Report: Deportation Fear Grips Immigrant and Refugee Students in U.S. Schools
Equity & Diversity

Report: Deportation Fear Grips Immigrant and Refugee Students in U.S. Schools

By Corey Mitchell — November 20, 2018 3 min read
Second grader Zeinab Ahmed watches her classmates play a game in gym class at Discovery Community School in St. Cloud, Minn. The school serves a growing number of Somali students.
Second grader Zeinab Ahmed watches her classmates play a game in gym class at Discovery Community School in St. Cloud, Minn. The school serves a growing number of Somali students.
Swikar Patel/Education Week
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The educational needs of refugee and immigrant students are frequently unmet in the United States and other nations across the globe, a new United Nations report concludes.

“Building Bridges, Not Walls,” a report released Tuesday by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization makes the argument that the current immigration policies of the U.S. government create too many barriers for students who are immigrants or refugees. The report calls for policy changes that would make it easier to integrate these children into schools, increase their access to quality education, and ensure immigrant and refugee families know that schools are safe spaces.

Citing widespread fear and absenteeism in places such as Las Cruces, N.M., and Hamblen County, Tenn., after immigration raids, the report argued that the threat of deportation is a major barrier to immigrant education in the U.S.

Federal law prohibits schools and districts from adopting enrollment policies that deny or discourage children from enrolling because of immigration status, but the issue is affecting children and families across the country.

It’s an issue that Mandy Manning, the 2018 National Teacher of the Year, has wrestled with firsthand. Manning teaches English and math to newly arrived refugee and immigrant students in Spokane, Wash.

During a panel discussion hosted by the Migration Policy Institute on Tuesday to roll out the UNESCO report, Manning shared stories about students approaching her daily to ask when they or their parents will be forced to leave country.

“All of our immigrant, refugee, and asylum-seeking students are fearful,” Manning said. “There’s been a dramatic shift... in how our immigrant students feel ... under the current administration.”

The report outlined several other problems that its authors said are pervasive in U.S. schools, including:

  • Children from non-English-speaking households are often misdiagnosed as having special education needs, partly due to literacy tests that are not made available in their home language.
  • Immigrant parents often do not feel welcome to engage with schools and think they have little say in how their children are treated and taught in schools.
  • Older immigrant students are often placed in special programs, separate from the general population, that increases their likelihood of dropping out of school.

José Viana, the director of the office of English-language acquisition at the U.S. Department of Education was scheduled to participate in the Migration Policy Institute panel discussion, but was unable to attend, organizers said.

The UNESCO report also praised the progress the U.S. has made in protecting immigrant students’ rights under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), a program that gives protection to an estimated 700,000 immigrants who were brought to the United States illegally as children. The policy—adopted by the Obama administration—has boosted high school graduation rates for immigrant youth by 15 percent, according to a study from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

But DACA has been in jeopardy since President Donald Trump took office. As part of his hardline stance on immigration, President Trump announced plans to end the program in September 2017, but the future of DACA remains uncertain. Earlier this month, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked the Trump administration from immediately terminating DACA.

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A growing community of Somali immigrant families in St. Cloud, Minn., has presented multiple challenges for local educators who have been grappling with not only how to meet the students' linguistic and educational needs, but also how to create a learning environment where they feel safe and welcome. Confronting anti-Muslim sentiment both inside the district and outside in the broader community has been especially vexing. Most of the Somali community in St. Cloud is Muslim. To help build linguistic and cultural bridges between educators and the Somali community, school district leaders hired Ahmed Hassan and Bishar Hassan. The two Somali brothers, who are bilingual communication support specialists, have duties that range from providing verbal and written translations into Somali and English, advising students, and helping both Somali residents and school district staff members navigate unfamiliar cultural terrain. The brothers are also leaders in St. Cloud's Somali community. Education Week Video
Canada has long been seen as a country welcoming to refugees. In recent years, there have been 10,000 refugees from Syria, settle in the Ontario province. While schools concentrate on improving their English language skills and reading and math performance, there are more than 200 settlement centers that help new immigrants integrate into the broader society. They’re often called a “one stop shop” for immigrants, where settlement workers help show families how to do everything from access the health system and apply for jobs to how to dress for the winter and use a computer. Many settlement centers have offices in schools so it is easier for families to access services.

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Corey Mitchell
Associate Editor,  Education Week
Corey Mitchell was an associate editor who covered special education, English-language learners and other special populations.
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A version of this news article first appeared in the Learning the Language blog.