As President-elect Donald Trump promises the largest deportation of migrants in American history, New York City’s public school system is reminding principals and administrators not to allow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement onto school grounds.
Project Open Arms, a team tasked with enrolling migrant students in local schools since 2022, will hold training sessions in January for school administrators on what to do if “nonlocal law enforcement officials request access to [New York City Public Schools] facilities, students or student records,” according to a memo this week obtained by the Daily News.
“I’m hoping humanity will prevail, and they won’t toss 5-year-olds out,” said the Manhattan principal of a school with a large population of migrant students. The principal was not authorized to speak with the press.
Education officials and advocates are concerned migrant families may keep children home from public schools, fearing deportation efforts. The training for administrators is another way the school system can help build confidence that immigrant families are safe in government-run schools.
The training sessions are based on existing policy for the school system. “ICE and other noncity enforcement cannot just walk into a building and see children, put quite simply,” city Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said Dec. 5 at a Brooklyn school district town hall.
Trump made mass deportations a key issue of his presidential campaign, which has already spurred concern about anti-migrant rhetoric in the classroom.
After his election, he tapped Thomas Homan as his “border czar.” Homan, who met with Mayor Adams last week, has promised to “do the job” of carrying out deportations with or without the help of New York City officials.
The city school system does not require proof of citizenship. Schools with knowledge of a student’s immigration status may not enter it into their records and must keep it confidential, according to systemwide guidance.
If an ICE officer has a warrant, administrators are supposed to have them wait outside the school building and contact senior field counsel for further instructions. The process also has staff record the name and badge or ID number of the agent, and the purpose of their visit during school hours, as well as contact a child’s parents.
“There needs to be a subpoena, a court-ordered document,” Aviles-Ramos said, “and even still, we have this process in place, and this is why we are informing our families. This is why we are making sure that our principals are trained or, in some cases, retrained, on what those steps are.
“And so, nobody can walk in the building. School safety agent alerts the principal. The principal has to connect with field counsel. Parents have to be notified. There is a process in place.”
The two principal sessions are Jan. 9 and 16, according to the memo; the presidential inauguration is Jan. 20. School safety personnel will also receive training on the protocols, and the nonprofit Project Rousseau is hosting a dozen family or staff-facing “Know Your/Their Rights” presentations over the next few months.
“The worst thing that could happen is people are not confident and don’t send their kids to school. Attendance will take a bigger hit than it already had with the [60-day local shelter] evictions,” said Naveed Hasan, a member of the city Panel for Educational Policy and an advocate for immigrant students. “We have to make sure they’re confident and keep coming to school.”
For the city’s school chancellor, who rose to prominence a couple of years ago for leading the school system’s response to migrant families arriving in the city, the issue is personal. Since then, an estimated 48,000 newcomers have enrolled in city public schools, a figure based on a growing number of students in shelters.
“Obviously, for those of you who know my story, [this is] very important to me,” Aviles-Ramos said, “because when we started supporting our asylum-seeking families, I was charged by First Deputy Chancellor [Daniel] Weisberg to launch what we called Project Open Arms.”
“The work of Project Open Arms will continue, so we’re excited for more to come on that, but please know that we are committed to supporting all of our families, regardless of their status.”
