Programming note: Immigration Unmasked will go dark next Friday for the holiday. Happy Thanksgiving! We’ll be back in your inbox Dec. 5.
Hello, and welcome back to “Immigration Unmasked.” If you’re new here, welcome! Check out our recent coverage here.
Many of you have asked us to share stories of people who are taking action in this unsettled time. Well, after our last newsletter, I received an email from someone who fits that description: Jessica Lander, an author and longtime history and civics teacher at Lowell High School, who has years of experience working with recent immigrant and refugee students.
Lander is currently taking a sabbatical from teaching as a fellow at Re-Imagining Migration, a Boston nonprofit where she’s working to craft immigrant education policy in Massachusetts. As part of her work, she helped create a “Rapid Response Guide” for educators and schools on how to support their undocumented and mixed-status families. The Rapid Response Guide was shared with educators across the state, and with us at the Globe.
I called Jessica to ask how she got involved, and what she’s hearing from other educators on the ground. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Samantha Gross: Immigration policy and the Trump administration’s crackdown is impossible to ignore. But walk me through how you got involved?
Jessical Lander: First and foremost, I am a teacher of recent immigrant refugee students. For much of the last decade, I’ve worked in Lowell High School, teaching students who come from about 30 different countries.
Last December, I was on a call with educators and nonprofit leaders and activists across the country talking about the fear, the uncertainty, the questions that educators were having. New York has a great resource in New York City public schools. And can we share a duplicate and how can we get [similar] resources out?
In January, when the sensitive locations policy was revoked on day one [of the Trump administration], this became really urgent work — thinking about how to support our teachers in Massachusetts.
How do we implement solutions to reimagine immigrant education? How do we support teachers in schools and give them real, concrete actions?
SJG: I read your Rapid Response Guide, which is very thorough. Tell me about how that came together
JL: There were a couple of great 50-page guides coming out right around that time, and a lot of one-pagers. For educators, what were the policies in schools we had to be thinking about?
[Our guide] was shared out in February through a whole bunch of different networks, organizations, and then, honestly, through sort of the grass roots, like teachers texting other teachers. This spread pretty widely across the state.
SJG: What else have you been working on in your work as a fellow?
JL: We worked with the Legislature to codify [Plyler v. Doe, a 1982 Supreme Court decision that protects undocumented students’ rights to a free public school education] so that if Plyler was to fall nationally, it’s still protected here, and we’re still protecting the fundamental right for all kids to go to school.
SJG: What have you been hearing from teachers who work in these classrooms with students who may be fearful or impacted by immigration enforcement activity?
JL: Educator friends I know across the state step up for their kids in so many ways. We ask so much of teachers. We ask teachers to be scholars in their field and know the material they’re teaching academically, and then also to provide social and emotional supports around housing or access to food. And now they have to be up-to-date on immigration law.
Their students are being detained, disappeared, and that’s devastating.
SJG: What is the biggest concern educators have about immigrant students and their families right now?
JL: I mean, one is attendance. So you see immigration agents in a city like Chelsea, and you might see 40 to 50 percent drops in attendance the next day. Your kids are scared to come to school, and rightly so. I’m hearing reports of older siblings who are coming to pick up their younger siblings being violently detained in front of their siblings. (Note: A Nov. 17 Globe article documented a sharp enrollment drop in Massachusetts schools attributed to ICE activity.)
School is no longer necessarily a safe place. Maybe the classroom still feels like a safe place, but walking to school, driving to school, is no longer safe.
Being in school, the worry that we’re hearing is, “If I come, will my family still be there when I get home?” How are you supposed to learn in that condition? We’re also seeing and hearing reports of increased bullying of immigrant-origin students, and of classmates threatening to try to get their classmates or their families deported.
SJG: How are teachers coping? And what is your advice for new teachers who may be facing these challenges for the first time?
JL: The exhaustion of each day reading about another disappearance, another violent detention, another kiddo who has been disappeared, a family that has been separated, the mental toll it takes . . . being a teacher, I know I feel it for myself every day.
This work cannot be done in isolation. There are so many fantastic organizations working on the ground to support immigrant-origin families, to support immigrant-origin students, to support teachers. And for a young teacher, seeking out who the organizations are in your community so you can get those best practices is more essential than ever.
We want to hear from you — what you are seeing and thinking about immigration enforcement? Our hope is that we can feature your words in this space every week going forward.
- Under ICE crackdown, thousands of students have left Mass. public schools The Boston Globe
- Six of nine workers detained by federal immigration agents at Allston car wash have been granted release The Boston Globe
- A Worcester councilwoman intervened during an ICE arrest. Then she faced the voters. The New York Times
- How to make sense of the federal forces on the streets The New York Times
- Sanford grandfather, born in refugee camp, nabbed by ICE after 70 years in U.S. Orlando Sentinel
- Judge orders Trump administration to end National Guard deployment in DC The Associated Press
You can find our list of resources in multiple languages here.
Jessica Lander has also shared the comprehensive “Rapid Response Guide” for educators she compiled here. Check it out.
Samantha J. Gross can be reached at samantha.gross@globe.com. Follow her @samanthajgross.