“Oh my God ! I can’t imagine why they would do that“, reacted Carmen, a Mexican immigrant to the American press agency AP.” What helped calm me down was knowing that the school is on our side and has promised to let us know if it’s not safe at school“, she added. In many districts, teachers try to reassure parents that schools are safe places for children.
“I’m trying to make sure parents know that the safest place for their children is our schools” said Pedro Martinez, superintendent of Chicago Public Schools with the Washington Post. In New York, a resolution opposing access to school facilities for ICE was approved by a school advisory and oversight committee. According to figures from the Migration Policy Institute, 733,000 school-aged children are in the United States illegally. Although a large number of them have American nationality, their parents are in an irregular situation.
For his part, Michael Lukens, director of the center for immigrant rights Amica Center, affirmed that the aim behind this new policy on immigration in schools was above all to make the lives of immigrant families unbearable, pushing them to leave the United States of itself.
