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The top campus security story this week is the resignation of Iowa’s largest school district superintendent, who was detained by federal immigration authorities on allegations he was living and working in the U.S. without authorization.
In a “targeted enforcement operation” a week ago, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents arrested Ian Roberts, a 54-year-old native of Guyana, who has led Des Moines Public Schools since 2023.
The fast-moving chain of events raises questions about why ICE agents specifically sought the arrest of the public official and the city’s first Black schools superintendent, whom federal officials said had a previously unreported final order of removal issued by an immigration judge on May 29. Yesterday, he was accused of federal firearm charges for possessing a gun at the time of his arrest.
The unraveling of Roberts’ career is also a story of purported deception. The school board, whose vetting practices have come under scrutiny, released a letter this week saying it is “also a victim,” after Roberts was accused of falsifying records about his immigration status and academic credentials.
Roberts, an Olympic runner for his native Guyana who came to the U.S. in 1999 on a student visa, previously served in leadership roles at school districts in Pennsylvania and Missouri and at a major charter school network.
A TikTok post led to the arrest of a Kennewick, Washington, 14-year-old who officials say had guns, a color-coded map of his high school and a manifesto outlining plans to carry out a campus shooting. | Tri-City Herald
In California, authorities say an anonymous tip thwarted a potential school shooting after a student posted “detailed threats” on social media including a “mapped-out plan.” | NBC News The Education Department announced it would withhold more than $65 million in federal grants to the New York City, Chicago and Fairfax, Virginia, school districts for upholding equity policies designed to support transgender and Black youth. | The New York Times
Campus speech at the forefront: More than 350 complaints have been submitted to the Texas education department against public school employees accused of publishing social media posts that praised the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. | Fort Worth Report
The Los Angeles Unified School District faces accusations that its social media policy, which allows educators to ban parents from campus for making threatening or racist online comments about school officials, violates the First Amendment. | LAist
‘Truly scandalous’: The Trump administration engaged in the “unconstitutional suppression of free speech” when federal immigration enforcement officials arrested and sought to deport international college students for their pro-Palestinian activism. | The Washington Post
A new PEN America report warns of a “disturbing normalization of censorship” in public schools where book bans have risen sharply in the last few years. The 1962 novel A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess topped the list. | NPR
Lawrence, Kansas, school officials were accused of censoring high school journalists and intimidating their adviser in violation of state law after current and former students filed a federal lawsuit alleging the district’s use of a digital student surveillance tool violated their privacy and press freedom rights. | Student Press Law Center
The student activity monitoring tool Gaggle, which flags keywords like “kill” and “bomb,” “has helped our staff intervene and save lives,” the Lawrence district says. But students say the system subjected them to false allegations. | The Washington Post
The 74 throwback: Meet the gatekeepers of students’ private lives. | The 74
‘Places of care, not chaos’: California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law new rules that require federal immigration enforcement officers to show a warrant or court order before entering a school campus or questioning students. | EdSource
Minnesota’s red flag gun law, which allows authorities to confiscate firearms from people with violent plans, has been used to prevent school shootings but its use is inconsistent, an investigation found. | The Minnesota Star Tribune
A middle school boy from New York was arrested on allegations of catfishing classmates by impersonating a girl online, convincing male classmates to send him sexually revealing photographs and extorting them for cash or gift cards. | The New York Times
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The Trump administration plans to overhaul a student loan forgiveness program for employees at nonprofits that officials claim are engaged in “illegal activities” — a justification that could be used to target organizations that serve immigrants and transgender youth. | The Associated Press
A Michigan school district, where four elementary school girls said they were groped by a classmate on the playground, is accused of waiting eight days to report the incident to the police. | Lansing State Journal
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From her home-based day care in Washington, D.C., Alma peers out the door and down the sidewalks. If they’re clear and there are no ICE agents out, she’ll give her coworker a call letting her know it’s safe to head in for work.
They have to be careful with the kids, too. Typically, she took the five children she cares for to the library on Wednesdays and out to parks throughout the week, but Alma — who, like her coworker, does not have permanent legal status — had to stop doing that in August, when President Donald Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the district. Now, two of the kids she cares for are being pulled out of the day care. The parents said it was because they weren’t going outside.
Trump has deployed the National Guard and a wave of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents into the district. ICE arrests there have increased tenfold. The situation has thrust the Latinas who hold up the nation’s child care sector into a perpetual state of panic. Nationwide, about 1 in 5 child care workers are immigrants, but in D.C. it’s closer to 40 percent; about 7 percent nationally lack permanent legal status. Nearly all are women.
Many are missing work, and others are risking it because they simply can’t afford to lose pay, providers told The 19th. All are afraid they’ll be next.
“What kind of life is this?” said Alma, whose name The 19th has changed to protect her identity. “We are not delinquents, we are not bad people, we are here to work to support our family.”
Alma has been running a home-based day care for the past decade. She’s been in the United States for 22 years, working in child care that entire time. With two kids being pulled, she will have to reduce her staffer’s hours as she tries to find children to fill those spots.
Her four school-age children also depend on her. This month, she had to write out a signed document detailing what should happen to her kids if she were to be detained. Her wish is that they be brought to detention with her.
“I can’t imagine my kids here without me,” she said.
She said she understands the president’s approach of expelling immigrants with criminal convictions from the country, but teachers who are working with kids? Who haven’t committed any crime?
By targeting them, she said, the administration is “destroying entire families.”
The Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association in D.C., which works with Latina child care providers, has seen this panic first hand for the past couple of weeks as more and more Latinas in child care have stopped coming into work. The center also helps workers obtain their associate’s degree in early childhood education, and since the semester started in mid-August, many teachers have asked for classes to be offered virtually so they don’t have to show up to campus at night.
Latinas have flocked to the child care industry for multiple reasons: Families seeking care value access to language education, and Latinas have a lower language barrier to entry, said Blanca Huezo, the program coordinator at the Multicultural Spanish Speaking Providers Association.
“In general, this industry offers them an opportunity for a fresh start professionally in their own language and without leaving behind their culture,” Huezo said.
The changes, coupled with increased enforcement, has fostered fear among Latinx people regardless of immigration status. That fear among workers is deepening a staffing crisis in an industry that already couldn’t afford additional losses, Huezo said.
“There is a shortage — and now even more,” she said. “There are many centers where nearly 99 percent of teachers are of Hispanic origin.”
Washington, D.C., has been a sanctuary city since 2020, where law enforcement cooperation with immigration officials was broadly prohibited. Earlier this year, however, Mayor Muriel Bowser proposed repealing that law and, in mid-August, Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department Police Chief Pamela Smith gave officers leeway to share information with ICE about individuals they arrested or stopped.
“There was some peace that living in D.C. brought more security,” Huezo said. Now, “people don’t feel that freedom to walk through the streets.”
Several child care workers are afraid to go to work in DC, now that President Trump has removed restrictions on ICE conducting enforcement at schools and daycares. (Getty Images)
Child care centers are also no longer off limits for ICE raids. The centers were previously protected under a “sensitive locations” directive that advised ICE to not conduct enforcement in places like schools and day cares. But Trump removed that protection on his first day in office. While reports have not yet surfaced of raids in day cares, ICE presence near child care care centers, including in D.C., has been reported.
A similar story of fear and surveillance has already played out in Los Angeles, where ICE conducted widespread raids earlier in the summer. Huezo said her organization has been in touch with child care providers in L.A. to learn about how they managed those months.
In the meantime, the best the organization can do, she said, is connect workers with as many resources as possible, including legal clinics, but the ones that help immigrants are at their maximum caseload. The group has put child care workers who are not leaving their homes in touch with an organization called Food Justice DMV that is delivering meals to their doorsteps. Prior to last month, people who needed food could fill out a form and get it that same week. Now, the wait time is two to three weeks, Huezo said. For those in Maryland and Virginia, it’s closer to a month.
Thalia, a teacher at a day care, said her coworkers have stopped coming to work. It’s all the staff talks about during their lunchtime conversations. When she rides the Metro into work, she looks over her shoulder for the ICE agents, their faces covered, who are often at the exits.
“They are hunting us,” she said.
Thalia, whose name has been changed because she does not have permanent legal status, has been living in the United States for nine years and working in child care that entire time. Like her, many of the Latina teachers she works with have earned certifications and degrees in early childhood education.
“We are working, we are cooperating, paying taxes,” she said. “We are there all day so other families can benefit from the child care.”
As a single mother, Thalia has also had to consider what would happen to her three children if she was detained. This past month, she retained a lawyer who could help them with their case in case anything were to happen. Her school-age kids know: Call the lawyer if mom is detained and get tickets to Guatemala to meet her there.
This is what she lives with every day now: “The fear of leaving your family and letting them know, ‘If I don’t return, it’s not because I am abandoning you.’ ”
Two years ago, Nicolle Orozco Forero walked into an in-home day care in Seattle, Washington, looking for a job. She was barely 22, a whole five feet tall — if that. But she was calm, focused. Her presence struck the owner, Stephanie Wishon, because it’s not easy to find qualified staff who can work with children with disabilities.
Orozco Forero had experience working with kids who had autism back in Colombia, so Wishon had her come in for a trial run and hired her after the first day. The children, who needed someone who had love and care to give in abundance, gravitated toward her. She was good at the hardest stuff. She changed diapers and outfits the moment they were soiled. She was vigilant; her kids stayed pristine. And she got them to do the things they wouldn’t do for other people, like say “ah” when it was time to get their teeth brushed or sit still long enough for her to twist a braid down their back.
Some people just have that way about them.
And people like Orozco Forero are exceptionally rare. Already, the staffing shortage in child care is near crisis levels. It’s far worse for children with disabilities — about a third of those families say they face significant difficulty finding care for their kids, partly because there are too few people with the ability, expertise or desire to work with their children. Immigrant women like Orozco Forero have been helping to fill that void. They now make up 20 percent of all child care workers.
At home, Orozco Forero was also caring for her own young boys, one of whom started to show symptoms of a serious illness over the past two years that doctors have not yet been able to diagnose. She took some time off to care for him last year, before returning to the kids at Wishon’s day care.
Her work has kept an already precarious safety net together. Without women like Orozco Forero, families who have nowhere else to turn for care have to make difficult decisions about how to survive and keep their children safe. Without her, the safety net snaps.
And that’s exactly what happened on June 18, the day she was detained.
It was supposed to be a routine meeting with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Orozco Forero and her husband had been to all their monthly meetings for the past year and change, since their asylum charge was denied in April 2024.
The family — Orozco Forero; her husband, Juan Sebastian Moreno Acosta; and their two sons, Juan David, 7, and Daniel, 5 — fled Colombia two years ago. Moreno Acosta, a street vendor, had been persecuted by gangs who target vendors for money.
After arriving in the United States, they sought the help of a lawyer with their asylum claim, but when they couldn’t pay his full fee ahead of their hearing, he pulled out. They represented themselves in court and lost the case. With no knowledge of the U.S. court system, they didn’t know they had 30 days to appeal the ruling, either. Ever since, ICE has been monitoring them, requiring they wear a wrist tracker and meet with an immigration officer once a month, sometimes more, according to a family member. (The 19th is not naming the family member to protect their identity.) It’s unclear why ICE has allowed them to stay in the country all this time, though it’s not necessarily uncommon; ICE typically prioritized immigrants with felonies for deportation.
Orozco Forero had seen the reports of illegal immigrants being rounded up at their immigration appointments. President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort has led to the detention of about 30,000 migrants with no criminal record, like Orozco Forero, who now make up about half of those detained. Her husband does have a misdemeanor reckless driving conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol on his record, but he completed a court-mandated alcohol course for that and has no other convictions.
Still, Orozco Forero wasn’t worried when she headed to her appointment on the morning of June 18. If ICE planned to detain her, Orozco Forero thought, they would have asked her to come with the boys, right?
And she had been doing everything right: She’d gone to all her appointments, taken documentation to show she was going to school at Green River Community College taking courses in English and early childhood education. She had completed a child care internship that trained her to open her own licensed in-home day care. Her licensure approval was set to arrive any moment, likely that same week, and the day care was just about ready to go.
But that morning, her family was still wary, asking her to share her location just in case.
Shortly after 10 a.m., Orozco Forero texted her family member: “They are going to deport us”
“Nicolle what happened? Nicolle answer me,” they texted back. “What do I do?”
“I can’t speak I feel like I’m going to faint,” Orozco Forero replied. And then: “I’m sorry it wasn’t what we expected.”
Two-and-a-half hours west, on the coast of Washington in a town called Southbend, Wishon was frantic. Orozco Forero had texted her, too. ICE was asking for the boys.
In two years, Wishon had grown incredibly close to Orozco Forero, who had cared for her own kids. After her family moved to the coast, Wishon rented out her house in Seattle to Orozco Forero, whose boys were excited to have a home with a yard.
Wishon’s husband, Gabriel, hopped into his truck and headed to Seattle. Wishon, meanwhile, got on the phone with the Orozco Forero family’s ICE agent and every lawyer she could. They were going to take them into detention at a facility 2,200 miles away in Texas, a facility that was reopened earlier this year by the Trump administration to detain families. Wishon wanted to find a lawyer who could stop the deportation order, and she wanted to make sure the boys would be reunited with their parents if they took them to meet the ICE agent.
Nicolle Orozco Forero’s sons play with a child their mother takes care of. (Stephanie Wishon)
And that was especially important, not just because they were young children, but because Juan David is still sick.
For the past year, he’s been seeking treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital for an illness that is turning his urine muddy. So far, doctors have determined he’s losing red blood cells and protein through his urine, indicating a possible kidney issue, but they haven’t yet zeroed in on what is causing the problem. They likely need a kidney biopsy to be sure.
“Given the complexity of his case, it is essential that Juan remain in the United States for continued testing and treatment,” his nephrologist Jordan Symons wrote in a March letter to ICE. “We kindly request that you consider this medical necessity in your review of his immigration status and grant him the ability to stay in the United States until his treatment and evaluation are completed.”
Juan David’s care team has been monitoring him closely to ensure his red blood cell and protein levels never drop too low. His condition could become serious quickly.
“You can die from that,” said Sarah Kasnick, a physician’s assistant who is familiar with his case. Kasnick is also a foster parent, and Orozco Forero provided care for her family.
When Gabriel Wishon arrived to pick up the boys, they were confused and disoriented. Where were their parents? Why was everyone crying? They didn’t want to go to Colombia, they told him on the drive. They wanted to stay in the United States.
Around 5:30 p.m. that evening, he met with the ICE agent, who had waited past her work hours for them to arrive.
“Bye boys, you are going to see your parents right now. They are right inside,” Wishon told them. He watched them walk in carrying two stuffed animals, a Super Mario doll and Chase, the popular cartoon dog dressed as a police officer.
The families Orozco Forero cares for are now in a free fall.
Jessica Cocson, whose son has been in Orozco Forero’s care for more than a year, described her in a character letter to ICE as a “blessing to us in ways I struggle to fully express.”
Orozco Forero and her husband “support working families, provide quality childcare, and demonstrate compassion and commitment every day,” Cocson wrote. “It is heartbreaking to think that someone who gives so much and asks so little could be forced to leave.”
Tamia Riley, whose two sons with autism were also in Orozco Forero’s care, said losing her was like watching “a father walking out the door.”
“These people, these day care providers, sitters, they are a form of family members for me and my children,” Riley said.
Now, the day care she was set to open lays empty. Inside, the walls are plastered with posters listing colors and sight words. There are cushioned mats on the floor and play stations. Tables with tiny chairs. A tall pink dollhouse. High chairs and a pack and play for the babies. Outside, two play houses, a ball pit, toys to ride on and little picnic tables set across an artificial turf. But no children to enjoy any of it.
Big Dreams Day Care she was going to call it, for the dreams she wanted the kids in her care to strive for, and the ones that were finally coming to fruition for her.
Orozco Forero’s detention has rattled child care workers across the country. In Texas, workers represented by the Service Employees International Union have been rallying in her name. U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, a Texas Democrat, spoke in support of the family’s release at a rally on June 29 in San Antonio. And a group of union workers is attempting to deliver supplies to the family. It’s an effort Orozco Forero knows little about; she only has limited communication with those on the outside.
Tricia Schroeder, the president of the Seattle-based SEIU chapter that represents care workers, said that, for years unions like hers have been working to improve quality, access and affordability in child care, a system in such deep crisis it’s been called by the Treasury Department “a textbook example of a broken market.”
Immigrant women like Orozco Forero were part of that effort to improve access, doing jobs few Americans want to take on.
“Detaining child care providers, especially those who care for kids with special needs, just deepens the crisis in early learning,” Schroeder said.
Nicolle Orozco Forero was going to community college for early childhood education and planned to open her own daycare before she was detained by ICE. (Stephanie Wishon)
Orozco Forero was also the connective tissue that kept families employed. Her loss has rippled across industries.
Kasnick, the foster parent, said one of the children in her care had been tentatively set to start at Orozco Forero’s day care as soon as it opened. Orozco Forero had been the only provider who would take the child, who has autism and is nonverbal.
Orozco Forero had cared for the girl at Wishon’s day care as if she was her own, even taking her in once when the child’s care had fallen through and no foster family in the entire county would take her in because of the complexity of her needs. The girl arrived at Orozco Forero’s house at midnight on a weekend “with no clothing, toys, medication or any of her belongings … this did not [deter] Nicolle and Sebastian instead they immediately went and purchased all the things” the child needed, a social worker wrote in a letter to ICE. Kasnick said Orozco Forero was even considering becoming a foster parent.
Without her, Kasnick is out of options: She quit her job as a physician’s assistant to care for the child after Orozco Forero was detained.
“There are now 44 patients a day who don’t have anyone to provide their health care, and I can’t go to work because Nicolle’s day care didn’t open,” Kasnick said.
In the weeks since, Kasnick has had an overwhelming feeling of helplessness, she said. How could this happen to someone who gave back so much?
“The security of knowing that you can be in your home one day and in a prison the next week, and you didn’t do anything except exist?” she said. “It makes you feel like there’s no good left in the world.”
Orozco Forero’s family has now been in ICE detention for nearly a month awaiting a bond hearing that could buy them time in the United States. Orozco Forero and the boys are together; her husband is in the same facility but separated from them.
Juan David hasn’t been eating. It took three weeks for him to receive medical care, Orozco Forero told her attorney, James Costo.
Costo has been working to get the details of why ICE allowed the family to stay in the country with monitoring after they lost their asylum case last year. There has been an order for their deportation since then, but ICE never attempted to deport them until the Trump administration ramped up efforts. The number of immigrants without criminal convictions who have been detained has doubled since May.
The process to fight an asylum claim and appeal a denial is complicated — there are court deadlines, documents that need to be submitted and translated.
“They think maybe they can do it themselves and go in and say what happened but they are not understanding the whole legal process,” Costo said. “The system isn’t made for things to be easy.”
Costo is hopeful a judge will allow them to stay in the country temporarily as Juan David seeks care. They have almost no family left in Colombia, and no way to obtain care for him there, their family said. If they can stay, then perhaps Orozco Forero could try to obtain a work visa as a domestic worker.
He has gathered letters of support from numerous people whose lives the Orozco Forero family touched, and Wishon set up a GoFundMe to cover her legal expenses.
In the letters, Juan David’s first grade teachers call him an exceptional student who went from one of the lowest reading levels in the class — 10 words a minute — to one of the highest at 70 words a minute.
“He shows the qualities of a model citizen at a young age — dependable, ethical, and hard-working,” wrote his teacher, Carla Trujillo.
They were all on their way to shaping a better future, Wishon wrote in hers. The couple “worked tirelessly to build a better life for their children and to open their own licensed child care business. In all my years of employing and mentoring caregivers, I have rarely met a couple as responsible, driven, and capable as Nicolle and Sebastian.”
“This family is not a threat,” she concluded. “They are an asset.”
In a stunning escalation that has drawn comparisons to authoritarian crackdowns, former President Donald Trump has ordered 2,000 California National Guard troops into Los Angeles to quell protests sparked by ICE raids across the region. Despite opposition from California Governor Gavin Newsom and local officials, Trump bypassed state authority by invoking federal powers under Title 10 of the U.S. Code—stopping short of the more drastic Insurrection Act but still raising serious constitutional questions.
The protests began after ICE agents detained dozens of individuals in workplace raids across South L.A. County. The response from the public was immediate and fierce, with large demonstrations erupting near ICE facilities and federal buildings. As tensions grew, federal officers deployed tear gas and non-lethal weapons against demonstrators, while arrests mounted and reports of detainee mistreatment surfaced.
What makes this moment particularly alarming is the way Trump has redefined protest as “rebellion,” authorizing military support for federal law enforcement without a state request. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has even threatened to deploy active-duty Marines from Camp Pendleton—a move unseen since the 1992 Rodney King unrest. Legal experts and civil rights advocates have sounded the alarm, calling the federal takeover of California’s National Guard unprecedented and chilling.
The implications for higher education, especially for undocumented and mixed-status students, are profound. Campuses in Southern California are already on edge, with many students fearing ICE presence and military escalation. Faculty and staff in sanctuary campuses and immigrant advocacy networks warn that the militarization of civil immigration enforcement could further chill free speech, academic freedom, and student organizing.
Law professors like Erwin Chemerinsky have warned that Trump’s actions bypass both precedent and constitutional norms: “It is using the military domestically to stop dissent.” Georgetown’s Steve Vladeck noted that the National Guard’s role may technically be limited to support functions, but the symbolism and real-world consequences of armed troops on city streets are undeniable.
Trump’s invocation of rebellion in response to protest mirrors earlier moments of U.S. history where power was used to silence dissent. But this time, it is playing out amid a polarized political landscape, weakened democratic institutions, and a rising authoritarian movement—with the academy, once again, caught in the crossfire.
As protests continue, California’s colleges and universities—long sites of political activism—face renewed pressure. The presence of federal troops, surveillance, and threats of repression may signal a dangerous new phase in the government’s approach to dissent. What was once unthinkable is becoming reality: a nation where protesting immigration raids can be construed as rebellion, and soldiers patrol streets not in a time of war, but in a time of political theater.
As President Donald Trump has ramped up deportations, some immigrant students across New York have been too afraid to attend class in person. In response, some school districts have turned to virtual learning, a move the state’s Education Department is sanctioning, officials revealed last week.
“I will tell you in the sense of a crisis, we do have some districts right now … that are taking advantage and providing virtual instruction to our children who are afraid to go to school,” Associate Education Commissioner Elisa Alvarez told state officials at May’s Board of Regents meeting.
Alvarez shared with the board a memo the state Education Department issued in March clarifying that districts have the flexibility to offer online instruction to “students who may be unable or averse to attending school, including during times of political uncertainty.”
The memo further specified schools can tap online learning for immigrant and migrant students “who may be affected and reluctant to attend school in person due to concerns about their personal safety and security.”
Alvarez didn’t disclose how many or which districts were using the approach and for how many students. A state Education Department spokesperson did not respond to follow-up questions.
New York City public schools already have virtual options available and aren’t doing anything different for immigrant students fearful of attending school, a spokesperson for the city’s Education Department said.
Still, the disclosure from state officials highlights the ongoing fears some immigrant students are facing four months into the Trump administration and raises fresh questions about how their school experiences are being affected.
Shortly after taking office, Trump rescinded longstanding guidance barring federal immigration agents from making arrests at “sensitive locations” including schools.
Migrant families staying in New York City shelters expressed acute fears during the week after Trump’s inauguration in January and stayed out of school in large numbers, likely contributing to lower citywide attendance rates that week (though Mayor Eric Adams later downplayed the attendance woes). Some city educators said they’ve seen attendance for immigrant students rebound since that first week.
City policy prohibits federal law enforcement agents, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from entering schools without a warrant signed by a judge, and Education Department officials have trained school staff on detailed protocols for how to respond.
At the state level, the Attorney General’s office and Education Department issued joint guidance in March reiterating that state and federal law both compel districts to only permit federal law enforcement to enter schools under very limited circumstances.
Many school leaders have worked hard to communicate those policies and reassure anxious families. And immigration enforcement inside of schools has remained rare.
But some high-profile raids have targeted school-age children, including one in the upstate New York hometown of Trump border czar Tom Homan that swept up three students in the local public schools, sparking fear and outrage. And there have been reports across the country of parents detained by immigration agents right outside schools during drop-off time.
Under those circumstances, virtual learning could give schools a way to keep up some connection with students or families who might otherwise completely disengage.
But some New York City educators said they’re still working hard to convince fearful immigrant students to come to school in person, noting that virtual learning was especially challenging for English language learners during the COVID pandemic.
Lara Evangelista, the executive director of the Internationals Network, which oversees 17 public schools in the five boroughs catering exclusively to newly arrived immigrant students, said none of her schools have made the “purposeful choice” to engage fearful students through virtual learning.
“Virtual learning for [English Learners] was really challenging during COVID,” she said.
Alan Cheng, the superintendent who oversees the international schools as well as the city’s dedicated virtual schools, said he hasn’t seen any significant changes in enrollment or interest in online learning due to fear of in-person attendance among immigrant students.
And while virtual learning might be able to offer a version of the academic experience of in-person school, it’s harder for it to replicate some of the other services that schools provide families.
“Our schools serve much more than just the academic environment,” Cheng said. “They are really community schools, they provide health care, they provide plenty of other resources.”
This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Chalkbeat is a nonprofit news site covering educational change in public schools. Sign up for their newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters.
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Tennessee state Sen. Bo Watson wants to eject undocumented students from public school classrooms. But first, he needs their data.
Watson seeks to require students statewide to submit a birth certificate or other sensitive documents to secure their seats — one of numerous efforts nationwide this year as Republican state lawmakers seek to challenge a decades-old Supreme Court precedent enshrining students’ right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status.
Some 300 demonstrators participate in a Waukegan, Illinois, rally on Feb. 1 to draw attention to an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in the area. Privacy advocates warn student records could be used to assist deportations. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)
In my latest feature this week, I dive into why those efforts have alarmed student data privacy advocates, who warn that efforts to compile data on immigrant students could be used not just to deny them an education — it could also fall into the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As the Trump administration ramps up deportations and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency reportedly works to create a “master database” of government records to zero in on migrants, data privacy experts warn that state and federal data about immigrant students could be weaponized.
In the news
Cybercriminals demanded ransom payments from school districts nationwide this week, using millions of K-12 students’ sensitive data as leverage after the files were stolen from education technology giant PowerSchool in a massive cyberattack late last year. The development undercuts PowerSchool’s decision to pay a ransom in December to keep the sensitive documents under wraps. | The 74
Gutted: Investigations at the Education Department’s civil rights office have trickled to a halt as the Trump administration installs a “shadow division” to advance cases that align with the president’s agenda. | ProPublica
Civil rights groups, students and parents have asked courts to block the Education Department’s civil rights enforcement changes under Trump, saying they fail to hold schools accountable for racial harassment and abuses against children with disabilities. | K-12 Dive
Among the thousands of cases put on the back burner is a complaint from a Texas teenager who was kneed in the face by a campus cop. | The 74
‘The hardest case for mercy’: Congratulations to Marshall Project contributor Joe Sexton, who was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting on a legal team’s successful bid to spare the Parkland, Florida, school shooter from the death penalty. | The Marshall Project
The city council in Uvalde, Texas, approved a $2 million settlement with the families of the victims in the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School, the first lawsuit to end with monetary payouts since 19 children and two teachers were killed. | Insurance Journal
In Michigan, a state commission created in the wake of the 2021 school shooting at Oxford High School, which resulted in the deaths of four students, issued a final report calling for additional funding to strengthen school mental health supports. | Chalkbeat
Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Education Department axed $1 billion in federal grants designed to train mental health professionals and place them in schools in a bid to thwart mass shootings. | The 74
A high school substitute teacher in Ohio was arrested on accusations she offered a student $2,000 to murder her husband. | WRIC
Connecticut schools have been forced to evacuate from fires caused by a “dangerous TikTok trend” where students stab school-issued laptops with paper clips to cause electrical short circuits. | WFSB
Eleven high school lacrosse players in upstate New York face unlawful imprisonment charges on accusations they staged a kidnapping of younger teammates who thought they were being abducted by armed assailants. | CNN
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The Future of Privacy Forum has “retired” its Student Privacy Pledge after a decade. The pledge, which was designed to ensure education technology companies were ethical stewards of students’ sensitive data, was ended due to “the changing technological and policy landscape regarding education technology.” | Future of Privacy Forum
The pledge had previously faced scrutiny over its ability to hold tech vendors accountable for violating its terms. | The 74
New kid on the block: Almost simultaneously, Common Sense Privacy launched a “privacy seal certification” to recognize vendors that are “deeply committed to privacy.” | Business Wire
Google plans to roll out an artificial intelligence chatbot for children as the tech giant seeks to attract young eyeballs to its AI products. | The New York Times
Kansas schools plan to spend state money on AI tools to spot guns despite concerns over reports of false alarms. | Beacon Media
ICYMI @The74
A new report from the Department of Health and Human Services suggests gender-affirming health care puts transgender youth at risk but the report ignores years of research indicating otherwise. (Getty Images)
The expansion of government powers would hand Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the authority to cancel a student’s legal status if the visa they used to enter the US is revoked.
Previously, a visa revocation would only impact a person’s ability to return to the country but would not end their permission to stay in the US as a student.
The new guidelines were outlined in an ICE document shared in a court filing on April 28, according to Associated Press.
Attorneys for international students said in court the new reasons would allow for faster deportations and would justify many of the Trump administration’s terminations of thousands of students’ legal status on the database maintained by ICE.
“This just gave them carte blanche to have the State Department revoke a visa and then deport those students, even if they’ve done nothing wrong,” said immigration attorney Brad Banias, as reported in AP.
When approached for comment, a State Department spokesperson said it “will continue to work closely with the Department of Homeland Security to enforce zero tolerance for aliens in the United States who violate US laws, threaten public safety, or in other situations where warranted”.
The PIE is yet to hear back from ICE.
This just gave them carte blanche to have the State Department revoke a visa and then deport those students, even if they’ve done nothing wrong
Brad Banias, immigration attorney
Sector leaders welcomed last week’s news that the government was restoring students’ legal status while it developed a new framework for future terminations, though the proposed vastly expanded new powers come as another blow for international students and educators.
The court heard that the new policy went against “at least 15 years of SEVP guidance”, referring to the Student and Exchange Visitor Program managed by ICE.
However, NAFSA emphasised on May 2 that “the document cannot yet be regarded as ICE’s new official policy”.
The document offers two new reasons for termination; non-compliance with the terms of nonimmigrant status and visa revocation by the state department.
In the case of the former, it is not clear whether a SEVIS record termination would also result in the termination of nonimmigrant status, though it would strip students of status benefits including applying for OPT or returning to the US after travelling abroad.
According to immigration attorneys, the new guidance could also allow for revoking student status if their names appear in a criminal database regardless of whether they were ever charged with a crime.
Traditionally, student visa revocations have not been common, but recently the US government began terminating students’ status either in addition to or instead of revoking their visas.
The Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS) database is maintained by ICE to monitor international students’ presence in the US.
In the absence of disaggregated counts of visa revocation and SEVIS record termination, it remains unclear how many students will lose their status because of the new termination framework.
Since mid-March, sudden visa revocations by the State Department and SEVIS record terminations by ICE and DHS have caused widespread fear and uncertainty across US campuses.
“Exacerbating the stress was the rationale provided by the government, which ranged from wholly absent, to conflicting, to shifting, to downright baseless,” said NAFSA.
In March, secretary of state Marco Rubio said that his department was revoking the visas of students who took part in pro-Palestinian protests and those with criminal charges.
However, many students who saw their status terminated said they did not fall under those categories and argued that they were denied due process. Others said they were not aware their status had been revoked until logging onto the SEVIS database.
Students began asking questions soon after President Donald Trump took office.
“How old do I have to be to adopt my siblings?” an area student asked a teacher, worried that their parents could be deported.
“Can I attend school virtually?” asked another student, reasoning that they would be safer from being targeted by immigration agents if they studied online at home.
A straight-A student from a South American country stunned and saddened her teacher by saying, “So when are they going to send me back?”
“Can I borrow a laminator?” asked another, who wanted to make a stack of “Know Your Rights” flyers sturdier. High schoolers have been passing the guides out, informing people what to do if stopped and questioned about immigration status.
What that might mean for the children of targeted immigrants, or whether they would be rounded up, has been the subject of speculation, rumor and fear.
In early March, the Trump administration began detaining families at a Texas center, with the intention of deporting the children and adults together.
Kansas City area school districts are responding, training teachers and staff on protocols in case immigration agents try to enter a school and sending notices to parents.
“Not every school district, not every charter school, not every private school, has addressed the issue,” said Christy J. Moreno with Revolución Educativa, a Kansas City nonprofit advocating for Latinos’ educational success.
Parents in some local schools have had their fears calmed through district communication.
“There have been some districts that have been a little bit more public about their stance on this, but in general terms, they’re not being very public,” said Moreno, an advocacy and impact officer. “It’s because of all the executive orders and the fear that federal funding will be taken away.”
Indeed, when asked to comment, most area districts declined or pointed to district policy posted online.
Immigrant children’s right to attend public school, K-12, is constitutionally protected.
A 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Plyler v. Doe, guarantees it regardless of immigration status.
The Plyler ruling also ensures that schools do not ask the immigration status of children as they enroll, something that area districts have emphasized in communication to parents.
The Shawnee Mission School District relies on policies that are the responsibility of building administrators if any external agency, such as law enforcement, requests access to or information about a student.
“We strongly believe that every child deserves free and unfettered access to a quality public education, regardless of immigration status,” said David A. Smith, chief communications officer, in a statement. “While we cannot control the actions of others, we can control how we respond.”
Schools were once understood to be off limits for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Schools were considered to be “sensitive places,” along with hospitals and places of worship.
Trump rescinded that nearly 14-year-old policy by executive order immediately upon taking office in January.
In February, the Denver Public Schools sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, arguing that the schools’ duty to educate students was hindered by the change.
Students were missing school out of fear, the Colorado educators said. And administrators and teachers were forced to redirect resources to train staff on how to react in case immigration agents entered school grounds.
On March 7, a federal judge sided with Homeland Security in denying the injunction.
The ruling gleaned some clarity for schools, with the government noting that the current policy requires “some level of approval on when to conduct an action” in a school.
But that guardrail doesn’t negate anxieties, the judge acknowledged.
In the Kansas City area, one mother, with two children in public school, indicated that her district’s support was too hesitant.
“I know that the districts at this time have not come out in support of immigrant families in these difficult times,” she said. “They are just being very diplomatic, saying that education comes first.”
Plyler v. Doe: Constitutionally protected, but still threatened
Plyler v. Doe isn’t as universally understood as Brown v. Board of Education.
The U.S. Supreme Court case guaranteeing immigrant children’s right to a public K-12 education is a landmark decision, said Rebeca Shackleford, director of federal government relations for All4Ed, a national nonprofit advocating for educational equity.
“Kids are losing out already, even though they still have their right to this education,” Shackleford said. “There are kids who are not in school today because their parents are holding them back.”
The class-action case originated in Texas.
In 1975, the state legislature said school districts could deny enrollment to children who weren’t “legally admitted” into the U.S., withholding state funds for those children’s education.
Two years later, the Tyler district decided to charge $1,000 tuition to Mexican students who couldn’t meet the legally admitted requirement. James Plyler was the superintendent of the Tyler Independent School District.
Lower courts ruled for the children and their parents, noting that the societal costs of not educating the children outweighed the state’s harm. The lower courts also ruled the state could not preempt federal immigration law.
Eventually the case was taken up by the U.S. Supreme Court, which in 1982 upheld the rights of the students to receive a K-12 education, 5-4, citing the 14th Amendment’s equal-protection clause.
“By denying these children a basic education,” the court said, “we deny them the ability to live within the structure of our civic institutions, and foreclose any realistic possibility that they will contribute in even the smallest way to the progress of our Nation.”
The court also said that holding children accountable for their parents’ actions “does not comport with fundamental conceptions of justice.”
In 2011, Alabama saw a dramatic drop in Latino student attendance, even among U.S.-born children, when the state ordered districts to determine the immigration status of students as they enrolled.
The law was later permanently blocked by a federal court.
The proposed law would allow districts to charge undocumented students tuition, and would require districts to check the legal status of students as they enrolled.
The bill recently passed out of an education committee.
The chilling effect of such proposals, like current calls for mass deportations, can be widespread for children, advocates said.
“How can you learn if you’re worried about whether or not your parents are going to be home when you get home from school?” Shackleford said.
Teachers nationwide are seeing the impact as students worry for themselves, their parents and friends.
“I think sometimes we forget that the words that we use as adults and the messages that we send are affecting our kids,” Shackleford, a former teacher, said. “And no one feels that more than teachers and classroom educators, because they’re right there in the rooms and hearing this and seeing the pain of their students.”
Information vacuums contribute to rumors
Voids in information leave room for misinformation, which is quickly spread by social media.
Local advocates for immigrant rights have been tamping down rumors about raids, especially in regard to schools.
There have not been any reported incidents involving ICE agents inside or on local K-12 school grounds.
But in February, a man was detained near a Kansas City school, presumably as he was getting ready to drop a child off for the day’s lessons.
Homeland Security officials arrested a man they said had previously been deported. Staff of the Guadalupe Centers Elementary & Pre-K School acted quickly, escorting the child into the building.
For districts, managing communications can be a balance.
North Kansas City Schools began getting questions from parents about ICE and Customs and Border Protection early this year.
On Jan. 24, the district sent a notice to parents emphasizing policies that had been in place for several years.
“In general, law enforcement has the same limited level of access to student records as members of the public with no special permissions,” according to the notice. “Law enforcement agents are not permitted to speak with nor interact with students without a valid subpoena, court order or explicit parent permission unless it’s an emergency situation.”
Kansas City Public Schools Superintendent Jennifer Collier addressed immigration in a late January board meeting.
Collier said that work had begun “behind the scenes” after Trump rescinded the sensitive-places policy.
“What we didn’t want to do was to get out front and begin to alarm everybody, to create anxiety,” Collier said, noting the “feelings of heaviness and in some cases feelings of hopelessness.”
All staff would be trained, including legal and security teams, in identifying valid court orders or warrants.
She emphasized the emotional well-being of students. And the district has posted guidance online.
“We’re going to make it to the other side of this,” Collier told her board. “So hold on. Don’t lose hope.”
On December 10, the Biden administration issued the Fall 2021 Unified Agenda of Regulatory and Deregulatory Actions (Regulatory Agenda), providing the public with insights on what various federal agencies expect to work on in terms of regulatory activity in the near- and long-term.
In an effort to keep members apprised of upcoming noteworthy regulatory actions, CUPA-HR has read through the Regulatory Agenda and has flagged the following proposed activity:
In April 2022, the Department of Labor (DOL)’s Wage and Hour Division plans to issue a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) addressing overtime pay requirements for certain “white-collar” employees, including executive, administrative, and professional employees, currently exempt from the requirements under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). According to the Regulatory Agenda, one of the goals of the NPRM would be “to update the salary level requirement of the section 13(a)(1) exemption [under the FLSA].”
Changes to overtime pay requirements have been implemented through regulations under both the Obama and Trump administrations. In May 2016, the Obama administration’s DOL issued a final rule increasing the salary threshold from $23,660 to $47,476 per year and imposed automatic updates to the threshold every three years. However, court challenges prevented the rule from taking effect and it was permanently enjoined in September 2017. After the Trump administration started the rulemaking process anew, in September 2019, DOL issued a new final rule raising the minimum salary level required for exemption from $23,660 annually to $35,568 annually. This final rule went into effect January 1, 2020, and it remains in effect today.
DOL’s Statement of Regulatory Priorities, a component of the fall Regulatory Agenda that presents additional information about the most significant regulatory activities planned for the coming year, states that this proposed update will “ensure that middle class jobs pay middle class wages, extending important overtime pay protections to millions of workers and raising their pay.” Given this statement, it is likely that we will see the Biden administration’s DOL attempt to increase the salary level in the NPRM to something closer to the Obama administration’s proposed level, if not higher.
In March 2022, DOL’s Employment and Training Administration (ETA) plans to issue a NPRM to establish “a new wage methodology for setting prevailing wage levels for H-1B/H-1B1/E-3 and PERM programs consistent with the requirements of the Immigration and Nationality Act.” The proposal will likely amend the Trump administration’s final rule that was scheduled to take effect on November 14, 2022, but was subsequently vacated by a federal court in June 2021. The new proposal, which is included in the Department’s Statement of Regulatory Priorities will take into consideration the feedback it received in response to a Request for Information (RFI) on data and methods for determining prevailing wage levels “to ensure fair wages and strengthen protections for foreign and U.S. workers”.
CUPA-HR filed comments in opposition to the Trump administration’s regulations on the issue and in response to the Biden administration’s RFI.
According to the Regulatory Agenda, the Biden administration’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) plans to release a NPRM to restore provisions of the May 2016 “Improve Tracking of Workplace Injuries and Illnesses” final rule. The Regulatory Agenda set December 2021 as the target date for release, but as of early January, the regulation is still pending review at the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.
The proposal seeks “to amend [OSHA’s] recordkeeping regulation to restore the requirement to electronically submit to OSHA information from the OSHA Form 300 (Log of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses) and OSHA Form 301 (Injury and Illness Incident Report) for establishments that meet certain size and industry criteria.” In the Regulatory Agenda, OSHA notes that the current regulations only require electronic submissions from the OSHA Form 300A (Summary of Work-Related Injuries and Illnesses), as the Trump administration’s 2019 final rule rescinded the requirements to electronically submit the OSHA Form 300 and OSHA Form 301.
In February 2022, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) is planning to release a NPRM to potentially amend the standard determining when two employers may be considered joint employers under the National Labor Relations Act. The new standard will revise the 2020 Trump Administration’s final rule, which reversed the Obama-era NLRB decision in the 2015 Browning-Ferris Industries case and established that an entity can only be a joint employer if it actually exercises control over the essential terms and conditions of another employer’s employees. While details of the Democratic-majority NLRB’s NPRM on joint employer status are up in the air, we would expect them to revise the current standard to look something more like the Obama-era decision.
In April 2022, the Department of Education is planning to release a NPRM to amend the “regulations implementing Title IX (…) consistent with the priorities of the Biden-Harris administration,” such as the priorities set forth in Executive Order (EO) 13988, “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation” and EO 14021, “Guaranteeing an Educational Environment Free from Discrimination on the Basis of Sex, Including Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity.” This NPRM will revise the amendments the Trump administration made through the 2020 Title IX final rule.
The Department of Education highlighted this new rulemaking in their Statement of Regulatory Priorities. The addition of the rulemaking to the priorities document and the accelerated expected release date of April 2022 from May 2022 as stated in the Spring 2021 Regulatory Agenda indicate that the agency is likely considering this as one of the top regulatory priorities above other proposed actions.
According to the Regulatory Agenda, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)’s United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) plans to release a NPRM in May 2022 to “amend its regulations governing H-1B specialty occupation workers and F-1 students who are the beneficiaries of timely filed H-1B cap-subject petitions.” The NPRM will specifically propose to “revise the regulations relating to ‘employer-employee relationship’ and provide flexibility for start-up entrepreneurs; implement new requirements and guidelines for site visits including in connection with petitions filed by H-1B dependent employers whose basic business information cannot be validated through commercially available data; provide flexibility on the employment start date listed on the petition (in limited circumstances); address “cap-gap” issues; bolster the H-1B registration process to reduce the possibility of misuse and fraud in the H-1B registration system; and clarify the requirement that an amended or new petition be filed where there are material changes, including by streamlining notification requirements relating to certain worksite changes, among other provisions.”
According to the Regulatory Agenda, DHS is planning to issue a NPRM in June 2022 to “revise employment eligibility verification regulations to allow the Secretary to authorize alternative document examination procedures in certain circumstances or with respect to certain employers.”
Since the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, DHS has provided temporary flexibility in the Form I-9 verification process to allow for remote inspection of Form I-9 documents in situations where employees work exclusively in a remote setting due to COVID-19-related precautions. While that guidance is only temporary, DHS issued a Request for Public Input (RPI) on October 26, 2021 to determine whether those flexibilities should be kept in place permanently. It is possible that DHS will use that feedback to develop and implement this NPRM.
CUPA-HR has engaged with DHS on the Form I-9 flexibilities through the pandemic. In December, CUPA-HR sent a letter to DHS requesting the Form I-9 flexibilities be extended past December 31, 2021. DHS announced soon after that the flexibilities would be extended until April 30, 2022. Additionally, CUPA-HR submitted comments in response to the RPI based on a recent survey detailing members’ experiences with the Form I-9 verification process flexibilities.
CUPA-HR will keep members apprised of these proposed regulations and others as they are introduced in the coming year.
