Mark Keierleber reports:
Two developments this week have upped the anxiety over how far President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown will go to ensnare students and young children. In New York City, a Bronx high school student from Venezuela showed up for a routine immigration court date and was promptly arrested afterward by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. Chalkbeat’s Michael Elsen-Rooney, who broke the story Monday, reports that the arrest has sent shock waves through the 20-year-old’s small, close-knit high school, which caters to older newcomers learning English.
Meanwhile, ICE agents have been showing up unannounced at schools, homes and migrant shelters from New York to Hawaii to interview children, some as young as 6, who arrived in the U.S. alone, The New York Times reported yesterday. The Office of Refugee Resettlement, which is responsible for the children’s care and has historically been kept separate from immigration activities, is now assisting in them, according to ProPublica. The Trump administration is calling these surprise visits “welfare checks,” but educators, advocates and others see them as a means of accelerating deportations.
Read more at The74.