NEW YORK, CMC – The New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) and the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York (MRNY) are calling on the New York City Public Schools (NYCPS) Chancellor to take “immediate, decisive steps” to better protect Caribbean and other immigrant students against potential United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) enforcement actions.
They have sent a letter to NYCPS Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos urging her to protect school facilities and records from ICE.
NYCLU, a non-profit organization that defends civil liberties and civil rights in New York State, said the action follows President-Elect Donald J. Trump’s recently announced plans to end restrictions on ICE arrests at sensitive locations, such as schools, places of worship, and hospitals.
MRNY said recommendations include strengthening protocols against non-local law enforcement’s access to school facilities and student records, codifying the updated protocol as regulation, and swiftly training school administrators, student safety agents, and other school staff to enforce the protocol correctly.
“All young people in New York have the right to attend school, no matter their immigration status or their families’,” said Johanna Miller, the director of the NYCLU’s Education Policy Center.
“Immigrant students and families are facing increasingly dangerous threats, both nationally and statewide, making children afraid of going to school. As the nation’s largest and most diverse public school system, New York City must take immediate steps to boldly and unapologetically protect all students’ rights to an education,” she added.
NYC Public School student and MRNY member Dali Alban said every student, regardless of immigration status, deserves to feel safe in school.
“As the new Trump administration is just days away from office, Chancellor Melissa Aviles-Ramos must step up and protect all NYC students.
“While anti-immigrant policies threaten our classmates and our families, the chancellor must strengthen protocols to ensure that ICE cannot enter our schools, inflict fear in our classrooms, and try to tear us apart from our communities and our loved ones,” she added.
MRNY said proposed steps for strengthening the non-local law enforcement protocols include clarifying that NYCPS will not grant ICE access to school facilities in the absence of a judicial warrant, requiring staff to notify parents of any warrant or subpoena unless they’re explicitly prohibited from doing so and requiring Senior Field Counsel to explicitly consider whether compliance with any warrant or subpoena would expose the district to liability for violating immigrant students’ right to access education or federal and state privacy laws.
Last week, immigration advocates in New York criticized Governor Kathy Hochul for failing to address the plight of Caribbean and other immigrants in her fourth State of the State (SOS) address.
“Governor Hochul outlined her vision for a New York that is more affordable, where more families can make ends meet, find housing, and prosper. Yet, she failed to mention the immigrants who have already contributed so much to making that vision a reality,” Murad Awawdeh, president and chief executive officer of the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), an umbrella immigrant advocacy organization of over 200 immigrant and refugee rights groups throughout New York, told the Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC).
and then  and the immigrant advocacy group Make the Road New York (MRNY) are calling on the New York City){kind=link}