Just one day after taking office, President Trump signed an executive order authorizing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to resume raids in sensitive locations, including schools and churches. Immigrant rights groups and education advocates immediately sounded the alarm, warning that these policies would have far-reaching consequences, especially for the most vulnerable.
Now, months later, their warnings have come to pass.
On June 6, ICE launched military-style raids in California, days after federal authorities deployed the National Guard and hundreds of Marines to Los Angeles, a self-declared sanctuary city.
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Pew Research Center data shows that 1 in 10 Black Americans is an immigrant. And while much of the public debate has focused on immigration policy writ large, advocates say the impact of the raids creates a climate of fear for immigrant students.
They “are afraid to leave their homes,” says Dr. Christopher Nellum, executive director of Ed-Trust. “Some parents no longer feel safe taking their children to school.”
In recent weeks, some immigrant students have skipped graduation. Others aren’t showing up to summer school — not because they don’t want to attend, but because they’re afraid they’ll be detained.
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Immigration raids “are an act of terror against the very communities that fuel our schools, colleges, and way of life,” Nellum says. “Families are being torn apart, students are traumatized, and educators are left reeling. When they are under attack, our educational institutions are under attack.”
The Toll of Anti-Black Racism and ICE Activity
Studies from Harvard’s Immigration Initiative show that students from diverse or mixed immigration status families experience higher levels of anxiety, depression, and school disengagement.
For Black immigrant students, these challenges are compounded by racial bullying and harassment, racial profiling by teachers, and systemic bias within schools.
“When a child’s body is coded as both Black and foreign, it is doubly marked,” says Dr. David Kirkland, a New York City-based education scholar and CEO of forwardED. “How do you ‘do school’ under siege? You don’t.”
Kirkland says we also have to remember that school is more than a building: “It’s a covenant between a society and its children that, for a time, they will be safe enough to wonder, stable enough to grow, and free enough to imagine themselves into being,” he says. “Surveillance — particularly racialized surveillance — shatters this promise.”
A National Alarm
While ICE raids drew national attention to Los Angeles, the Trump administration plans to expand enforcement into other cities with large immigrant populations, such as New York City and Chicago.
“What you’re seeing happen to Angelenos is happening to your neighbors,” Nellum says. “Los Angeles is not unique — it’s just a harbinger of what we will likely see more of across the nation.”
Keeping Immigrant Students Safe
In response to growing concerns among families, the Los Angeles Unified School District introduced several protective measures, including creating “safety zones” on campuses, relocating summer school sites to reduce travel, and offering virtual options.
But Nellum says those measures, while important, don’t go far enough.
“It’s time to go further,” he says. “Expanded access to legal, housing, and mental health support is needed immediately.”
That’s why Nellum and EdTrust–West, which is based in Oakland, are pushing state lawmakers to pass legislation that would restrict federal agents’ access to schools and student data.
“Young people must hear, again and again, in as many ways as possible: you belong to our community,” Nellum says. “We care about you and you deserve safety and protection.”
Kirkland says that beyond policy, schools must work to rebuild trust and create learning environments that address the educational, emotional, and psychological needs of students.
“Justice requires a redistribution of power,” Kirkland says. “In this moment, power must be used to shield the vulnerable, amplify the silenced, and repair what fear has broken.”
