Protecting Students

Oregon’s largest teachers union, the Oregon Education Association, is encouraging its members to proactively train and prepare for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities on school grounds. In a meeting of more than 60 people on Dec. 6, several speakers told educators how to identify and react to ICE agents entering school property to detain immigrant students and their families.

Recent Trump administration policy changes allow ICE agents to make arrests at schools and churches, an activity that under the Biden administration was discouraged. “It’s worrisome for me that all of a sudden we have put teachers on the front lines,” says Juan Proaño, CEO of League of United Latin American Citizens, a national Hispanic and Latin American civil rights organization.

In the meeting, participants spoke of concepts like sheltered dismissal, where educators escort a student off the property and drive them home if they are an at-risk immigrant and ICE is suspected to be active in the area.

The speakers emphasized that ICE is only allowed to enter private spaces with a judicial warrant signed by a judge. Under current rules, ICE agents can enter public areas of schools, but may not access non-public spaces such as classrooms, office spaces or restrooms.

The group also spoke about identifying ICE vehicle features like their model, color and license plate configuration. Speaker Andy Lara, president of Southwest Washington LULAC, went over the chapter’s rapid response network and how community members can engage in spotting and warning their communities of ICE activity in the area.

Sitting on each table were bags containing a whistle, a red card detailing individual rights and small anti-ICE fliers.

Enrique Farrera, OEA president and first-generation immigrant, told participants that the union needs to start becoming more political because in order for changes to happen, the union must lobby for candidates that will fight not just for better wages and health care — but for the rights of immigrant students.

“We should elect public servants that are going to do work for the greater good of the community and in the state,” he says. “How do you get involved in getting revenue?” he asks. “By being involved in the political movement.” The OEA represents more than 41,000 educators at pre-kindergarten through grade 12 public schools and at community colleges.

Jaime Martinez, executive director of Frontline Dignity, a Pittsburgh-based organization that, according to Martinez, “equips communities with cutting-edge rapid response tools,” talked to the crowd about how organizing doesn’t just help immigrant families, but brings people together.

Martinez says he believes that there is still hope to make progressive changes and disrupt an unjust system. “I see it every day in the faces of the people that go out and respond to these things,” Martinez says. “Everybody is good at heart, and people are just so misinformed by forces bigger than us, but the way we climb out of it is by reaching into our most human aspects and going from there.”

The media was not permitted to enter for a portion of the meeting to ensure the privacy of the educators.

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