by Gretchen Webster
WESTPORT–As immigration and deportation incidents become more common, and fear grows, schools may have to answer difficult questions if students’ families are broken up: Were one or both parents detained or deported? Is the child going home today to an empty house? Who signs the field trip permission slip? How can teachers and school personnel deal with crippling fear of the future for these students and their parents?
These kinds of issues are a concern in Connecticut and Westchester County schools, as elsewhere in the U.S., and fear is growing, according to Christina Torres, a former Westport Board of Education member and a school superintendent in Westchester County. In Connecticut, the largest concentration of international families live in Fairfield County and the Hartford area, she said.
She was speaking at a recent TEAM meeting about resources available to schools to address the problems some international families now face. Torres was invited by TEAM chairman Harold Bailey to help inform his board and others in Westport about resources that could be available to immigrant families in uncertain times.
“We could do better with sharing resources and identifying families” who live in fear and need help with immigration issues, Torres said, “They’re nervous about coming forward.”
Some families are also self-deporting to avoid detainment, leaving schools and other students unsure about their whereabouts. In student friend groups, “it’s a ripple effect,” she said, causing anxiety among students. “It’s a feeling of lack of control.”
Not everyone at the TEAM meeting believed there was a problem, however. A member of the public, Camilo Riano, said he knew plenty of immigrants in the area, and they are not concerned about detainment or deportation. And TEAM committee member Andy Frankel said he didn’t think current immigration problems pertained to Westport. “This is causing more anxiety than we need,” Frankel said.
TEAM member Althea Sanborn, an instructor at Norwalk Community College disagreed. “Students are afraid,” she said. “The fear is awful – it’s out of control.” And Torres, in an interview after the meeting, said Westport is no exception. “Of course there are internationals in Westport,” she said.
At the meeting she told them about an Episcopal minister in Scarsdale, N.Y. whose daughter, a student at Purdue University, was detained and taken to a New Orleans detainment center. Incidents like that are happening in suburbs as well as urban areas, said Torres, a Westport resident, and can increase anxiety not only for members of an affected family, but also for others in a school community.
She and Bailey said having information available to international families and to school personnel is what they’re hoping to do, not to get involved in federal politics. Giving families information on immigration issues is no different than holding fire or lock-down drills or having an emergency contact for a child for any kind of an emergency, Torres said.
“You have to be prepared,” Bailey said. “Schools prepare you for a lot of things.”
Westport Superintendent Thomas Scarice, who was not at the TEAM meeting, said in an email to Westport Journal that the district disseminated information to the school community last year on immigration issues. He provided the statement sent out to the school community at that time:
“While we expect school visits from immigration officials to remain rare, I want to ensure our extended community is informed about what these changes mean. Our legal counsel has provided us with the latest information which can be found here. In addition, our building principals have been trained in protocols in the event we are visited by immigration officials.”
Governor Ned Lamont’s office has also issued guidance to making resources available to the community, Torres said, including a Family Preparedness Plan She also recommended that anyone with questions visit the organization neighborslink.org a nonprofit organization with an office in Stamford, dedicated to help immigrants in a variety of ways including with legal issues pertaining to immigration.
As detainments continue, fear deepens, Torres said. “It could be any parent, not just parents who are undocumented as we’ve seen more and more. Anyone could be stopped and questioned and eventually detained. …Why not just prepare so that we have plans in place?”
Thank you to Mr. Bailey and Ms. Torres for bringing this matter forward. In Westport. I am beyond anxious about this. Yes “even in Westport.” The ICE gestapo is everywhere. I’m not vulnerable but I am sick over the fact that so many people here are. Let’s surround them with the protection that comes from knowledge shared at this meeting.
To be clear, contrary to this reporting I did not say that I didn’t think current immigration problems pertained to Westport. Rather, I asked Ms. Torres what she knew or could share about the extent to which there was anxiety in Westport among students or families living here. I asked that question because Ms. Torres, a former Board of Education member, was recommending more action be taken in Westport schools and her presentation repeatedly emphasized that any parent or student or friend was at risk of being detained by federal agents whether here legally or not, as this article notes at the end. It had obvious political undertones and is the kind of talk that could end up causing more anxiety among children and divisiveness rather than alleviating it. I am not opposed to providing resources and information about these issues.
People need to stop conflating legal and illegal immigrants. Of course you will create anxiety if you tell people that any immigrant (even completely legal ones) are in danger of being deported. The worst part is that most of the people saying this know that that is not the case and are trying to create distress. Even in a rare mistaken identity situation, it can be cleared up shortly. Illegal immigrants who deliberately broke our laws to get here cannot be allowed to stay. The government offer of self deportation is completely fair and even provides a way to subsequently apply legally to immigrate with no penalty for past transgressions. The government is even giving them the money to go back to their own country. As a descrndant of relatively recent immigrants who did it the right way, I resent the suggestion that we should accept and reward such behavior. It is not our fault if illegal aliens put their children in uncomfortable situations. It’s their fault!