South Bay schools rush to protect students from ice

Publisher’s note: This article was written for Mosaic, an independent journalism training program for high school students who report and photograph stories under the direction of professional journalists.

While the classmates of L. walk to the city center with friends after school, she brings the bus home.

When Josue goes to the supermarket with his sister, they both bring their birth certificates.

While the friends of a San Jose student travel abroad to see parents, she is bound by national borders, too afraid of traveling for fear that she will not be authorized in the country.

For these students – whose complete Mosaic names retain their safety – and other undocumented adolescents or children of undocumented parents, daily routines are shaded by fear and uncertainty.

“The school administration had a very general and vague message that they shared with the body of students on the protection of information on students, but they did not list the specific actions they took to ensure that students will be protected, which I would like to see more,” said a student of the High School presentation, a Catholic high school in San Jose.

“The only thing that separates” illegal “and” legal “immigrants is a piece of paper,” she said.

Now, with the efforts of the Trump administration to increase deportations and put an end to the policy that has prohibited immigration authorities from entering “sensitive” places such as schools and churches, this fear is only growing. Schools in the bay region rush to reassure students and strengthen protections – but many fear that this is not enough.

Although there has been no verified report on ice raids in South Bay schools, some school administrations revisit their immigration policies in anticipation of potential raids.

In the district of Fremont Union High School, which serves parts of San Jose, Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Santa Clara and Saratoga, the associate superintendent Trudy Gross stressed that immigration agents cannot withdraw students from the school directly.

“The only public space in schools is the front office; The classrooms are deprived, and someone could only access the classrooms by first recording the front office, “she said.

“If someone is delivered with an assignment to appear, which is for the files, we have five days to deal with this. If someone comes with a mandate, it would not be inappropriate for us to take 45 minutes to examine the mandate with our legal team, even if it means that the officer must wait at the front office,” said Gros.

While schools affirm their power to regulate access to the campus, legal experts emphasize that federal immigration agents must also respect constitutional protections. According to Tanya Broder, the main lawyer for the National Immigration Law Center, there is a solid legal foundation supporting school policies.

“Policies that oblige all visitors to register and be detected before entering any area where people have a reasonable expectation in terms of private life – in the absence of a valid judicial mandate, a judicial assignment or an order of the court – comply with the right of the fourth amendment to be free of searches and unreasonable seizures,” she said.

Speaking on the district policy to take the time to review the mandates or the assignments, Brooder said that “the examination of the request by the school is intended to comply with the American constitutional requirements, that the ice is forced to respect”.

In addition, students and staff have the right to remain silent and request a legal representation under the fifth amendment if they are approached by immigration agents.

San Francisco Unified School District follows a similar approach. According to his web page of immigration policy and resources, “immigration officials will be redirected to the SFUSD legal office” and “If the officer does not leave, he will be escorted to the front office and an administrator will be informed.”

Even if school districts update their policies, some students want schools to do more to support them. In particular, many have expressed their frustration as to how school officials communicate their policies.

“During an assembly that took place recently, a student asked:” Will ice come to our school? ” Our director replied with: “I do not answer this”. “Said a senior at the Willow Glen High School. “It left me confused and deeply saddened.”

While the student said that she was worried about the ice that withdraws her school friends and believes that her school is not enough to protect students, she also fears the worst for her family.

“What scares me the most is the idea of ​​getting home and not seeing my mother,” she said. “It breaks my heart knowing that my mother lives in a constant fear. She always put others first and has never hurt anything in her life in addition to going through this border. ”

Ella Polak is senior in Leland High School in San Jose.