On January 20th, 2024, Donald Trump will be inaugurated as the 47th president of the United States. On day one of his presidency, Trump has promised to carry out an executive order to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to arrest undocumented students at schools, accelerating his plan to carry out the “largest deportation operation in American history.” What this means is that come January, many undocumented students at Ballard will face the terrifying risk of detainment.
Currently, per a memo from the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers are not allowed to make arrests in places that are considered “sensitive”. This includes schools, churches, hospitals, courthouses, weddings, and funerals. The rationale behind this rule lies in a desire to prevent people from not sending their children to school, not seeking medical care, or not attending court for the fear of deportation. Even so, under certain conditions such as national security issues or the risk of death or physical harm, ICE officers have been allowed to enter sensitive locations and make arrests. However, for the average person seeking refuge against deportation, many of these places, especially schools and churches, have become safe havens.
But, this is not necessarily the law. Rather, it is a policy within the Department of Homeland Security. Trump’s plan would involve appointing a new Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security on day one whose interests align with Trump and who would obey Trump’s orders to scrap this policy.
This promised policy change fits in seamlessly with the next Trump Administration’s ruthless goals of sparing no one, including school children, when it comes to detainment and deportation. Simply put, it is much easier to arrest a child when they are in school rather than at home. ICE officers can better predict when a child will be in school versus when they will be at home. Then, when facing arrest, a child is much less likely to run away when in a controlled environment such as a school. Additionally, it is highly unlikely that a child would have a weapon at school compared to at home, where a student’s family may own weapons. By allowing arrests where people are most unable to resist, the Trump Administration will be able to deport masses of school-aged children with less obstacles in their way.
To be clear, ICE officers will not use schools as a starting point to look for undocumented students. Rather, if they realize through another source that an undocumented student is attending Ballard, they would be allowed to come and make an arrest on campus.
Once arrested, the Department of Homeland Security decides if a student will be detained or if they will simply be given a date to go to immigration court. Traditionally, this decision involves a consideration of the person’s criminal history to decide if detainment is truly necessary, as detaining a person is extremely expensive. Since children don’t usually have a criminal history, children were previously very rarely detained.
However, that was before the first Trump Administration. Trump’s “zero-tolerance policy” allowed for increased detainment of children at the border, and this trend continued throughout the Biden Administration, which detained similar numbers children at the border despite promises of change. Now, as the second Trump Administration approaches, Trump is determined to take it up a notch and detain as many people as he can, regardless of whether they are at the border or at Ballard High School. This means that many Ballard students who happen to be undocumented will soon be at a much higher risk of detainment and the brutal conditions that come with it.
When discussing Trumps’s merciless plans for immigrants, one cannot ignore the racial component that is often weaved into rationales for mass deportation. In the past, Trump has regularly appealed to racist ideologies, even claiming that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our nation”. His policy plans for his upcoming administration similarly cater to those who are afraid that their European-roots and the accompanying power will be diluted by immigrants. Many would rather the United States stay racially exclusive, a goal that is reflected in Trump’s desires to detain as many as possible, no matter how young.
Ethical considerations seem to have been thrown out the window. After all, they’re just kids. Most undocumented children had no say in their being in the United States and were simply brought along with parents. All children in the United States have the legal right to an education, regardless of if they are undocumented or not. However, Trump’s promised policy allowing ICE officers into schools may be the beginning of a slow encroachment on that right. And so, the implications of the next Trump Administration involve terrifying uncertainty for many undocumented Ballard students.
