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In the months since the election, our country has borne witness to intensifying attacks against the rights and freedoms of everyday Americans, families, and immigrants. Sweeping detentions — or, what we’d call kidnappings and abductions — of already over 30,000 people have fractured families, left critical gaps in workspaces, and paralyzed communities in fear of the next attack. In order to help pay for mass detention and deportation, billionaires who have schemed their way into our government are gutting government agencies — including the Department of Education — and stealing billions from American taxpayers.
Although young immigrants and allies have been sounding the alarm, our elected officials have failed to stand on the front lines and become a true oppositional force to these assaults. Too often, we have heard our elected officials shamefully claim their hands are tied and their power to fight back is limited. But our democracy is crumbling, and as allies, immigrants, and teachers who have a responsibility to protect our immigrant students, this moment demands we step up where our politicians have failed.
As former recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, we enter our classrooms with a visceral understanding of how immigration impacts the lives of our students and their families. We share our personal stories of what it was like to be undocumented with our students and their families, who look to us for additional support and fear over what to do if they are targeted or if a close family member is abducted without a trace. It has been heartbreaking to have these conversations with our students and their parents. Schools should be places of learning, exploration, and safety. But instead of worrying about having enough tissues, papers, and pencils for our classrooms, teachers like us are having to figure out what to do if armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents come to our campuses.
Coast to coast, we have taped up signs in our classrooms and office spaces that read ‘Keep ICE Out of Our Communities’ in order to make our support for our immigrant students and families undeniably visible. As teachers, we are there to teach and to remind every one of our students that in our classroom, they are safe.
We’ve had to adapt beyond our teaching roles to become protectors of our students. In recent months, we went around printing stacks of Know Your Rights cards to be able to share valuable, potentially life-saving information so students and their families would know their rights.
We know from experience that staying safe means staying organized and informed. Over the past few weeks, we have led training for our school staff and students and helped families fill out preparedness packets so that they have a written plan for navigating the worst possible scenarios. At every turn, we have worked to get our people and communities organized.
In a perfect world, we would be able to focus on what we were hired to do: teach. Our elected officials would be committed to addressing the real concerns teachers like us have raised for years, from gun violence to widespread student hunger, lack of arts and music programs, and deteriorating school infrastructure and supplies.
We didn’t sign up to serve as shields, but this moment is demanding that we step up. It is demanding that every single person find opportunities to show up when our immigrant students, peers, neighbors, friends, and coworkers are being targeted. Because as allies, it’s our responsibility to not just be an inconvenience to this cruel agenda but to actively fight against the rising authoritarianism to which we are all bearing witness.
In the times to come, we’re grounded in knowing that we protect each other. When immigrants are targeted, we all lose. We need to stand together and say: No ICE in our schools, our neighborhoods, our workplaces, our cities. No more fear in the spaces where we should all feel safe.
