As congress moves forward with a roughly $70 billion injection to ICE, AFT teachers fear for their students’ safety

Over the past two years, Fernando Alvarez, an elementary school teacher in New York City and an AFT member, said he's seen at least 30 to 40 students leave his school out of fear of being deported by immigration authorities.

The elementary school serves mostly Hispanic/Latinx students in New York's East Harlem neighborhood. There, spikes in Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests have ushered in waves of fear among immigrant families. The neighborhood is now quieter. Whispers of ICE sightings float between residents. Some parents are so afraid of ICE roaming near schools, they've asked relatives to pick up their children from school instead.

In April, the mother of one of Alvarez's students told him that her daughter would no longer be attending the East Harlem school. After immigration authorities detained the girl's uncle at a federal courthouse in the neighborhood, the family had decided it was safest for them to move to Mexico. Even though both the girl and her older brother are U.S. citizens, their parents didn't want to risk the chance of being separated from them if they were ever targeted by ICE.

Broken by the news, Alvarez was forced to explain to his class of fourth-graders why the girl they had grown so close to for months would no longer be around.

"For our class, it was almost traumatizing," he said. "For the kids, they lost one of their own. They lost a peer. They lost a child that was in the same situation as them, same community, grew up together, and it just hit a lot of the students. A lot of the parents, they saw how hard it was on the kids. It was just hard all around."

Congressional lawmakers move to fund ICE with about $70 billion

As congress advances a funding bill to inject about $70 billion into immigration enforcement agencies for the next three years, educators are bracing for the potential harm that more money toward ICE could bring to their students and communities.

"They're causing pain; they're doing damage to communities," Alvarez said. "They're instilling fear already as it is right now. So, with $70 billion, they're just going to be so much better at that."

The Senate voted along party lines Wednesday to advance Republican's immigration enforcement funding bill. The bill, among other things, does not include any of the guardrails or accountability measures that the AFT and other advocates have requested.

Wednesday's 53-46 vote triggered a lengthy debate among GOP lawmakers on Thursday, also known as a vote-a-rama. The final passage of the bill has yet to be voted on.

In a letter to the Senate last month, AFT President Randi Weingarten said she was opposed to the funding bill, saying it would not only circumvent congressional bipartisanship, but also ensure ICE would not have to respect basic human rights.

"The federal government is supposed to protect, not endanger, Americans," Weingarten wrote. "The murders of Alex Pretti and Renée Good, and other illegal ICE actions, are traumatizing communities, making it nearly impossible for AFT members to do our work as educators, healthcare workers and public service professionals. Children are terrified, families are afraid to send their kids to school, and people who are sick are afraid to get medical care."

The AFT is advocating for passage of the Protecting Sensitive Locations Act, which would codify and expand longstanding Department of Homeland Security-protected areas and limit ICE and other immigration enforcement actions in schools, health centers, college campuses, places of worship and courts.

As ICE gets more money, schools see their students (and dollars) disappear

Educators say that a bulkier budget for ICE means it will have more resources to harm schools and communities. Meanwhile, districts that have already been targeted by Trump's immigration crackdown are dealing with the financial fallout of the recent ICE raids. Fear of ICE arrests is one of several factors that are driving students out of schools, and with each departure, public schools' annual budgets shrink, forcing some school districts to make cuts to essential services.

Leah VanDassor, the president of the Saint Paul Federation of Educators, said that the money going to immigration authorities is "out of balance" with what matters to people in this country.

"With this money that they're planning, the choice is to put that money toward ICE and not toward something that could actually benefit the whole country like public education," she said.

Saint Paul Public Schools, Minnesota's second-largest school district, is expected to lose 400 students this upcoming school year. A good deal of the departures are English language learners, who are disenrolling due to the spike in ICE arrests from Operation Metro Surge. The district's drop in students is in addition to the 500 students who didn't return last year.

The district, which serves about 33,000 students, is facing a $14.3 million budget shortfall for the upcoming 2026-27 school year. The shortfall is lower than previous estimates due to a roughly $253 million referendum vote. Still, Saint Paul is expected to make cuts to English language/multilingual learner programs, support staff and full-time teaching roles to save money.

Alli Kildahl, a Saint Paul middle school teacher, said her school faced bigger budget cuts than others. The school was forced to let go of 20 English language learning teachers, five general education teachers, five special education teachers and one behavioral specialist. Without those vital educators, she fears that students won't get the support they need when they return to school this fall.

"We had jack-booted thugs here who were here just to attack people who looked like my students, and many of my students did get hassled by ICE," she said. "That's dehumanizing, and I'm just over here trying to make sure my students know that they do belong here and that they are valued here and that they make us stronger. And meanwhile, the federal government is doing exactly the opposite, and I don't know how that's settled into their psyches."

Through hell and high water, teachers still show up for their students

Even with limited resources and skeleton budgets, public school teachers are still trying to find ways to keep their students safe.

Monica Caballero, a special education teacher at a middle school in Los Angeles, is part of a growing movement of educators who are standing up to ICE arrests. She has worked with her local AFT union, United Teachers Los Angeles, to devise ICE rapid response networks. These networks respond to ICE and other federal agent sightings around the local Los Angeles area.

And when she's not keeping a watchful eye on ICE, she's in the classrooms making sure her students know the importance of community.

"Every person deserves respect, and that includes our immigrant neighbors and immigrant community members, and all these things are really important, really essential lessons to share with students," she said.

[Alvin Buyinza]