Lawmakers Demand Info on Students Detained by ICE, Incl…
Lawmakers Demand Info on Students Detained by ICE, Incl…
uaetodaynews.com — Lawmakers Demand Info on Students Detained by ICE, Including on Their Schooling – The 74
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New York Congressional Democrats have demanded that the departments of Education and Homeland Security provide information on the welfare of recently detained students — including whether they are receiving educational services.
Led by U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, they expressed “profound concern” to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Education Secretary Linda McMahon “about the pattern of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targeting K-12 public school students throughout the country.”
They cited the cases of five young New Yorkers — including a 6-year-old Ecuadorian girl who was deported with her mother in August while her brother, a recent high school graduateremained in adult Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. Two other siblings, one a K-12 student, were left in New York without their mother.
“ICE’s targeting of not only adults without criminal convictions, but also children and families, negates the administration’s stated policy of going after the ‘worst of the worst’ for deportation proceedings,” they note in an Oct. 3 letter signed by eight other New York Democratic U.S. representatives, including Ritchie Torres and Jerrold Nadler.
They demanded to know the total number of students — from kindergarten to college-age — arrested by the Department of Homeland Security since President Donald Trump took office in January. They want to learn how many remain in ICE custody, their average length of stay and what percentage were or are being held alongside their families.
They further asked how the U.S. government is meeting its legal obligation to educate these children and, more specifically, about the quality and language proficiency of the teaching staff.
“The Department of Education has the responsibility under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution to ensure that all students have equal access to education,” they wrote. “Please provide copies of curricula, sample lesson plans, and rubrics currently in use at ICE detention facilities, processing sites, and Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters.”
An Education Department spokeswoman said Monday that it will respond to the letter when the government reopens. In a statement to The 74, DHS did not answer any questions about the school-age children detained by its agents, but blamed the media for “attempting to create a climate of fear and smear law enforcement.”
Ocasio-Cortez and Espaillat did not respond to The 74’s requests for comment. A spokesperson for Goldman, whose district encompasses Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, said he “remains extremely committed to holding ICE accountable for terrorizing our schools and communities.”
The U.S. representatives’ worry about the fate of immigrant children echoes concerns being voiced nationally. Advocates say their communities are living in constant fear as children and parents are targeted near school grounds, particularly in Chicago and Los Angeles where ICE tactics have been aggressive.
Alarm over agents’ actions and their apparent lack of accountability was a central theme of the more than 2,700 “No Kings” protests attended by millions across the country this past weekend.
Ranking Democratic members of two congressional subcommittees said Monday they would investigate misconduct allegations against ICE agents, citing recent reporting by ProPublica that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been held — including nearly 20 children.
“There’s no boundaries in this dragnet,” Rebecca Brown, a supervising attorney with Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told The 74 . “Now there’s no ‘off limits.’ Everything is fair game.”
Not only are children and their parents being swept up near school grounds, Brown said the current federal government shutdown is making it increasingly difficult for families — and attorneys — to locate anyone who’s been detained.
“With this administration and with this budget shutdown, it is really hard to get folks on the phone,” she said.
Immigrant advocacy organizations are urging parents to make guardianship plans, including those specific to their child’s schooling. One such group, in response to the massive uptick in enforcement efforts, said for the first time it’s helped some 100 families this year make binding educational plans for their kids in case their parents or guardians are arrested or deported.
“We have not used this in prior years,” said Julie Babayeva, supervising attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group’s LegalHealth Unit. “We are doing this much more now. This is becoming super urgent.”
than 59,700 people were in government detention in late September, according to a clearinghouse that tracks federal data. than 71% had no criminal convictions. than 2,200 unaccompanied minors were in government custody as of Oct. 20, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is under HHS, oversees their care at some 171 shelters and programs in 24 states and is charged with detainees’ schooling. ORR did not respond to requests for comment.
Undocumented immigrants over 18 are sent to adult holding sites. Dylan Lopez Contreras, 20 and a student at a New York City high school dedicated to older newcomers, is among them. The Bronx resident was arrested in May in a high-profile case and remains in detention as his lawyers appeal a judge’s September ruling denying him asylum and deporting him back to Venezuela.
Contreras’s case was also cited in the letter to Noem and McMahon, with the representatives noting he is being held hundreds of miles away from his family in Pennsylvania at the “Moshannon Valley Processing Center, from which there have been reports of insufficient medical care and use of solitary confinement.”
Conditions at both adult and child centers have been widely criticized. In addition to concerns about young people’s overall health and safety, educational offerings are often lacking at these sites: substandard curriculum and untrained or underqualified staff are among many complaints.
Just last week, a 13-year-old immigrant from Everett, Massachusetts, was arrested after authorities fielded a “credible tip” in which the student was said to have made “a violent threat against another boy within our public school.”
His mother, who arrived at the local police station to pick him up, was instead told ICE had already taken him away. The family, from Brazil, has a pending asylum claim. The mother told CNN her son called her from two different immigration facilities, one in Massachusetts and the other in Virginia.
“He cried a lot because he had never been away from home or his family,” she said. “He was desperate, saying ICE had taken him.”
Erika Richmond-Walton, a litigation fellow at Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, said the detention and deportation of young kids “is definitely not protecting or advancing their educational rights. Deporting children contradicts decades of settled law.”
And even if the children themselves are not targeted, the removal of their parents is devastating. One California mother is bereft after her husband was detained in late September after dropping off their 8-year-old daughter at school.
The woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of immigration enforcement, told The 74 she talks with her husband every day through video chat and that she expects him to be deported to their country of origin. She said government officials told her husband they are “waiting for the plane to fill up so they can send it to Colombia.”
Progressive podcaster Thom Hartmannsaid the well-documented damage to school-age children of aggressive deportation extends far beyond increased absenteeism, anxiety and plummeting grades. In a just society, he said, young people learn political norms through what they see.
“When a child watches a federal agent drag a parent from a car line or hauls someone off in front of classmates, they absorb a lived lesson: Power may be exercised arbitrarily, and some lives can be violated in public without accountability,” he said.
Adaku Onyeka-Crawford, director of the Opportunity To Learn Program and a senior attorney at The Advancement Project, located in Washington, D.C., said the government’s claim that it does not detain immigrants at schools is dubious.
“I think this administration is tricky when it’s saying we are not sending ICE to schools but are sending ICE after students who are on their way to school — and targeting communities and children no matter where they are or what their age.”
Prior administrations took such circumstances into account, at least to an extent, said Brown of the Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. But early on in his second term, Trump rescinded a longstanding restriction against immigration agents carrying out enforcement actions in so-called sensitive locationsincluding schools.
“There was some consideration for age and vulnerability,” she said. “We’ve seen an uptick in enforcement around schools. … This is by design: You punish the kids in order to get the parents to comply.”
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Disclaimer: This news article has been republished exactly as it appeared on its original source, without any modification.
We do not take any responsibility for its content, which remains solely the responsibility of the original publisher.
Author: Jo Napolitano
Published on: 2025-10-22 20:30:00
Source: www.the74million.org
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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Dan Goldman and Adriano Espaillat, they expressed “profound concern” to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Education Secretary Linda McMahon “about the pattern of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) targeting K-12 public school students throughout the country.”nnnnThey cited the cases of five young New Yorkers — including a 6-year-old Ecuadorian girl who was deported with her mother in August while her brother, a recent high school graduateremained in adult Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention. Two other siblings, one a K-12 student, were left in New York without their mother.nnnnnnnn“ICE’s targeting of not only adults without criminal convictions, but also children and families, negates the administration’s stated policy of going after the ‘worst of the worst’ for deportation proceedings,” they note in an Oct. 3 letter signed by eight other New York Democratic U.S. representatives, including Ritchie Torres and Jerrold Nadler.nnnnThey demanded to know the total number of students — from kindergarten to college-age — arrested by the Department of Homeland Security since President Donald Trump took office in January. They want to learn how many remain in ICE custody, their average length of stay and what percentage were or are being held alongside their families. nnnnThey further asked how the U.S. government is meeting its legal obligation to educate these children and, more specifically, about the quality and language proficiency of the teaching staff. nnnn“The Department of Education has the responsibility under the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution to ensure that all students have equal access to education,” they wrote. “Please provide copies of curricula, sample lesson plans, and rubrics currently in use at ICE detention facilities, processing sites, and Office of Refugee Resettlement shelters.”nnnnAn Education Department spokeswoman said Monday that it will respond to the letter when the government reopens. In a statement to The 74, DHS did not answer any questions about the school-age children detained by its agents, but blamed the media for “attempting to create a climate of fear and smear law enforcement.”nnnnU.S. Rep. Dan Goldman speaks with federal agents after observing a June 18 immigration court hearing at the Jacob K. Javits Federal Building in New York City. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)nnnnOcasio-Cortez and Espaillat did not respond to The 74’s requests for comment. A spokesperson for Goldman, whose district encompasses Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, said he “remains extremely committed to holding ICE accountable for terrorizing our schools and communities.” nnnnThe U.S. representatives’ worry about the fate of immigrant children echoes concerns being voiced nationally. Advocates say their communities are living in constant fear as children and parents are targeted near school grounds, particularly in Chicago and Los Angeles where ICE tactics have been aggressive. nnnnAlarm over agents’ actions and their apparent lack of accountability was a central theme of the more than 2,700 “No Kings” protests attended by millions across the country this past weekend. nnnnRanking Democratic members of two congressional subcommittees said Monday they would investigate misconduct allegations against ICE agents, citing recent reporting by ProPublica that more than 170 U.S. citizens have been held — including nearly 20 children. nnnnRebecca Brown, supervising attorney with Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project (Rebecca Brown)nnn“There’s no boundaries in this dragnet,” Rebecca Brown, a supervising attorney with Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, told The 74 . “Now there’s no ‘off limits.’ Everything is fair game.”nnnnNot only are children and their parents being swept up near school grounds, Brown said the current federal government shutdown is making it increasingly difficult for families — and attorneys — to locate anyone who’s been detained.nnnn“With this administration and with this budget shutdown, it is really hard to get folks on the phone,” she said.nnnnImmigrant advocacy organizations are urging parents to make guardianship plans, including those specific to their child’s schooling. One such group, in response to the massive uptick in enforcement efforts, said for the first time it’s helped some 100 families this year make binding educational plans for their kids in case their parents or guardians are arrested or deported.nnnn“We have not used this in prior years,” said Julie Babayeva, supervising attorney at the New York Legal Assistance Group’s LegalHealth Unit. “We are doing this much more now. This is becoming super urgent.”nnnnRelatedSchools, Groups Serving Undocumented Kids Take Their Activities Undergroundnnnn than 59,700 people were in government detention in late September, according to a clearinghouse that tracks federal data. than 71% had no criminal convictions. than 2,200 unaccompanied minors were in government custody as of Oct. 20, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is under HHS, oversees their care at some 171 shelters and programs in 24 states and is charged with detainees’ schooling. ORR did not respond to requests for comment.nnnnUndocumented immigrants over 18 are sent to adult holding sites. Dylan Lopez Contreras, 20 and a student at a New York City high school dedicated to older newcomers, is among them. The Bronx resident was arrested in May in a high-profile case and remains in detention as his lawyers appeal a judge’s September ruling denying him asylum and deporting him back to Venezuela.nnnnContreras’s case was also cited in the letter to Noem and McMahon, with the representatives noting he is being held hundreds of miles away from his family in Pennsylvania at the “Moshannon Valley Processing Center, from which there have been reports of insufficient medical care and use of solitary confinement.”nnnnConditions at both adult and child centers have been widely criticized. In addition to concerns about young people’s overall health and safety, educational offerings are often lacking at these sites: substandard curriculum and untrained or underqualified staff are among many complaints. nnnnJust last week, a 13-year-old immigrant from Everett, Massachusetts, was arrested after authorities fielded a “credible tip” in which the student was said to have made “a violent threat against another boy within our public school.” nnnnErika Richmond-Walton, litigation fellow at Lawyers for Civil Rights. (Erika Richmond-Walton)nnnHis mother, who arrived at the local police station to pick him up, was instead told ICE had already taken him away. The family, from Brazil, has a pending asylum claim. The mother told CNN her son called her from two different immigration facilities, one in Massachusetts and the other in Virginia. nnnn“He cried a lot because he had never been away from home or his family,” she said. “He was desperate, saying ICE had taken him.”nnnnErika Richmond-Walton, a litigation fellow at Boston-based Lawyers for Civil Rights, said the detention and deportation of young kids “is definitely not protecting or advancing their educational rights. Deporting children contradicts decades of settled law.” nnnnRelatedEducators Say Worst Fears Realized as High Schoolers Detained by ICEnnnnAnd even if the children themselves are not targeted, the removal of their parents is devastating. One California mother is bereft after her husband was detained in late September after dropping off their 8-year-old daughter at school. nnnnThe woman, who asked not to be identified for fear of immigration enforcement, told The 74 she talks with her husband every day through video chat and that she expects him to be deported to their country of origin. She said government officials told her husband they are “waiting for the plane to fill up so they can send it to Colombia.” nnnnProtestors march with signs and flags in a late afternoon No Kings protest against the Trump Administration in Detroit, Michigan, USA, on Oct. 18. (Getty Images)nnnnProgressive podcaster Thom Hartmannsaid the well-documented damage to school-age children of aggressive deportation extends far beyond increased absenteeism, anxiety and plummeting grades. In a just society, he said, young people learn political norms through what they see.nnnn“When a child watches a federal agent drag a parent from a car line or hauls someone off in front of classmates, they absorb a lived lesson: Power may be exercised arbitrarily, and some lives can be violated in public without accountability,” he said. nnnnAdaku Onyeka-Crawford, director of the Opportunity To Learn Program and a senior attorney at The Advancement Project, located in Washington, D.C., said the government’s claim that it does not detain immigrants at schools is dubious. nnnn“I think this administration is tricky when it’s saying we are not sending ICE to schools but are sending ICE after students who are on their way to school — and targeting communities and children no matter where they are or what their age.”nnnnPrior administrations took such circumstances into account, at least to an extent, said Brown of the Public Counsel’s Immigrants’ Rights Project. 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Disclaimer: This news article has been republished exactly as it appeared on its original source, without any modification.
We do not take any responsibility for its content, which remains solely the responsibility of the original publisher.
Author: uaetodaynews
Published on: 2025-10-22 18:09:00
Source: uaetodaynews.com
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