The Hidden Toll of ICE Raids on Students (Changing Perspectives, July 2025) examines how immigration enforcement disrupts school systems, with particular focus on students with disabilities who rely on stability and routine. The article details emotional impacts including anxiety, trauma, and declining academic performance, while providing practical trauma-informed strategies such as creating individualized safety plans aligned with IEPs or 504 Plans, maintaining consistent routines, establishing calm spaces, and strengthening home-school communication to help students feel secure and continue learning.
El Pueblo Unido: A Resource Guide for Community Leaders (LULAC) is a comprehensive guide designed to help key institutions—schools, places of worship, healthcare facilities, and businesses—navigate recent immigration policy changes and protect immigrant communities with dignity and respect. The guide provides detailed best practices for each sector on how to respond to ICE searches and immigration enforcement, covering critical topics including Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights, warrant requirements (distinguishing judicial from administrative warrants), FERPA protections for students, HIPAA protections for patients, and employee rights during workplace raids. It includes practical protocols for handling ICE arrival, know-your-rights information, legal resource directories, immigrant assistance hotlines, and links to pro bono legal services.
Talking to Students and Families About Increased Immigration Enforcement (MASFEC) provides age-appropriate guidelines for families and educators to discuss immigration enforcement with children from early childhood through high school. The resource offers developmentally appropriate language for defining key terms (immigrant, undocumented, deportation), scripts for safety planning and requesting help, and strategies for distinguishing reliable information sources. It emphasizes open communication to reduce stress, family safety planning including identifying trusted adults and emergency contacts, and empowering students to support affected peers while maintaining privacy and dignity for immigrant community members.
Helping Immigrant Children: How Educators Can Support Students Before & After an ICE Raid (Center for Educational Improvement, 2019) gives teachers and school staff practical ways to help students who are affected by immigration raids. The guide explains how to prepare before raids happen by creating partnerships with community organizations and making sure all staff understand their rights and students' privacy protections. It shows educators how to recognize signs of trauma in students, such as trouble sleeping, difficulty focusing, or changes in eating habits. The resource recommends creating predictable, safe classroom spaces and using restorative circles where students can talk about their experiences together. It also includes strategies for supporting families who may be facing sudden financial problems or caregiving challenges after a raid occurs.
Traumatic Separation and Refugee and Immigrant Children: Tips for Current Caregivers (National Child Traumatic Stress Network) is a guide written from a child's point of view to help caregivers understand what kids are going through when they're separated from their families because of immigration. The resource explains how children at different ages (from babies to teenagers) might show their trauma through crying, nightmares, acting younger than they are, trouble sleeping or eating, fighting, or having physical problems like stomachaches and headaches. It gives caregivers practical tips like speaking calmly in the child's own language, helping them stay in contact with their family members, understanding that difficult behaviors come from trauma and not on purpose, and keeping kids connected to their culture and traditions. The guide emphasizes that reassuring children about their safety, letting them have comforting items from home, and avoiding punishment for trauma-related behaviors are key ways to help kids heal. (Spanish Version)
How to Talk to a Child Worried About Deportation (Florida State University Center for Child Stress & Health) helps parents recognize stress signs in children worried about deportation, such as sleep problems, crying, anger, trouble focusing in school, or acting younger than their age. The guide explains that children worry when adults worry, and news reports can scare kids because they don't understand the law and fear being separated from their parents. It gives parents practical advice like having honest conversations at the child's level, keeping daily routines normal, turning off the news, and sharing family safety plans without making promises they can't keep. The resource includes a checklist of important documents parents should prepare, like legal papers naming a trusted adult to care for children and copies of medical records, birth certificates, and school records to give someone they trust.
Know Your Rights
- Know Your Rights: If You Encounter Immigration Enforcement, National Immigrant Justice Center
- Conoce Tus Derechos, Carolina Migrant Network (Español)
- Immigrants Rising know your rights information, guides and trainings in multiple languages
- Immigration Enforcement Guidance for Places of Worship, ACLU
- Report Civil Rights Violations by CBP/ICE to the ACLU of North Carolina
- Education Justice Alliance, Students’ Rights Violation Complaint Form
