Back To School For Some, But Not For Others

There will be empty desks in classrooms after schoolkids as young as six have been swept up and deported by the Trump administration.

It’s back to school season, which means that millions of students all across the country will be returning to classrooms beginning this week. But when many of these kids should be excited about new clothes, school supplies, and getting to see their friends again, they’re instead left to worry that going to school will result in separation from their families and community. 

These fears are particularly pronounced in regions of the country that have been invaded by the administration. In the Washington, D.C. area, some 100,000 students are going back to school amid the unjustified deployment of National Guard troops and federal agents to the district. 

“The crackdown has especially been affecting parents and caregivers as the new school year begins,” The Guardian reports, with parents saying “they were scared to send their children to school. Nannies are calling out or asking to be escorted to and from work. Daycares are having to implement new safety precautions.” In L.A., some parents have reportedly missed drop-off amid ongoing raids that have been targeting community members. “Parents like Anna Bermudez and her husband arrived at Brooklyn Avenue School with their children and noticed many parents were absent compared to previous years,” CNN reported.

“‘It sucks, and it’s horrible and heartbreaking,’ said Anna Bermudez, whose son attends eighth grade at the school,” the report said. “It should be a happy day, and bringing our kids to school feeling safe. But the fact that you don’t feel safe, even dropping them off, you know? It’s very emotional.” 

While ICE officials claim that masked agents won’t stalk schools on the first day of classes, “they might come onto campuses in the future,” NBC News reported. Recall that after taking office, Trump fulfilled a Project 2025 demand and rescinded guidance that kept schools, hospitals, and houses of worship largely off-limits to most enforcement actions. And, their weak claim about the first day of school can’t erase the fact there will already be empty desks in many classrooms across the country.

In L.A., Miguel Contreras Center educator Karina Pérez told El País that her “students will miss their 17-year-old Guatemalan classmate, who was deported this summer along with her mother.” The girl was taken into custody after trying to just follow the rules and attend her immigration court date.

“Her classmates are very sad, especially those who ran track with her. They’re outraged that she can’t be in her senior year of high school,” Pérez said. “The kids no longer have the security they used to have, when schools were considered sanctuaries.” This senseless detention and deportation of a student simply exercising their constitutional guarantee to a public school education is not an aberration. 

In New York, ICE agents snatched 15-year-old high school student Roger Iza after he went to his ICE check-in with his dad. Both father and son had their phones confiscated and were quickly moved out of state to Louisiana to be detained in a Sheraton hotel, The Intercept reported. “As the immigration detention system is becoming more overcrowded, authorities are turning to hotels to house detainees.” From Louisiana, they were then moved to another private hotel in Texas, where Roger said that agents monitored their every move, including what they could say to loved ones during the brief calls they were allowed. Roger said agents even monitored them when they went to the bathroom and barred them from just looking out the window. 

“We couldn’t call or go on the web to ask for help,” Roger said. “Without our phones, we didn’t know any names or phone numbers.” That same month, a six-year-old elementary school student was also deported with her mother, again in New York, THE CITY reported.

“The child had attended P.S. 89 in Queens,” the report said. “Its principal had pleaded with ICE agents to release her in a letter reported on by THE CITY. The student, the principal wrote, is ‘a kind, respectful, and dedicated young lady’ whose ‘unexpected removal will cause significant disruption to her learning and will likely have a deep emotional impact on her classmates and our entire school community.’” 

The plea was ignored and both mother and child were deported, drawing widespread condemnation from prominent voices that included Gov. Kathy Hochul. And then there are the students who have been able to avoid deportation – for now. 

Georgia college student Ximena Arias-Cristobal was pulled over for what local police initially claimed was a traffic violation. "I have not been able to enjoy life since I've gotten back because I do live in fear now and so does my family," she said following her release from ICE detention. "My life is completely different, my life was turned upside down."

In Massachusetts, ICE detained high school honors student Marcelo Gomes da Silva while he was on his way to volleyball practice. “He said he served as a translator for the other men in the room and cried when he informed them that their paperwork said they were being deported,” CBS News reported. And in Utah, college student Caroline Dias Goncalves was also detained after a traffic stop. “I was scared and felt alone,” she said. “I was placed in a system that treated me like I didn’t matter.” 

The administration’s anti-immigrant obsessions have even left many international students wondering whether an education in the U.S. is worth the risk at all. One student who was admitted to the public policy doctoral program at Harvard Kennedy School said Trump is “simply too unpredictable.”

We should all care because this militarization of our communities hurts kids and represents an immediate threat to the freedoms of all Americans. “Marta Urquilla, a D.C. resident and mother of two teenagers, says she will not let her kids ride public buses to school” out fear they could be racially profiled, TIME reports.

“‘At this point, that’s off the table,’ she says. ‘My kids present as Black, and that’s just not something I am inclined to expose them to.’ She says families in her neighborhood near Howard University have organized walking groups to the grocery store and that similar plans would be in place for school commutes.” TIME continues: “The federal occupation, Urquilla adds, has not been evenly felt across the city. ‘The closer you get to where immigrants live, to where Black folks live and work, the more you see it,’ she says.”

And in L.A., Nathan Mejia, a 15-year-old American citizen teen with special needs, “was pulled from the passenger seat of his mother’s car and handcuffed by federal immigration agents outside Arleta High School in northern Los Angeles on Monday,” CNN reported. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho “confirmed the boy was detained and noted he was released after a bystander intervened in the case of ‘mistaken identity.’” 

“Mistaken identity” is of no comfort to Nathan, who said he no longer wants to live in the area. “I cannot sleep or anything,” he said. 

The fact is that the Trump administration is damaging an entire generation of American children, as it did to thousands of children under the family separation policy. Mass deportation will inflict similar harms, with a recent study from mental health experts at the University of California Riverside School of Medicine finding that heightened immigration fears on children “have been shown to lead to school absenteeism, academic disengagement, and heightened emotional distress.” 

“This back-to-school season, children in Washington D.C. and communities nationwide are facing something no child should ever experience: the terror of wondering if their parents will be there when they come home,” responded America’s Voice Executive Director Vanessa Cárdenas. ”The usual first-day jitters have been replaced by paralyzing fear. Kids are missing school, afraid to leave their homes. Parents are having to make plans in case they are disappeared. And teachers are having to be trained in safety protocols should they encounter ICE.”