Educators worry about how to talk immigration with families facing mass deportations
The morning after Election Day last year, Melanie Claros, a civics teacher and ESL coordinator at a South Florida school where half the students are Latino, found herself having to do a job beyond her usual duties.
The morning after Election Day last year, Melanie Claros, a civics teacher and ESL coordinator at a South Florida school where half the students are Latino, found herself having to do a job beyond her usual duties.
By the end of the day, she recently told NBC News, more than two dozen students had separately approached her to ask about changes to immigration enforcement ahead of another Donald Trump presidency.
“‘Are they going to deport all of us now?’ ‘Who is going to get deported first?’” she recalled students asking her during class.
The concerns have not abated since then, Claros said, noting she knows of at least one student who has already stopped showing up to school for immigration-related reasons. “I am very suspicious that we will have [more] kids that will be withdrawn or just stop showing up to school,” she said.
Claros is one of several educators across six states who told NBC News they have found themselves in the uncomfortable position of fielding questions about potential mass deportations under the Trump administration. Many teachers and administrators are aware of a variety of scenarios that could start playing out very soon: immigration officials asking about a student; a kid who leaves school for the day only to discover that their parents have been detained and no one is home to care for them; students worried about deportation who simply stop coming to class. Educators and advocates say they feel they have to be prepared for these situations, but they are also keenly aware of the risk of backlash that can come with talking about a political issue like this publicly.
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