Committee to Defend Immigrants Holds Rally March 6

 FDR Teachers Say "I.C.E.
Won't Take Our Kids Away!"

By Yari Milo Michel
UFT Delegate FDR H.S. 

Teachers and staff at Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn, along with parents and other defenders of immigrants' rights at a March 6 rally, called by the Committee to Defend Immigrants, to keep I.C.E. out of our schools and communities. (Photo courtesy of Ronnie Almonte.) 

On Thursday, March 6, the Committee to Defend Immigrants (CDI) at Franklin Delano Roosevelt High School in Brooklyn organized a rally outside the school to demonstrate, in action, that we firmly stand by our students and are organizing to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E.) out of our schools and our communities. The Committee, which includes members of the United Federation of Teachers, DC37 members and parents, brought out over 30 teachers and staff along with PTA members. News12 Brooklyn came to the rally and ran a news story and video of the event, headlined “Teachers and parents in Bensonhurst rally amid fears of ICE in schools.”

 Brooklyn Paper published an article on the rally highlighting the confusion and disarray caused by the mayor’s contradictory directives to allow I.C.E. into the schools, despite NYCDOE protocols and New York City laws prohibiting cooperation with federal immigration authorities. And the UFT posted to its Facebook and Instagram pages a report on the event, with photos, quoting the flier for the rally: “As teachers and staff, we have a special responsibility to support, defend and protect all our students, and their right to a quality education. Let’s bring out the power of labor to make sure the schools and our communities are ‘no go’ areas for I.C.E.”  

At the rally, participants held signs reading, “Teachers, Staff and Parents United Against Deportations,” “Black, Brown, Asian, White, All Unite for Immigrant Rights!” and “Support Immigrant and Transgender Students.” Demonstrators emphatically chanted, “I.C.E. out of our schools! I.C.E. out of New York!” and “Unión! Fuerza! Solidaridad!” among other slogans. Several teachers, parents and cafeteria workers spoke at the rally. A CDI member and ENL teacher said that teachers and staff must be ready and equipped so that students “don’t have to be afraid and have to do school remotely or not at all because they don’t know if or when they will get arrested.” An ISS teacher said, “We have a role in our students’ lives. Many of these students see FDR as their safe haven. They see us as extensions of that support. And we need to continue to stand in those roles.” A Social Studies teacher said, “We fought for these rights. We fought for birthright citizenship and we can’t lose that.”

The News12 story reported, “Teachers like Yari Michel say it’s the fear … that’s impacting the learning environment. ‘Many [students] have stopped coming to school because they fear deportations, or they fear coming back from school and not finding their parents there. If they feel because of their immigration status, that they’re not allowed to come in to the schools and get that quality education, then that’s highly problematic.’” And from an interview with Brooklyn Paper: “‘We want to make sure students are protected because if ICE does enter the schools, this isn’t just going to impact the one student that they could potentially be looking for. This would have a rippling, chilling effect on every student regardless of immigration status. And it would also have the same impact, I believe, on teachers.’”

The following day, teachers and staff showed widespread support and sympathy for the rally. Students came up to say how happy they were to see their teachers on the news defending immigrants and transgender students.

The Committee to Defend Immigrants was formed as an initiative of our UFT chapter in November, soon after the elections won by Donald Trump, in which he repeatedly threatened to carry out mass deportations. When he took office, on the very first day he issued an executive order for the removal of all undocumented immigrants, and many others such as those in Temporary Protected Status (as is the case with many immigrant students in NYC schools). That night, the acting head of the Department of Homeland Security issued a memorandum removing the restrictions on I.C.E. raids on schools, hospitals, places of worship and other sensitive locations. Every school in the country has had to deal with this threat. Our bottom line is: no I.C.E. in the schools and I.C.E. out of our communities.

“Many students are not coming to school because they are afraid of deportations” a committee spokesman said. The teachers vowed “I.C.E. won't take our kids away.” 

 

The CDI emphasized in organizing this rally that the purpose is not only to defend our students and all New York City students, but to show the way forward in this struggle as union members. Key to this is collaboration with parents, other unions in the schools, like DC37 and 32BJ, and the school community. Starting at the beginning of January, the CDI has had several events. There was a “Red Card”-making session, in which staff gathered to create over 1,000 of these crucial cards in multiple languages for students, as well as the distribution of Know Your Rights packets to FDR students at nearby train stations right before mid-winter break. The packets included information about the recently passed Laken Riley Act, hotline numbers, a flier with things to remember in any situation with non-local law enforcement, and the Red Cards. We also held screenings of the UFT KYR webinars for all staff. Additionally, the CDI has collaborated closely with the PTA to help share crucial information with parents and families.

Our FDR Committee is comprised of various working groups, including: Know Your Rights; Educational Resources; Legal Representation and Resources; Events; Protests and Sign-Making; Community Outreach; and Parent and Teacher Engagement, to name a few. Although some feel that I.C.E. will not enter the schools, our union members have joined together in the Committee to Defend Immigrants to make sure it doesn’t, while many other colleagues have contributed to and participated in CDI events. 

It is vital to have such Committees to Defend Immigrants, like FDR’s, in schools throughout New York City, not only to distribute information and materials to students, families, staff and the school community, but to underscore that teachers and staff are mobilized to defend our students. The Committees can be a pillar of support for immigrants and all those under attack by the current administration, including transgender people, and stand fast against the federal government’s attempts to regiment curricula. Similar committees have already been set up at several schools in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and the Bronx, but that’s only a start. Although no schools have reported I.C.E. entering buildings, they have shown up at train stations, shelters and areas near the schools.

Mayor Eric Adams caused a great deal of anxiety about the instructions and protocols in the schools regarding I.C.E. The 2017 NYCDOE directive requires that I.C.E. present a warrant signed by a federal judge for a specific named person, but Adams in a January 13 memo stated that I.C.E. should be allowed into the schools, even without a judicial warrant, if employees feel “threatened.” After significant opposition, this was reformulated to say that city employees should not “interfere” with I.C.E., which is essentially no change at all. The schools chancellor Aviles-Ramos then stated that the 2017 protocol is still in effect in the schools. But school “safety agents,” who are the first point of contact for anyone entering the buildings, do not answer to the NYCDOE. As I said at the February 26 meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy: school safety agents “answer to the NYPD because they are a division of the NYPD. And who does the NYPD answer to? Adams. So, my question to the PEP is where do you stand? Are you going to allow I.C.E. to take our kids, even if they come in with a warrant? I would like a response.” There was none.

At a February 9 press conference on the steps of NYCDOE headquarters at Tweed Courthouse, a number of city council members and state assemblymen gathered to denounce and criticize the mayor, but when specifically asked what they’d do about it, they had no answer other than “apply pressure.” This do-nothing response underlines the importance of fighting for political independence from both parties of capitalism: the Republicans, who are pushing a shock-and-awe program of terrorizing immigrants with the threat and reality of mass deportations, and the Democrats, who deported 5.3 million immigrants under Deporter-in-Chief Barack Obama, and 4.6 million more under Biden. They built the deportation machine and oiled its gears by greatly expanding the camps, detaining families, putting kids in cages. In short, Democrats prepared the way for Trump, again.

There will undoubtedly be a reaction against the horrendous mass deportations. But what’s needed is an organized response mobilizing the working class, which has the power to stop this bipartisan attack on immigrants. A Labor Committee to Defend Immigrants (LCDI) has been organized in New York City, including members and representatives of a number of unions, from Teamsters and warehouse workers to health care workers and educators in the UFT and PSC. Class Struggle Education Workers is part of this effort. As a leader of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists emphasized at a LCDI conference in January, the attacks on immigrants are a class issue. I agree. This is why we need a class struggle workers party and solid labor action to defend our students, their families, our coworkers and community members in this city of over half a million undocumented people and where half of the entire city population are immigrant families. The frenzied racist and xenophobic campaign to deport millions is an attack not only against undocumented immigrants but on all working and oppressed people, and labor must spearhead the fight to stop it. n

Class Struggle Education Workers is an organization, fraternally linked to the Internationalist Group, of union and non-unionized activists in all aspects of education fighting for a revitalization and transformation of the labor movement into an instrument for the emancipation of the working class and the oppressed.  See the CSEW program here. The struggle for students’ and educators’ rights, and mobilization against the genocidal war on the Palestinians continues. If you are interested in joining these efforts, contact the CSEW at cs_edworkers@hotmail.com.  ■