by Alexandra Villarreal, The Hechinger Report
January 23, 2026
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — “They took her, they took her, they took her.”
These had been among the phrases Assistant Principal Cora Muñoz may discern whereas on the telephone with the guardian of one among her college students. Because the caller sobbed and struggled to talk, Muñoz realized that immigration enforcement brokers had detained a child from Wilbur Cross, the highschool she helps lead.
Once more.
There was a purpose why Muñoz was a go-to contact for the coed and her guardian: She — and New Haven public colleges extra broadly — have labored arduous to earn the belief of immigrant households of their numerous district, even because the second Trump administration has made it simpler for immigration officers to enter colleges and launched a mass deportation marketing campaign.
The district’s academics and directors have nurtured deep relationships with immigrant-serving organizations and helped youngsters entry sources — attorneys, social employees, meals — when wanted. They’ve hosted periods to tell college students about their rights, and despatched residence playing cards with authorized data in case of an encounter with immigration officers. And when the worst has occurred — when somebody’s baby or guardian has been detained, which has occurred again and again in latest months — they’ve taken speedy motion, writing letters in help of the member of the family’s freedom and elevating cash alongside a bigger coalition of advocates making an attempt to deliver that individual residence.
“In these moments the place it’s arduous, you present up,” mentioned Muñoz, “and also you do what you may.”
But nothing has been in a position to solely snuff out the concern of deportation inside town’s colleges, say college students and educators. Which will have contributed to a decline this October within the variety of English language learner college students enrolling; their numbers dropped by greater than 2,000, or almost 3.8 %, throughout Connecticut between fall 2024 and fall 2025, and by a whole bunch — or 7.3 % — in New Haven, with many immigrant households who had been anticipated to return to highschool merely disappearing.
Persistent absenteeism charges fell in New Haven through the 2024-25 tutorial 12 months. However after President Donald Trump took workplace, college students mentioned their households advised them to skip extracurriculars or early faculty programs at a college campus in case immigration enforcement was round. For some, a school diploma has began to really feel extra out of attain, as they regulate their desires to suit inside a brand new anti-immigrant actuality. Lecturers have seen youngsters cease collaborating at school after buddies have been detained and so they marvel in the event that they could possibly be subsequent.
“I dwell with concern,” mentioned Darwin, an 18-year-old pupil from Guatemala who has lived in New Haven for 2 years. His final identify, like these of others on this story, is being withheld for security causes. “Generally I don’t even need to attend college as a result of it makes me afraid to exit of the home.”
In lots of college districts across the nation, immigrant enrollment is down, as far fewer asylum seekers are in a position to attain the US and a few immigrants have chosen to self-deport to keep away from the specter of detention. That mentioned, the results of Trump’s mass deportation marketing campaign on immigrants’ schooling range enormously relying on the neighborhood, its demographics and the extent of enforcement exercise there, mentioned Julie Sugarman, affiliate director for Ok-12 schooling analysis on the D.C.-based Migration Coverage Institute’s Nationwide Heart on Immigrant Integration Coverage.
Within the Minneapolis space, for example, the place a federal officer shot and killed Renee Good after she dropped off her 6-year-old baby in school, districts are providing a digital studying choice for the numerous youngsters who’re staying residence in concern.
“We’re positively listening to anecdotally that there are children not going to highschool,” Sugarman mentioned. “Clearly, dropping an entire 12 months of schooling or nevertheless lengthy they’re not at school, they’re lacking out on alternatives to develop their content material data, to be taught literacy, to develop English, and likewise to develop tutorial expertise of their native language.”
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With seven establishments of upper studying within the space, New Haven is called a school city. However additionally it is a metropolis of immigrants: Greater than one in six New Haven residents are foreign-born, a statistic that underscores a degree of satisfaction for a lot of who welcome town’s range. Households within the public college system converse greater than 70 languages.
On the Roberto Clemente Management Academy, a Ok-8 college with round 430 college students, notices go residence in English, Spanish, Pashto and Arabic. The varsity’s entrance doorways have welcome indicators posted in a number of languages. And on a vivid crimson poster within the hallway, images of beaming kids encompass a message: “All of us smile in the identical language.”
When Trump, who has argued that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our nation,” nixed steering in January that had usually restricted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from going into colleges to arrest folks, New Haven Public Colleges Superintendent Madeline Negrón was ready. Forward of Trump’s inauguration, her group reviewed how the district had protected college students throughout his first time period and in what methods they may fortify their response. They developed a district-wide coverage on methods to act if ICE officers sought to enter their buildings. It entails a sequence of steps — together with authorized counsel’s verification of a legitimate warrant — earlier than immigration brokers would ever be allowed in.
“With out that, no person, nobody, goes to stroll by means of my doorways. As a result of my obligation is to maintain each single one among my kids protected,” mentioned Negrón, who additionally shared the coverage in a letter to oldsters.
Negrón led an effort to coach all directors within the protocol, after which these employees helped to coach all 2,900 district staff — together with custodians, cafeteria employees, academics, safety guards and secretaries.
Some colleges went even additional, holding know-your-rights shows for college students and their households. “Issues like a judicial versus administrative warrant — you recognize, I want that no child in New Haven wanted to know that,” mentioned Ben Scudder, a social research trainer at Excessive Faculty within the Neighborhood. “However we dwell in a world the place they do, and their households do, and so we’re gonna ensure that they get the coaching they want to try this.”
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To date, ICE hasn’t tried to enter New Haven’s public colleges. However exterior of the classroom, arrests and household separations abound.
In June, a mom and her two kids — an 8-year-old boy and a 13-year-old woman, each U.S. residents — had been of their automobile going to highschool when autos on the road surrounded them and males in ski masks approached. The children watched, crying, because the immigration brokers handcuffed their mother and led her away.
Employees members on the Roberto Clemente Management Academy, which the youngsters attend, fundraised for present playing cards to grocery shops and supply providers to assist their two college students. They wrote help letters for the mom’s immigration case, asking for her launch. However round a month later, she was deported to Mexico.
Now, every time the youthful sibling sees somebody in uniform in school — a safety guard, a police officer — he asks them why they took his mother, mentioned Adela Jorge, Clemente’s principal.
“He’s not in a position to perceive what occurred,” Jorge mentioned. “All he is aware of is that his mom was taken.”
Quickly after that, two Wilbur Cross college students had been nabbed one after the opposite. First was an 18-year-old named Esdras, arrested at his summer season job, shuffled to detention services across the nation, and virtually placed on a removing flight to Guatemala.
After greater than a month — with the assistance of advocacy teams, his lawyer, the academics union, authorities officers and faculty staff who got here collectively throughout summer season break — Esdras was launched. When he returned to Wilbur Cross, he advised employees members all he needed was to be regular, a request they’ve tried to honor by quietly reintegrating him into courses.
Then, shortly after the beginning of the brand new tutorial 12 months, one other pupil — the one whose guardian had known as Muñoz in a panic — was detained.
“At first I assumed she was mad at me or one thing,” mentioned 17-year-old Melany, recalling when her good friend all of the sudden stopped responding to telephone messages. “However when she didn’t come to highschool, it actually scared me. And I requested the academics, however they couldn’t inform me something.”
Her good friend was ultimately freed, too. However academics and directors say they’re fed up that their college students hold being focused and handled so poorly.
“They’re our children, and so they’re being detained in these cages. And the day earlier than, they had been consuming pizza in our cafeteria,” mentioned Matt Brown, the Wilbur Cross principal.
Rumors and fears at occasions disrupt studying. Sooner or later in mid-October, round 10:20 a.m., immigration brokers in tactical gear had been seemingly staging in a park close to a New Haven space faculty, setting off considerations that college students had been their targets. However about twenty minutes later, the brokers as a substitute hit a automobile wash in Hamden, Connecticut, arresting its employees.
“I don’t know what rights that they had in these moments. It didn’t appear to be that they had any. There have been no rights there,” mentioned Laurie Candy, a state consultant whose district contains Hamden. “I feel the intention is to trigger chaos and make folks really feel destabilized, and that positively is what occurred.”
ICE took eight folks into custody that day, a few of them dad and mom of school-aged kids. Tabitha Sookdeo, government director of Connecticut College students for a Dream, mentioned her group searched college information for the youngsters, making an attempt to make sure they had been okay. However nobody may discover them.
“We simply hope and pray to God that they had been in a position to have somebody to choose them up from college,” Sookdeo mentioned.
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Lecturers say all of this has made immigrant college students quieter, extra reserved, extra observant — and extra hopeless. Children who used to change greetings with their academics within the halls now trudge round just like the strolling useless, or ask for passes to depart the classroom extra typically.
“I’ve seen much more disappointment, and I’ve seen much more college students who’re good college students skipping courses. And it’s for no purpose besides that they only, you recognize, they’ve an excessive amount of happening emotionally to make them go to their courses,” mentioned Fatima Nouchkioui, a trainer of English as a second language at Wilbur Cross’ Worldwide Academy.
Sookdeo has observed a drop in college students at her group’s faculty entry program, as they query why they’d attempt to get a school diploma when they do not know whether or not they’ll be within the U.S. tomorrow.
“You’re sitting subsequent to them,” she mentioned of the excessive schoolers she works with. “And so they’re actually shaking.”
Lots of the youngsters have already got a pile of pressures to navigate. In some instances, they’re dwelling within the nation by themselves, balancing college with jobs that enable them to ship cash residence to oldsters and siblings. Darwin, for instance, got here to the U.S., abandoning his mother and three youthful siblings, and lives in New Haven alone — all to present his members of the family who stay overseas a greater life.
After which there’s all the time the following arrest, consistently looming.
“Can we anticipate having youngsters detained once more?” mentioned Brown. “I haven’t seen something that might make me assume we shouldn’t.”
Contact editor Caroline Preston at 212-870-8965, through Sign at CarolineP.83 or on e mail at preston@hechingerreport.org.
This story about concern of deportation was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, impartial information group targeted on inequality and innovation in schooling. Join the Hechinger e-newsletter.
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