The Progress Report: As ICE Arrests Near Schools Stack Up, Some Teachers Are Mobilizing

Erendira Ramirez’s first introduction to activism came when she worked as a substitute teacher in the East Mesa Juvenile Detention Facility. Her work there introduced her to the phenomenon of the school-to-prison pipeline. It also drove her to more deeply embed activism into her life and changed the way she approached teaching. 

“What keeps educators in the classroom is the love of the students,” Ramirez said. “Being willing to try to improve conditions for your students not only in the classrooms, but outside, I think that that’s the biggest expression of that love.” 

Over the last decade and a half, Ramirez has thrown herself more into the world of immigration advocacy. She’s since become the chair of California’s Association of Raza Educators, an organization that advocates for Hispanic and Chicano students. 

Since his inauguration, President Donald Trump’s administration has ratcheted up immigration enforcement to an unprecedented degree. The recently passed funding bill allocated a staggering $175 million to ICE. That sum is larger than the annual budget for the military of any nation save the United States and China. 

Masked agents have been dispatched nationwide, immigrants with no criminal history and little legal recourse are being shipped to a notorious foreign prison and ICE rescinded a Biden-era policy that restricted agents from carrying out immigration raids in formerly protected areas like hospitals, churches and schools. 

 Locally, we’ve seen a mounting number of arrests of parents near schools – often after dropping their kids off in the morning, or while waiting in the afternoon to pick them up. 

Throughout it all, the Association of Raza Educators has taken a more active role in sounding the alarm. They’ve hosted training sessions meant to help educators better understand how to respond to ICE actions, led protests and mutual aid events, urged district leaders to take a stronger stand against immigration officials and together with groups like Union Del Barrio, mounted community patrols and lookouts. Still, like schools more broadly, federal immigration laws mean they can only do so much. 

I recently spoke to Ramirez about the impact immigration enforcement is having on schools, the tricky legal footing activists must navigate and how she thinks educators should respond to what’s to come. 

Editor’s note: This interview was edited for length and clarity. 

Q: What impact has Trump’s immigration crackdown had on school communities? On parents, students and teachers? 

A: We know that it hasn’t just been Trump. This is the type of issue students in the migrant community have faced for a very long time. ARE was formed in 1994 due to proposition 187, (a law that passed overwhelmingly and prohibited undocumented immigrants from using taxpayer-funded services like public schools) so, we’ve always had to figure out ways to support students. 

The rise of fear, the terrorizing, that’s been one of the biggest things we’ve seen. With the amount of resources this administration has been put toward the enforcement and the removal of people, we’ve noticed students are not coming to school as frequently. They’re now being way more cautious. We have students that have transferred to schools that are closer to them, so they don’t have to go as far.  

 All of the threats against public education in general have also been an issue. And it’s hard because as an educator, you’re like, ‘We have to ensure that we are keeping our students safe,’ but then, how do you keep the profession safe too? Like, how do we ensure they don’t do away with public education as a whole?  

Q: How have school communities responded? 

A: School districts have at least taken somewhat of a stand by saying ‘We won’t let (ICE) on campus.’ 

On the other hand, though, people are also being terrorized adjacent to school.  

People in the education sector are also reaching out to different folks to figure out what else can be done. We’ve had more turnout to our general meetings to come and learn more about ways they can support. There’s been coalition building where folks are kind of leaning on each other, whether it’s educators with nonprofits, educators with human rights coalitions, educators with political organizations.  

I have seen more educators asking, ‘How can we help? What else can we do?’ And that’s, that’s encouraging. But it’s also tough, because it can be very challenging for folks to figure out how to make it sustainable and how to fit it into their nine to five. 

That’s part of the contradiction, though, because if we’re going to make changes and really provide support for the community, it’s not going to be because your principal tells you or within the constraints of school hours. It’s going to require extra effort. 

Q: Tell me about the work you’re doing with ARE? 

A: We’ve had trainings on how to do community patrols, what things to look for, how to respond, the kind of the do’s and don’ts. We’ve done political education where we’ve talked about what steps people could take to organize their own campuses. Setting up networks of people that are trusted, understanding who’s on our side, who’s not, then looking at structures that are already within the within the school system that we can utilize. 

It was a mix of principals, attorneys, educators, school workers, parents, students at our last meeting, 

One of the things that we always mention is that we are small in numbers, so we don’t have the human capacity to be everywhere, but we definitely can start by showing how we do things at our campuses and how to start local organizing at each campus. 

Q: Since Trump’s win, federal immigration officials have rewritten rules around immigration enforcement, like getting rid of the sensitive areas provision that advised them not to conduct raids in places like churches, hospitals or schools. What effect has that had on schools? 

A: The laws were rewritten so we kind of have to dig in our heels as organizers and say, ‘These places, schools, churches, hospitals, these need to be safe spaces.’  

Arrests have definitely affected parents and families, (who are) like, ‘I don’t really want to risk sending my kid to school.’ That’s the saddest part. Some people have come from other countries because they want their kids to benefit from everything this country has to offer, education being one of them, and then they have to make that decision. 

That’s one of the main points that we’re trying to push, that schools, at least, should be safe. We have to ensure that this is not a space that is taken from families. 

Last Tuesday, we were in the media saying, ‘There are teachers that care, there are people that are willing to protect you, people that are willing to take risks if necessary to ensure that students and families are feeling safe.’ 

I had a reporter ask me, ‘What do you say about it not being lawful?’ And I said ‘Well, not everything that’s lawful is correct, and not everything that’s lawful is moral.’ 

This is history in the making. So, what are we willing to do? Are we going to just follow the law to the T, or are we willing to do what’s right and ensure that students still feel safe in schools?  

Q: Much of the guidance schools have put forward amid the increased enforcement boils down to, “If ICE agents try to come on campus, we’re going to make sure they have a valid warrant.” Do you feel local district leaders have done enough to respond to the threat ICE poses? 

A: No, absolutely not. 

That’s a lot of what the work that we’re engaging in right now is about. An email, a link, some empty rhetoric, the warrant stuff, all of that is not enough.  

If we’re looking at it from a historical standpoint, there are people (who) did all kinds of unlawful things that we now are glad that they did, because conditions don’t change by us just following the rules. 

We understand that resources are maybe being cut in some areas, nonprofits run the risk of losing that funding. I know there’s fear on behalf of districts too. But we know that there are resources, and we know that we have to be more creative and more strategic on how to use them to actually be able to defend students.  

Even if you have a warrant right for a person’s arrest, it really shouldn’t be (served) at a school, because you’re traumatizing, you’re affecting the school community, you’re terrorizing people. That is unnecessary.  

Why should we make your job easier when what you’re doing is hunting people’s parents and families and terrorizing people in the process?  

So, we’re trying to make sure districts understand and hear – we want more. However it is that they can get creative with their funding, with their resources, school police, using community school liaisons, a lot of schools have been parent centers. Any of the stuff that’s already in place, how are you utilizing that to ensure that kids are safe? Because the link and the resources and the email just isn’t cutting it. 

Q: After the arrest near Linda Vista Elementary, San Diego Unified Board President Cody Petterson told me “The idea that (ICE) won’t attempt to enter campuses, that’s preposterous. That will come. I think that’s part of escalation.” Do you agree? 

A: Having seen some of the stuff that’s been going on in other parts of the country, there’s nothing stopping them. 

That’s a big piece of what we’re doing right now is just drawing the line in the sand, like, ‘No, not past this.’ Even take the most recent thing at Ibarra (Elementary) in City Heights: (ICE) was patrolling in the area, they were there for some other reason, but they felt comfortable enough to pull into a school parking lot. That, to us, is also a strategic move. That is signaling that they’re headed in that direction. 

We’re not going to wait to find out. We’re not going to sit on our hands and just kind of wait for them to enter the campuses. We’re figuring out ways that we can prepare educators, parents, school communities, for when that does happen. That’s the whole reason we’re doing the work, because we figure that that is absolutely a possibility. 

Q: Even as federal immigration officials have rewritten rules, educators have largely had their hands tied. They can’t change the rules as much. When I spoke to San Diego Unified Superintendent Fabiola Bagula after the arrest near Linda Vista Elementary, she described how even she struggled knowing she couldn’t advise anyone to break the law and more fully push back against ICE because as an educator, she felt like she herself would want to. How do you think about that? 

A: Obviously, we have to be very careful. 

Someone asked me ‘How far are you willing to go?’ They asked me this on camera, and I said, ‘I can’t tell you 100% because I don’t know. I’ll know when I’m there, when it actually happens.’  

I can say this because I have allies, I have Comrades, I have, you know, a village, I have a group of people that I know will back me up if something were to happen.  

That’s one of the things that unfortunately, not a lot of educators have. The profession kind of tends to make us that way. You have your class, you have your domain, you just worry about that and stay in your lane. We have to start building those networks, we have to build those coalitions. We have to have people that have our back. 

I know that there are educators that might say, ‘I could never,’ and then in the moment who’s to say they won’t be like, ‘Oh, hell no. You’re not taking my kids.’ 

We have to be able to even just mentally entertain the idea of, ‘What could I do? How could I do it? What is it that can happen? All the possibilities.’ I think we’re in danger when people just say, ‘It’s unlawful, or it’s against the rules, or I’m going to lose my job.’ Because then we have no hope of ever changing anything.  

The system and the people that have all of the privileges aren’t going to ever give us a green light to change the conditions. So, we have to figure out ways that we can navigate this or act that’s going to reduce the harm for us individually but also not sell ourselves out. 

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