Schools Are Bracing for Upheaval Over Fear of Mass Deportations

Last time Donald Trump was president, rumors of immigration raids terrorized the Oregon community where Gustavo Balderas was the school superintendent.

Word spread that immigration agents were going to try to enter schools. There was no truth to it, but school staff members had to find students who were avoiding school and coax them back to class.

“People just started ducking and hiding,” Balderas said.

Educators around the country are bracing for upheaval, whether or not the president-elect follows through on his pledge to deport millions of immigrants who are in the country illegally. Even if he only talks about it, children of immigrants will suffer, educators and legal observers said.

If “you constantly threaten people with the possibility of mass deportation, it really inhibits peoples’ ability to function in society and for their kids to get an education,” said Hiroshi Motomura, a professor at UCLA School of Law.

That fear already has started for many.

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Immigration officials have avoided arresting parents or students at schools. Since 2011, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has operated under a policy that immigration agents should not arrest or conduct other enforcement actions near “sensitive locations,” including schools, hospitals and places of worship. Doing so might curb access to essential services, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas wrote in a 2021 policy update.

The Heritage Foundation’s policy roadmap for Trump’s second term, Project 2025, calls for rescinding the guidance on “sensitive places.” Trump tried to distance himself from the proposals during the campaign, but he has nominated many who worked on the plan for his new administration, including Tom Homan for “border czar.”

If immigration agents were to arrest a parent dropping off children at school, it could set off mass panic, said Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights in Los Angeles.

“If something happens at one school, it spreads like wildfire and kids stop coming to school,” she said.

Balderas, now the superintendent in Beaverton, a different Portland suburb, told the school committee there this month it was time to prepare for a more determined Trump administration. In case schools are targeted, Beaverton will train staff not to allow immigration agents inside.

“All bets are off with Trump,” said Balderas, who is also president of ASSA, The School Superintendents Association. “If something happens, I feel like it will happen a lot quicker than last time.”

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