Adrian Tamayo, a special education teacher at Boyle Heights’ Lorena Street Elementary School, received real-time information last Monday as federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security were denied entry at two South Los Angeles elementary schools.
“We knew about it first thing in the morning,” said Tamayo. “As soon as I saw that, I went to my administrator.”
Tamayo is part of a rapid response network that includes educators and staff from schools in Boyle Heights, East L.A., El Sereno, and South L.A. Most are members of the United Teachers Los Angeles, the union representing about 35,000 workers in the L.A. Unified School District.
“We have to be ready for that unknown because we absolutely don’t know when it might happen at any of our schools,” said Tamayo, who is the chair of UTLA East Area.
As the city reels from the incidents on April 7, LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho has lauded administrators for following district protocols.
Administrators denied agents access, asked for proof of agency, and contacted the district’s regional operation office and legal departments, he said.
Meanwhile, educators continue to find ways to protect students and their families in or near school grounds, some even role-playing as ICE agents when training youth on how to respond if approached by immigration agents.
Others with Union del Barrio – a network of educators and residents patrolling L.A. streets for ICE activity – have recently surveyed outside schools in East and South L.A. to ensure immigration agents are kept at bay.
“Students and their families are afraid to go to school, and that is absolutely unacceptable,” said Ron Gochez, an L.A. educator and leading member of Union del Barrio.
Currently, more than a dozen California Congressional representatives are demanding Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem justify the agents’ actions and “desist from immigration enforcement activity targeting children who pose no threat to public safety.”
In an April 11 letter, the legislators cite claims from LAUSD that DHS attempted to conceal their identities and tried to enter school grounds on “false pretenses.”
“If you falsely claim to be conducting welfare checks while actually targeting children for deportation, you undermine willingness to cooperate with law enforcement, provoke fear, and undermine public trust,” the letter states.
For Marcela Chagoya, a history and special education teacher at Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School, the incidents at the South L.A. campuses serve as a reminder for Eastside school staff to keep their guard up.
“I’m very thankful that the staff at those schools reacted accordingly to the trainings, but any school site can be a target,” said Chagoya, who fears Eastside and South L.A. schools can be targeted due to a higher concentration of Latino students.
Chagoya, who grew up in Boyle Heights, doesn’t shy away from discussing immigration issues with her middle schoolers, especially since Trump rolled back policies that protected sensitive places like schools and churches from immigration enforcement.
She teaches them about the role of immigrants in history but also about their rights and the rights of their immigrant parents.
“Initially, there were a lot of tears in my classroom; a couple of students have undocumented parents, and they were very afraid for their parents, afraid for themselves,” said Chagoya, who has a freshman son attending Garfield Senior High.
Chagoya has role-played as an ICE agent with her students, teaching them how to politely acknowledge that they know their rights while asserting that they cannot answer any questions without having an adult present.
“We just have to be more ready than ever,” she said. “We have to be alert. … Schools need to be a safe haven.”
For Tamayo, it was comforting to see their UTLA network spring into action, but at the same time, he found it concerning that not all district schools were alerted by LAUSD about the incidents.
“Rather than putting a citywide alert, especially to the schools in the East area, only certain schools got the robocall of what had happened,” Tamayo said.
“Garfield got the call, which is in East L.A., but all the other elementaries nearby didn’t.”
Tamayo mentioned that an email bulletin about the incidents was sent to certain schools. District parents also got a notice, but other employees didn’t, Tamayo said.
“We’re trying to figure out what was the logic or what was the system that was put into place,” Tamayo said.
“At this point, we need a blanket warning to everybody.”
“Imagine if you’re an employee and you’re a DACA recipient and you’re fearful of something like that, but that your employer doesn’t tell you,” Tamayo added. “That’s a huge worry as well. We weren’t concerned just for the kids. We’re concerned for some of our employees as well.
image source from：https://boyleheightsbeat.com/los-angeles-teachers-lausd-immigration-agents-dhs-schools/
