Some Northern Virginia teachers are worrying about the possibility of immigration arrests in their classrooms, about a week after President Donald Trump’s administration ended a long-standing policy that didn’t allow immigration agencies to make arrests at schools, churches or hospitals.
David Walrod, president of the Fairfax County Federation of Teachers, said educators are concerned about the ripple effects the move could cause.
“It creates a disruption to the students that they’re coming for, but it’s something that could be traumatic for all of the other students that you have,” Walrod said. “It’s the sort of thing that’s very troubling. I question the wisdom of doing it at a school period, because it’s something where you might just be getting one student, but you’re affecting 1,000 others.”
Walrod said he’s unaware of any Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents visiting Fairfax County schools in the last week, and anecdotally, he hasn’t heard about teachers reporting an unexpected number of absences since the policy switch was announced.
“That doesn’t mean it’s not happening, but I have tried to ask around, and I haven’t heard about that happening,” Walrod said.
The Trump administration is cracking down on immigrants who are in the U.S. illegally, and the policy change will allow ICE and Customs and Border Protection to enter locations that were previously off limits. According to Migration Policy Institute data, there are 733,000 kids, ages 3 to 17, who are in the U.S. illegally. Others are U.S. citizens but have parents who aren’t in the country legally.
A common question among teachers, Walrod said, is what to do if immigration agents enter their classroom. They are being told if someone from ICE speaks to them, they should suggest that they need to get somebody from the school district’s legal department, Walrod said.
“They really want to make sure it’s not teachers that are making these calls,” Walrod said. “It’s not school-based administrators, that whatever calls get made, they are getting made by the folks that know the law.”
Meanwhile, some administrators have been placing posters with the school system’s trust policy outside of school buildings. The policy says every student has the right to attend school, and that families and students “should feel that schools and classrooms are safe, inviting, and inclusive, regardless of immigration status.”
A school system spokeswoman said the county regularly reminds the community of the policy, and “we recently directed our principals to ensure informational posters were visible in our schools.”
The national policy switch, Walrod said, is “one more thing that we have to be worried about.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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