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'Red cards,' encrypted chats and volunteer escorts: NYC schools brace for deportations
By
Jessica Gould
Published Feb 5, 2025
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David Dee Delgado/Getty Images
By
Jessica Gould
Published Feb 5, 2025
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At a middle school in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, students are pocketing “red cards” outlining undocumented immigrants’ rights as fast as teachers can print them. On the Upper West Side, residents are signing up to escort undocumented kids to school so their parents don’t have to leave the house and risk being detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Teachers have joined chat groups on encrypted messaging apps to alert each other to sightings of immigration authorities.
Taken together, the efforts paint a picture of New York City schools bracing for major disruptions as President Donald Trump’s mass deportation operations get underway.
Last week, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined immigration agents on a raid in the Bronx where she boasted of taking “dirtbags off these streets.”
But there have been no attempted raids at city schools, and city policy still generally prohibits federal immigration officials from entering public schools.
Nevertheless, Schools Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos said last week in Albany that fear of immigration raids was one factor fueling declining attendance across the nation’s largest school system. On Monday, attendance was just under 82%, after averaging 87% in January. On Tuesday, the attendance rate had bounced back to 89%, closer to the norm. But teachers said they’ve noticed increased absences in their classrooms.
"I've had one parent share that her daughter has been home for a week because ... a neighbor was deported so they're afraid to go out,” said Caroll Jimenez, a teacher at Sunset Park Prep middle school.
Other New Yorkers worried that advocacy at schools, including a proliferation of “know your rights” workshops, could create alarm among children.
“Instilling all this fear into [the students] isn’t good either,” said Lisa Selin Davis, the parent of a Manhattan public high school student. “I don't support Trump or many of his policies, but I see them as a reaction to left-wing overreach … I consider the students who are feeling really afraid right now to be victims as much of Biden's policy as Trump's.”
Davis cited President Joe Biden’s “open border policies,” as well as a Marine Park high school that closed for one day last year to house migrants flooded out of a shelter during a thunderstorm as an example of overreach. The Biden administration set a record for deportations in a single year that eclipsed Trump during his first term.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem joined authorities on an immigration raid in the Bronx earlier this year.
Department of Homeland Security
According to a Siena poll released this week, New Yorkers favor supporting the federal government’s plans to deport people who entered the country illegally 48%-31%.
The exact number of people detained during the latest wave of immigration raids isn’t clear. The New York Times reported that ICE detained 39 people during the Bronx operation last week. ICE has stated on X that it is arresting 1,000 people or more each day across the country. ICE’s press office did not respond to an email seeking updated figures on detentions.
The efforts are central to Trump’s campaign promise to crackdown on undocumented immigrants. Just after he took office, the Department of Homeland Security said immigration enforcement agents could enter “sensitive locations,” including churches and schools. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a Homeland Security statement reads.
In response, teachers said multiple encrypted chats and “rapid response networks” have formed to mobilize people if ICE arrives at a school. Some chat groups are organized geographically, while others focus on legal help and housing for immigrants.
One teacher in the chats, who requested anonymity because she worried about her students’ safety, said she felt she had no choice because local officials aren’t doing enough to protect immigrants.
The city’s education department has distributed resources about rights, and offered legal trainings for administrators, instructing them to call the department’s legal division before allowing any federal authorities to enter school buildings.
Jimenez, the teacher at Sunset Park Prep middle school, said educators have posted “red cards” to a bulletin board with bullet points on a person’s rights when confronted by immigration authorities.
“We refill them several times a day,” she said. “Lots of students have been coming and taking them every day for the last two weeks.”
Jimenez said roughly 70% of Sunset Park Prep’s students come from immigrant families, and many of the middle schoolers have expressed fear that they or their parents might be deported. She said some students have asked for school ID cards, just so they have some kind of documentation to show authorities, while others have been staying home and missing school. Parents have asked whether remote learning might be an option for their kids.
Meanwhile, some parents who are attorneys have offered to serve as notaries for undocumented parents seeking to designate guardians for their children if they are detained. Others have offered to escort children to school so their undocumented families can stay home during the school commute, according to Naveed Hasan, who co-founded a group called District 3 Open Arms on the Upper West Side to support immigrant families through clothing drives, legal clinics and advocacy.
“Hiding from your own government, it’s deeply sad,” Hasan said.
As policy, the school system does not track or share students’ immigration status, but a comptroller’s report from last summer said there were roughly 50,000 undocumented families with children in the city’s shelters, and there are likely many more children from mixed families with at least one undocumented parent.
On Monday, immigrant advocates met Aviles-Ramos to recommend additional measures, including having schools select a point person for supporting immigrant students, and expand immigrants’ rights training to all school staff.
“It’s really hyperlocal groups that are coming together saying we care about this issue, we care about all students,” said Amanda Ashcraft, a parent who has been working with immigrant families as part of District 1’s Open Arms effort. “Ultimately my frustrations and anger is with the Adams administration. The way that he has talked about immigrants in this city … does not give me confidence that he will stick his neck out for students when push comes to shove.”
Mayor Eric Adams has taken a deferential approach toward Trump and declined to criticize his immigration policies. On Tuesday, his spokesperson downplayed any decline in enrollment in city schools.
“I’ve been very clear, children should go to school,” Adams said after testimony in Albany.
The mayor added there has been no “mass exodus” of immigrant children from classrooms.
Jon Campbell contributed reporting.
Tagged
new york city
education
Jessica Gould
Jessica is the education reporter for WNYC and Gothamist. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Jessica reported on the shutdown and reopening of the nation’s largest school system, highlighting the unprecedented impacts on learning, health and mental health for students, staff and families. Got a tip? Email [email protected]
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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