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\nWhen Bilal, a recent immigrant from South Asia, started his sophomore year at a high school in a large southern U.S. city in 2014, it wasn\u2019t a welcoming experience.<\/p>\n
\nWhen Bilal, a recent immigrant from South Asia, started his sophomore year at a high school in a large southern U.S. city in 2014, it wasn\u2019t a welcoming experience.<\/p>\n
Upon entering the school, Bilal had to go through a metal detector. Then a school police officer patted him down. Bilal did not understand why a school would need such high security measures. Still, he tried to adjust.<\/p>\n
While he did his best, teachers and administrators peppered him with questions that made him feel as if he were under extra scrutiny. They asked why his attire \u2013 a kurta, or long shirt, that he wore over his jeans \u2013 was the same as that worn by the \u201cterrorists\u201d they had seen on YouTube videos. They asked about his family\u2019s loyalty: If given the choice, would he and his family choose America or their homeland?<\/p>\n
All of the questions made it challenging for Bilal to focus. He felt as if the teachers were targeting him.<\/p>\n
As experts in\u00a0education<\/a>,\u00a0immigration<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0race<\/a>, we know that Bilal\u2019s experience as a recent immigrant of color is by no means isolated.<\/p>\n We interviewed hundreds of\u00a0immigrant students<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0their teachers<\/a>\u00a0across seven American cities. During our observations from 2013 through 2018, we learned that many immigrant high school students fear something we refer to in peer-reviewed research as the \u201cschool-to-deportation pipeline<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n This is a situation in which students worry that minor infractions at school could lead to penal consequences ranging from being arrested to being subjected to deportation. Many of the students we interviewed claimed to know someone who had been deported for those reasons. Disturbingly, we found that some of the teachers and administrators not only believed there to be \u201cschool-to-deportation\u201d pipeline but actually used it to strategically exclude students. The reason, as we explain in a different peer-reviewed article, is\u00a0they didn\u2019t want the immigrant students to lower their standardized school test scores<\/a>\u00a0and jeopardize funding.<\/p>\n Some teachers and administrators expressed concerns that immigrant students would score poorly on standardized exams, which can have negative consequences for teachers and administrators. Low test scores can trigger\u00a0increased oversight<\/a>, a change in a school\u2019s administration or\u00a0even a school shutdown<\/a>. Even a few scores \u2013 particularly very low ones \u2013 can make a large difference to schools that are teetering between making adequate progress and those rated as failing.<\/p>\n Zoya, a recent immigrant from East Africa, experienced such teacher worries. While she generally understood the academic content well when asked verbally, standardized tests confused her. Additionally, Zoya\u2019s teachers did not understand her obligations of caring for siblings and helping with the family business, which occasionally made her inattentive or late or made her miss class entirely. One time she fell asleep during a standardized test and didn\u2019t have time to complete all the questions.<\/p>\n Zoya\u2019s story was not uncommon. Many immigrant students we spoke with expressed a strong desire for academic achievement yet found themselves seen by teachers as having a poor work ethic or low content comprehension.<\/p>\n A teacher at another school, Heather, shared with us: \u201cSo, this one kid \u2026 he never comes to school. But, we\u2019re going to be held responsible for his [standardized test] scores because he\u2019s registered, but he\u2019s definitely not an American.\u201d<\/p>\n Acting upon their perceptions, some teachers attempted to dissuade immigrant students of color from attending test days by alluding to additional police presence and consequent potential for initiating deportation proceedings.<\/p>\n Lisa, another teacher who worked closely with her school\u2019s administrators, outlined the process with the case of a student named Juan. \u201cOne day, my principal took him aside and warned him that the police were looking for him. \u2026 He stopped coming.\u201d Often, the result of threatening immigration enforcement on school premises had the impact of students\u2019 never returning at all. While this was certainly not present in every school we studied, we did find that teacher behavior clustered strongly in schools. That is, schools tended either to be places where this sort of behavior was commonplace or completely unheard of. Of the nearly 40 schools we sampled, threatening immigrant students with deportation via police was widely accepted at six schools and lesser known but still present at another three.<\/p>\n We don\u2019t know of any cases in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were contacted. However, we did often see or hear of local police being called. We don\u2019t have any data on how often actual deportations arise from minor infractions at school. Yet the mere threat of potential deportation or being sent to a detention center was intimidation enough to keep students from entering the school premises. ICE\u2019s\u00a0official policy<\/a>\u00a0is to avoid enforcement in \u201csensitive locations,\u201d such as schools and places of worship, unless there are \u201cexigent circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n The presence of police in schools is nothing new. However, now that some police officers have essentially been\u00a0deputized to act as immigration officers<\/a>, immigrant students worry that getting into trouble at school can lead to deportation.<\/p>\n Research shows\u00a0students of color are disproportionately disciplined<\/a>\u00a0and arrested for offenses for which their white classmates receive lighter punishment. Our\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0found immigrant students face\u00a0similar consequences<\/a>. As disproportionately\u00a0people of color<\/a>, immigrants can\u00a0often be subjected<\/a>\u00a0to police encounters on school premises. A criminal record can be a\u00a0serious detriment<\/a>\u00a0in an immigration hearing.<\/p>\n ICE was established as an agency under the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 to enforce customs and immigration laws. In 2006 ICE began using a section of an existing federal law, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996, to start forming partnerships with local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law. These partnerships were named\u00a0287(g)<\/a>\u00a0agreements after the subsection of the law granting that power.<\/p>\n As such, local police needed only suspicion of undocumented status as cause to arrest, detain and issue a \u201cnotice to appear,\u201d which initiates the deportation process. Thus, interactions with local and school police can be risky for immigrant students.<\/p>\n One student shared this: \u201cI worry about immigration things and \u2026 the police could kick me out of school and I was scared.\u201d As the ACLU noted in a\u00a02019 lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the U.S. Department of Justice that cited our research, individual officer discretion can strongly affect the fate of immigrant students of color and their families.<\/p>\n Not all teachers and school administrators isolate \u201cproblematic\u201d students. Some actively protect students by \u201cforgetting\u201d to file disciplinary paperwork or using their professional relationships with police to protect students.<\/p>\n One school administrator told us about his interactions with a trusted student who was forced to transport drugs. Instead of calling 911, the administrator called a police officer with whom he had struck up a professional friendship. The officer flushed the drugs and then gave the student a police report to show the dealer as cover for the lost contraband, but never officially filed the report. In the administrator\u2019s view, this saved the student.<\/p>\n \u201cHe would\u2019ve been arrested for possession,\u201d the administrator said. \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t have been deported immediately, but he\u2019s going through immigration proceedings, and when it came time for him to get his paperwork, he would be denied because he had a criminal record, and he\u2019d be deported then.\u201d<\/p>\n Just as the school-to-prison pipeline has gotten well-deserved attention, we believe that similar attention should be given to concerns about the school-to-deportation pipeline and the way that some\u00a0immigrant students are threatened with deportation<\/a>\u00a0at school.<\/p>\n Public schools have a\u00a0mandate to educate all students, including immigrants of color<\/a>. If teachers and administrators in schools use the threat of deportation to intimidate students, schools become spaces for policing rather than learning.<\/p>\nTeacher worries<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Law enforcement presence<\/strong><\/h4>\n
What police can do<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Some schools protect students<\/strong><\/h4>\n