fear that will change in Trump’s second term.

“God forbid,” said Frida Nuños, a Venezuelan mother of four living in northwest Aurora who, since the election, has cried every time she drops her two eldest at school.

Eight years ago, local school districts and community groups were less concerned about raids at schools than workplace sweeps that would lock up parents, leaving nobody to pick up or care for their children. ICE’s arrest of 273 workers during a 2006 raid on a Swift meat-packing plant in Greeley left families panicked not just in that community, but as far away as Aurora where some of the workers lived. As the Denver Post reported, more than 200 students throughout the Front Range came home that day to find one or more of their parents gone.

Arapahoe and Adams counties’ social services teams and officials in Aurora Public Schools have not responded to inquiries about ways they might protect immigrant families threatened by Trump’s immigration policies.  

In 2017, APS pioneered a policy delaying ICE agents from entering schools except in “extremely rare situations.” At the urging of RISE Colorado — an education-centered nonprofit that organized immigrant students to persuade school boards — APS passed a resolution ensuring the district doesn’t collect information about the legal status of students or their families. The resolution also prodded APS leadership to create a system for parents to let teachers know who would be taking care of their kids in the event that an ICE action prevents them from picking them up after school.

Educators who have experienced immigration raids in their communities say that keeping accurate and up-to-date emergency contact records is the single most critical step they can take on behalf of immigrant families.

In Cherry Creek School District, where at least 30,000 students from Aurora are enrolled, district officials are starting to have conversations to plan for a variety of immigration-related scenarios come January.

“We remain fully committed to protecting our students and schools and ensuring all students have equal access to quality public education,” said Abbe Smith, Director of Communications.

Across the region and across the nation

Many school officials are reluctant to talk about their plans or concerns, some out of fear of drawing attention to their immigrant students. One school administrator serving many children of Mexican and Central American immigrants in the Midwest said their school has invited immigration attorneys to help parents formalize any plans for their children’s care in case they are deported. The administrator spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Speaking up on behalf of immigrant families also can put superintendents at odds with school board members.

“This is a very delicate issue,” said Viridiana Carrizales, chief executive officer of ImmSchools, a nonprofit that trains schools on supporting immigrant students.

She’s received 30 requests for help since the election, including two from Texas superintendents who don’t think their conservative school boards would approve of publicly affirming immigrant students’ right to attend school or district plans to turn away immigration agents.

More than two dozen superintendents and district communications representatives contacted by The Associated Press either ignored or declined requests for comment.

“This is so speculative that we would prefer not to comment on the topic,” wrote Scott Pribble, a spokesperson for Denver Public Schools.

The City of Denver has helped more than 40,000 migrants in the last two years with shelter or a bus ticket elsewhere. It’s also next door to Aurora, one of two cities where Trump has said he would start his mass deportations.

When pressed further, Pribble responded, “Denver Public Schools is monitoring the situation while we continue to serve, support, and protect all of our students as we always have.”

Like a number of big-city districts, Denver’s school board during the first Trump administration passed a resolution promising to protect its students from immigration authorities pursuing them or their information. According to the 2017 resolution, Denver will not “grant access to our students” unless federal agents can provide a valid search warrant.

The rationale has been that students cannot learn if they fear immigration agents will take them or their parents away while they’re on campus. School districts also say these policies reaffirm their students’ constitutional right to a free, public education, regardless of immigration status.

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