Washington, D.C.’s large immigrant population is facing a reign of terror: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have flooded neighborhoods with large Latino populations, imposing checkpoints and hanging a threat over families’ heads as kids and parents prepare to go back to school next week.
Instead of worrying about having the right notebooks for the school year, many families are now afraid of getting detained by ICE on their way to school drop-off and pickup, three school staff members and local organizers told The Intercept.
Teachers claim that the D.C. school system has been unhelpful, treating the situation as business as usual and even discouraging organizers from providing guidance to families on school grounds.
“Most parents’ biggest concern is that something will happen to them on the way to school in front of their children,” said Hillary, an elementary school teacher in the city who asked to be identified by her first name because she was concerned her activism might get her school targeted by ICE, “or it’s going to happen before they’ve been able to pick up their children from school, and there will be no one to come get their kids.”
The climate of fear is fueled by multiple levels of intensified federal policing. Earlier this month, President Donald Trump issued an executive order to deploy the National Guard to the District of Columbia.
The Trump administration subsequently federalized the local police force and ordered further co-operation between them and ICE officials. And upon entering office in January, Trump revoked the sensitive zones memo that once prevented ICE from operating within schools, hospitals, and churches.
In May, Hillary and a group of other teachers, parents, and community volunteers formed a rapid response team to counter increased ICE and homeland security presence in D.C.
They alerted families of suspected immigration enforcement presence and offered services like walking children to their parents’ cars. They’re anticipating they’ll need to increase their efforts as school starts in the coming week.
“[We’re] trying to get walking groups. So if parents are maybe uncomfortable walking students to school by themselves or picking students up by themselves, we might have school staff, volunteers in the neighborhood, parents in the school who are providing a safe passage,” Hillary said, adding that she knows several other schools are pursuing similar efforts.
Amy Fischer, an organizer with the D.C. group Migrant Solidarity Mutual Aid, said she’s been working alongside volunteers like Hillary to protect immigrant families as they head back to school next week.
She said undocumented parents weren’t the only immigrants who needed community protection.
