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City councilors push to bar ICE at the schoolhouse door
By adamg on Thu, 03/09/2017 - 9:10am
City councilors yesterday urged the School Committee to declare a formal "sanctuary school" policy that would prohibit ICE agents from entering BPS schools and facilities without "explicit permission" from both the school superintendent and the Suffolk County district attorney.
Councilors agreed with a request from Councilor Tito Jackson (Roxbury), who chairs the council education committee, for a hearing at which to press the point with school officials.
Councilors Annissa Essaibi-George, who taught at East Boston High School until her election in 2015, Ayanna Pressley, Andrea Campbell, Josh Zakim and Matt O'Malley rose to support Jackson's proposed measure, which would also bar school officials from "all voluntary information sharing with ICE across all aspects of BPS to the fullest extent possible under the law."
Jackson said some students are so fearful they now go to school with their favorite teddy bear should they be hauled away from school. Kids "are truly afraid and scared," Essaibi-George said.
Jackson and Pressley said school officials should be working to train teachers figure out how to react should ICE agents burst into schools anyway. Zakim added officials should be working on anti-bullying efforts, because he's now hearing about non-immigrant kids pointing at immigrants and going "you're next."
Campbell added she is worried about the status of a large number of Haitian residents in her district here under a special designation following natural disasters in their country, because that designation expires in July.
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Comments
Can they do that?
ICE isn't bound by local ordinances. They're federal agents.
Yes they can
Being a "federal agency" does not exempt you from the rule of law.
The school, like any property owner, can say "no warrant, no info, no entry".
The Ordinances aren't for ICE
They are for the school. They prohibit a principal from caving in to a raid unless the letter of the law is followed.
In other words, get a warrant or go away. You aren't welcome here. We won't play with you . We won't help you without formal following of procedure and legal requirements. We know our rights.
Not a lawyer, but
my understanding of this is that they're trying to require federal agents to get a warrant before they can enter the school, whether that's in pursuit of a student suspected of being unauthorized, or (more likely) looking for school records to tie students to parents who are undocumented. To my knowledge, it's up to the discretion of the school as to whether they allow ICE in without a warrant, and city council wants to make it compulsory for them to reject them unless they have a valid warrant.
Exactly
The ordinance doesn't change the legal requirements for ICE to enter the school.
What it does is restrict school officials and employees from cooperating with ICE, through discretion or ignorance of the law, unless ICE has obtained and presented a valid warrant.
ICE has NO legal authority to enter ANY building without a signed and valid warrant. They have their own internal warrants, but those aren't signed by a judge and aren't valid.
Wed 8 March 2017 Boston City Council Public Meeting Captions
Boston City Council Public Meeting Captions Wednesday 8 March 2017 for ESL English Second Language folks, for hard of hearing folks, for all
http://bostoncitycouncilcaptions.blogspot.com
This is wonderful!
Thank you!
Accurate Stenographic Record of the Council Public Meeting...
The less accurate WGBH Media Access Group Caption Services transcript made off site at WGBH could be edited better!
Two Stenographic Records of the Public Meeting of Boston City Council. A more accurate Steno Record can be made available, specify City Stenographer Stenographic Record by email request at
https://www.boston.gov/departments/city-council/michelle-wu
City Stenographer E. Fritch makes the Stenographic Record in the Council Chamber during the Public Meeting of Boston City Council. See the City Stenographer setup at https://youtu.be/Ojm1mUxY0WQ?t=7m3s
Is this even necessary? This
Is this even necessary? This sounds like hysterical dramatics, pandering to the voters.
Is there even one single example, nationwide, of ICE showing up at schools? They make it sound like ICE is this big, bad dog catcher with their nets, waiting to catch kids and throw them in the back of their van and deport them, forever.
Give me a break.
Re: Yeah. Grandstanding.
Just listened to a story of an LA father being taken into custody by ICE agents 1 block from his children's school after dropping them off in the morning
Um, one block
FROM the school, presumably on a public street. Not the same as actually entering the school itself.
And the conditions under which ICE should be allowed into a school building should be up to the SCHOOL DEPARTMENT, and not dictated by the City Council.
uh..
the city... runs... the schools ..?
And the City has a School Department
to run the schools. Further, as others have noted, that department is already bound by Federal laws regarding release of information that address the issues that Tito is trying to interject the City Council's noses into.
More grandstanding and bureaucratic interference at play.
Seriously?
Do you believe that the school department should be unaccountable to anyone?
Did you read the first sentence above?
Why don't you take a deep breath and read it again.
Father taken into ICE custody
But NOT in the school building, but one block away. Not a valid example to justify the Boston City Council grandstanding about an issue that should the up to the School Department to determine.
Bullshit grandstanding
Federal law vs a municipal ordinance? I always thought 'progressives' loved federal law trumping local laws and ordinances?
More thinking required
If that's really something you've "always thought," you should "think" again.
Permission
It's a publicly owned building and they're federal agents.
Not a FEDERAL building
Just like your house is a PRIVATELY owned building (unless you live in public housing).
Please read up on the law and try again. If the aim of ICE is records, the schools are required by FEDERAL LAW to demand a warrant. FERPA REQUIRES SCHOOLS to Just Say No to ANY fishing expeditions without a valid warrant signed by a judge.
Read it and learn something: https://ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html
I think ICE is more concerned
I think ICE is more concerned with emptying out the U. S. jails to exportation.
Nope
They seem to be tasked with filling as many privately-owned and operated prisons as they can with detainees, and forcing them to work.
Always follow the money
Yup. Here's a stock price graph for CXW, one of the big private prison operators. The DOJ announced in August that the Federal govt would stop using private prisons .... and then the election came around.
Great. Provoke Feds to cut school funding
This is a non-problem given how ICE doesn't now go into schools to arrest convicted criminals attending classes.
But, for the sake of grandstanding, you want to lose many millions in federal funding, go right ahead. After all, the price for your political career advancement is only the education of children.
Please
Boston's at alleged risk of losing funds because of other actions by the mayor and city council to protect immigrant residents already. This isn't going to make that much more of a difference as far as Washington goes (besides, the DoE's new mission is to privatize/Jesusize schools, anyway, not worry about immigrants).
FERPA requires schools to demand warrants
https://ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/fpco/ferpa/index.html
Records are PRIVATE and schools are REQUIRED by FEDERAL LAW to require warrants for anyone but school officials to access those records.