Ei-iE

School communities across the United States have been profoundly affected by the violent and destructive behaviour of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents deployed by the Trump administration. Educators have mobilised to support traumatised students and vulnerable families and to stop the authoritarian turn at the top of US politics.

Students detained to meet deportation quotas

In May 2025, Sara Lopez Garcia was an honour student with a near-perfect 4.0 GPA and a bright future ahead of her. “A stellar student,” says Cynthia Eaton, one of Sara’s professors at Suffolk County Community College. The day before her graduation from Suffolk, Sara and her mother were detained in an ICE raid at their home. Sara had special immigration status and was working towards obtaining her U.S. citizenship. Both she and her mother had valid Social Security numbers and valid work permits. In fact, Sara and her mother had not been targeted by ICE at all. Federal agents were looking for a previous tenant when they came across the family. After two harrowing months of isolation, uncertainty and stress in a detention centre in South Louisiana, Sara agreed to be deported to her native Colombia. The deportation went ahead in July 2025, just months before what should have been her wedding day.

Sara’s story is not an isolated incident. Immigration raids have spiked across the U.S. since the Trump administration came to power in January 2025. Despite promises that ICE would target criminals, educators have reported many instances where students with no criminal history, no arrests, no deportation orders were abducted and deported to meet the arbitrary deportation quota of 3,000 people per day imposed by the Trump administration.

Just this month, the picture of five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos being detained by ICE agents in Minneapolis made headlines around the world. He is one of four students detained by ICE over the course of a single week in a suburb of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Despite the outcry, the majority of cases where children are arrested and deported are not covered in the media.

In Minnesota, ICE agents have been roaming neighborhoods, circling schools, and following the district’s yellow school buses, school officials said. In January, immigration agents pepper sprayed students and detained a staff member outside a Minneapolis high school during dismissal time. Immediately after this incident, the district cancelled classes which resumed a few days later with an option for virtual learning for students who are afraid to come to school.

School communities living in fear

The effect of immigration raids is felt in every corner of the classroom. Educators report plummeting attendance, emotional withdrawal, and families disappearing overnight.

The fear of ICE raids during school drop-off and pick-ups or at school bus stops is keeping many children and families away from school and inflicts immeasurable academic and emotional harm.

This crisis was directly caused by the Department of Homeland Security’s decision to rescind the “sensitive locations” memo, which once discouraged immigration raids in schools, churches, and hospitals.

Teachers report that even the students who are still attending class are displaying symptoms of traumatic stress. While some fear for themselves and their immigrant families, others are worried about their friends and the upheaval their communities are going through.

In Minneapolis where the administration has deployed over 3,000 ICE agents, the community is on edge. This month, masked, heavily armed federal agents shot and killed Renee Good, a mother of three, after she dropped off her 6-year-old son at school. Another person was shot in the leg and just last week Alex Pretti, a registered nurse, was shot and killed after being restrained by ICE agents. Federal agents have been filmed acting violently and with impunity towards members of the community engaged in peaceful protest.

Impartial investigations into these incidents are not forthcoming as the Trump administration has consistently spread false narratives about the murders, has refused to allow local law enforcement to investigate, and has closed ranks to protect the ICE agents involved.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), “the Trump administration is now threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and unleash the military in Minneapolis, in an escalation of federal force against those exercising their First Amendment rights. This is straight out of the authoritarian playbook. What we are witnessing is a federal occupation of a major American city—and it is not isolated. It is a warning to the entire country.”

Educators on the frontlines to protect students and families

Teachers and education staff have been mobilising in their schools and communities to protect students and vulnerable families.

Affiliated to both the NEA and the AFT, Education Minnesota has taken collective action against ICE presence in the state, joining the January 23rd protests.

Teachers and education support personnel in Minnesota and across the country have organised to protect immigrant families. School staff provide information and support to families in private because of fears that large school events would be targeted by ICE. Educators are also distributing red cards—wallet-size cards with language to assert one’s legal rights if approached by ICE agents.

Many are taking “Know Your Rights” trainings to learn how to respond safely during encounters with ICE, with unions providing resources to support these efforts. In just two days, the St. Paul Federation of Educators in Minesota trained 400 people to serve as school patrol volunteers. The union also has coordinated workshops for immigrant parents on how to complete the legal paperwork they need to keep their children safe, in case the parents are detained or deported.

Educators also work to help students navigate the anxiety and support families too afraid to leave their homes. Many spend their evenings arranging food and supply drop off or helping families register for food banks and employment resources.

“We cannot and will not be silent. As educators, we have a moral and professional responsibility to keep all students safe, no matter where they were born or who they are, both in school and in their communities. Federal terror has no place in public education or in a democracy. This moment requires moral clarity and courage—because this is not just an immigration issue. It is a human rights issue, a civil rights issue, and a democracy issue,” said Becky Pringle, EI vice-president, President of the NEA, the largest labour union in the U.S. and an Education International affiliate.

Randi Weingarten, President of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), also an EI affiliate, stressed that “ICE must leave our schools and communities immediately—they are making us less, not more, safe. This is a moral moment to come together as Americans around the principle that schools and communities must be safe and welcoming places, not targets for militarized incursions designed to pit us against each other.”

Both the NEA and the AFT have called on elected officials at every level to act to protect students and keep ICE and other federal agents out of schools, hospitals, and places of worship.

“Arresting and deporting preschool children, honor students, and teaches, killing people, including US citizens, with impunity is state terror and deliberate cruelty, and we will not stand for it. Teachers and education workers in the United States are rallying for their students and their communities. They do not stand alone. The entire global education community stands with them as they rise to protect democracy, the rule of law, and basic humanity in the United States”, stated David Edwards, Education International General Secretary.