Salt Lake County classrooms are looking a little emptier in the weeks since President Donald Trump’s administration allowed immigration officers to make arrests in schools.
The directive announced Jan. 21 reversed policy that for more than a decade restricted both Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection from enforcement in these previously protected “sensitive areas,” which also includes churches and hospitals.
The Salt Lake City School District, for instance, saw attendance dip from 91% at the start of January down to 87% by the month’s end, according to data obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune.
While factors like a reported rise in norovirus, influenza and RSV cases have contributed to those absences, Utah Sen. Luz Escamilla, D-Salt Lake City, said the district has been relaying to her both fear and concern from its families.
“The kids are not coming,” Escamilla said. “Simple as that.”
Officials with Granite School District, which serves much of northern Salt Lake County, have also been working to “assuage fears from families and assure them,” said district spokesperson Andrea Stringham.
Granite, too, has seen a drop in attendance since the January directive, in part due to the uptick in illnesses, Stringham said.
The largest drop occurred in middle and high schools, with 1,056 fewer students attending the week the federal policy change was announced, as compared to the previous week, according to district attendance data shared with The Tribune.
Stringham noted that school districts do not collect data on student immigration status, and Granite is encouraging students who may be experiencing stress and anxiety to take advantage of the district’s counseling services.
‘People are afraid’
The Department of Homeland Security issued the new directive on Jan. 20, the day Trump was sworn in.
“This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens — including murders [sic] and rapists — who have illegally come into our country,” read a DHS statement the next day, when the change was announced. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”
Senate President Stuart Adams, R-Layton, in a media briefing Feb. 3 said there had been under 200 immigration arrests made in Utah as of that date, all of whom he asserted were “criminals.”
“I’ve been told there’s nobody going into churches, nobody going to the schools,” Adams said. “And so it’s basically the people who have created crimes.”
Escamilla agreed that immigration enforcement seems to be focused on undocumented immigrants with criminal records, explaining that being undocumented is not a crime but a “civil violation of immigration law.”
But, she said, undocumented people who have not been accused of committing crimes still have been detained.
Despite Adams’ assurance that ICE isn’t entering Utah schools, families have the right to feel afraid, Escamilla said.
“People are afraid of going places where they could potentially be picked up,” she said, adding that immigration enforcement operations often happen in public places.
“It’s just hard to explain that to a child [who] doesn’t know if they’re going to see mom or dad when they come back from school,” Escamilla said.
