Name: Immigrant activists want Philly teachers trained on dealing with ICE
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Immigrant activists want Philly teachers trained on dealing with ICE

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If immigration enforcement were to come to public schools in Philadelphia regarding a student and their family, would teachers or staff know how to respond?Immigration advocacy group and a coalition of supporters, including educators and City Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Helen Gym, say the answer is no, and they want to change that.“The district needs to make sure that everyone knows what to do if [U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement] comes to my school, your school, or your school someday,” said Rodrigo Fernandez, a bilingual counseling assistant at the Southwark School in South Philadelphia.On Monday, Fernandez was part of a crowd of about 50 people gathered in front of Philadelphia School District headquarters to launch the Sanctuary School Campaign.The campaign focuses on five principles: schools free of criminalization, reinvestment in education, culturally responsive pedagogy, community control of schools, and restorative learning environments.The language of the demands echo those when activists called for police-free schools and criticized that the district can’t keep workers and students or .The demand that the district does a better job at training teachers how to deal with ICE agents comes one year after agents waiting for the bus after she’d dropped her child off at Eliza B. Kirkbride Elementary in South Philly., who was three months pregnant at the time, was later released for “humanitarian reasons.” But the arrest shook immigrant advocates, as it ignored an ICE policy that regards locations such as schools, churches, and hospitals as “,” and discourages enforcement at these sites.At the time, Philadelphia Superintendent William Hite said the district was educating staff on what they were and weren’t required to share with immigration enforcement.The incident, in what’s supposed to be a so-called sanctuary city, sparked an interest in Juntos to evaluate just how much teachers and staff know about immigrant families’ rights in these types of scenarios.Chester County’s libraries closed for about a third of 2020, but librarians say they were busy as ever — lending out everything from books to seeds to information.Between December 2020 and January of this year, and found 73% of respondents did not know who to notify should ICE press them for information about a student or the student’s family.Though the sample is small, the respondents were reached through grassroots networks and the teachers union, said Juntos leaders, which suggests some of the most engaged employees in the district don’t know how to react should ICE visit their school.The district does keep an almost-60-page which addresses questions such as what to do if a child’s parents are deported: exhaust the child’s emergency contacts and stay with them until they arrive. Should ICE officers demand access to a school, the toolkit says even with a warrant, the school in question needs to notify the superintendent and/or the Office of General Counsel.This December, the district ” seen as key to boosting student achievement and making sure students graduate high school with the tools to “succeed in the global economy.”The goals and guardrails were also designed to address systemic racism. Pep Marie, with said the district is currently undermining its own goals.Syncretic Press publisher Enrique Morás of Wilmington helps Spanish-speaking students see themselves in children’s books that don’t shy away from deep topics.“ICE is a racist and violent institution and a lack of clarity around the school district’s engagement with ICE contradicts a welcoming and enriching school experience for students and their families that they seek to partner with,” Marie said.For immigrant parents like Aracely Isidoro, however, there are other failures the district needs to address with similar urgency.Isidoro, who has four children in the district, said her daughter has been acting as a translator since the age of 12 because her South Philly school has no one else who can translate teacher messages to parents.In one instance, Isidoro’s child was pulled from class to tell a first grader’s parents that their child had fallen.“I’ve always taught my daughter to help if someone needs it, but every time they pulled her from calls they were violating her right to education, be a girl, and fully participate in her classes,” Isidoro said.Erika Guadalupe Núñez, executive director of Juntos, called on the district to that includes a mandated emergency response “in order to help ensure the safety and emotional well-being of our students who may be impacted by enforcement actions.” It also calls for teacher training on how to deal with ICE and for the district to stop buying any additional metal detectors or facial recognition software.“Our campaign is a community response critically outlining the need for a truer commitment from the district of Philadelphia to ensure our youth and parents are safe from criminalization, from failing infrastructure, from language barriers, and those that seek to make decisions that impact the well-being of our people without a direct conversation,” Núñez said.Get daily updates from WHYY News!The free WHYY News Daily newsletter delivers the most important local stories to your inbox.The Trump administration can withhold millions of dollars in law enforcement grants to force states to cooperate with U.S. immigration enforcementUnofficial cooperation has granted immigration authorities access to databases and, in some cases, people are tipping them off when a person of interest is being released.The Trump administration is asking the Supreme Court to allow it to largely implement a policy of withholding public safety grants from "sanctuary cities."Sign up for our weekly newsletter.Together we can reach 100% of WHYY’s fiscal year goal

If immigration enforcement were to come to public schools in Philadelphia regarding a student and their family, would teachers or staff know how to respond?Immigration advocacy group and a coalition of supporters, including educators and City Councilmembers Kendra Brooks and Helen Gym, say the answer is no, and they want to change that.“The district needs to make sure that everyone knows what to do if [U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement] comes to my school, your school, or your school someday,” said Rodrigo Fernandez, a bilingual counseling assistant at the Southwark School in South...

Immigrant activists want Philly teachers trained on dealing with ICE

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