Community members were upset after receiving a letter Friday from Central Bucks School District Superintendent Steven Yanni about how district schools would handle interactions with ICE officials.
The letter follows the Department of Homeland Security’s announcement Tuesday that it would no longer follow the long-standing guidelines of avoiding “sensitive areas” such as schools, churches, and hospitals. Why? Because they believe this will help them to “catch criminal aliens — including murders (sic) and rapists — who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”
This announcement shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone paying attention. While on the campaign trail President Trump promised the largest mass deportation program in American history, while also accusing immigrants, which would include students, of “poisoning the blood of the country” and of having “bad genes.”
In the letter, Yanni stated that the district “provided step-by-step guidance for our administrators in the event of an on-campus interaction with ICE officials,” which is also available to staff. He noted the district doesn’t keep any records of students’ or their families’ immigration statuses and that “our procedures prioritize the safety, privacy, and rights of our students and their families, and seek to maintain a calm and respectful environment.”
Heidi Roux, executive director of Immigrant Rights Action (who is also a Central Bucks parent), said she hopes that the guidance “was developed in collaboration and input from attorneys and leaders that ensure the rights of all residents of our community are taken into account and upheld.”
She stated that if ICE officials ring buzzers at any of the schools’ main doors that they must be required to show credentials, a judicial warrant, and that they should be made to remain outside while the school principal contacts the district’s attorney.
“I cannot fathom a judicial warrant being issued for a school age child that would require ICE to enter a school building. However, I could not have foreseen a time when children and their families would be afraid to send their children to school,” said Roux. “Schools are a pillar of our community and I expect them to be a safe place for the learning and development of our future generation of leaders. This type of disruption and chaos has no place in our schools.”
I think this fear, this disruption, this chaos introduced across the country as a result of the Trump administration and ICE’s new immigrant sweeps is why a lot of parents have been voicing their anger or anxiety online, and for some a wanting for the school district to take a bolder stance.
Now the letter is pretty neutral in its language. There is no condemnation of the decision to open up the nation’s schools to ICE officers and the accompanying fear and anxiety that even the possibility of this causes. There’s no “sanctuary resolution” put out by the district’s Democrat-majority school board like what Pennsylvania’s Wilkinsburg School District board unanimously approved last month. There’s no statement like what Chicago elementary school Principal Natasha Ortega gave to the Chicago Tribune when she flat out said, “We will not open our doors for ICE, and we are here to protect our children and make sure they have access to an excellent education. We stand in solidarity with our families and the Back of the Yards community.”
“Children should never be collateral damage.”
Instead Yannis writes:
“I know this is a sensitive and personal issue. While we recognize our community has a range of perspectives and beliefs, we are united in our responsibility to protect the rights, dignity, and safety of every child.”
Barbara Grimes, a guardian to a 9th grader at Unami, was understanding of the neutral language the district used given the current political climate. Nevertheless, she finds the whole situation unacceptable.
“I think the trauma of raiding schools and churches will prove to be traumatizing to not only the ‘suspected’ illegal immigrants, but also the students, faculty, and clergy who will have to bear witness,” Grimes told me. “As a society, we are judged on how we protect those in need. I hope the schools and churches refuse agent entry.”
District parent Diana Leygerman said she was “a little annoyed the email didn’t mention that ICE agents need a judicial warrant in order to raid a school building.”
“This is important for the community to know,” she added.
Moreso, Warwick’s Leygerman is completely disgusted that this is even happening.
“I can’t even imagine how scared kids and their families are. This is inhumane and wrong. Raiding schools is the lowest form of despicable,” she said. “People who voted for this should be ashamed of themselves, although I am certain they don’t care.”
Well, some apparently are downright gleeful. One local Republican posted on social media (with support in the comments), “President Trump is the best. Cbsd just announced that they will have to allow ICE to come to their schools and deport any illegals. Finally justice.”
Never mind I don’t even want to imagine what the previous board majority and superintendent would be doing right now had they stayed in their respective offices.
One district parent who wished to remain anonymous told me she showed her kids how to identify ICE agents and instructed them not to speak to one without their mom or dad present.
“I think they need to actually protect all of our children,” they told me. “Why should any of our kids be held from their friends scared and alone while their parents prove that they are allowed to be here? Children should never be collateral damage.”
READ: It Takes a Village: Expelling Right-Wing Extremism from Bucks County School Districts
This also has to be hard on the teachers and all the staff in the school, something Rebecca Zemach, whose kids, now adults who previously attended district schools, wants to remind people.
“I want to express my heartbreak for the impossible situation teachers are in,” she said. “We take the job of protecting and caring for children very seriously, and having them harmed and traumatized in our classrooms is unconscionable.”
So what can we do? First, support organization’s like Roux’s Immigrant Rights Action, which has been protecting immigrants locally since 2017.
Second, Zemach shared a great idea.
“I would definitely go on the record urging everyone to sign up for Bystander training – as soon as possible. There are things we will be able to do to help, and things that make the situation more dangerous for those being detained,” said Zemach. “All teachers and school staff deserve to receive this training immediately.”
Third, the community needs to stay vigilant and organized in order to respond, rapidly, to any attempted ICE infiltration at district schools. This brings to mind how students, teachers, parents and other community members banded together to protest former Policy 321, where the previous right-wing school board looked to rip down Pride flags and muzzle teachers in the classroom.
At the time, Holicong Middle School teacher Keith Willard said that Policy 321 was “borne out of bigotry and discrimination.” The same can be said of the Trump administration decision to send ICE into previous off-limit areas such as schools, churches, and hospitals.
Now, those community actions and others like it may not have stopped the policy from being passed at the time, but I am certain it helped raise informed public awareness which led to an election that flipped the school board, putting it back in the hands of folks who prioritize compassion and common sense when making policy decisions.
Do you remember the Elie Wiesel quote that under the leadership of the former superintendent and right-wing school board majority a Central Bucks South High School librarian was forced to take off his door before the pressure of local, national, and even international coverage led them to reverse course?
“We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.”
We must.
The school district, if it wants to follow federal law, no matter how unjust and immoral, has their hands tied. But that doesn’t mean the broader community can’t peacefully and publicly voice opposition and outrage. That’s the history of progress in our country, the history some don’t want taught.
And the last thing the community should want is to allow this to become the new normal.
