Editorial: Marin educators ready to protect immigrant students

Marin congressional Rep. Jared Huffman doesn’t mince words when criticizing President Donald Trump and his administration.

Even during the election, he outspokenly warned that Trump’s agenda was aimed at deporting undocumented immigrants, rolling back civil rights and undermining constitutional protections – to list a few of them.

So it didn’t come as a surprise when Huffman, speaking to a gathering of Marin educators and officials, urged them to develop a strategy to aid students and their families who wind up in the crosshairs of immigration agents.

“You need to do stuff, whatever you can, big and small,” Huffman, a Democrat from San Rafael, said.

His rallying cry is a reminder to local educators that they need to have a plan in place should immigration agents arrive on campus. They need to make sure that youngsters and their families caught up in Trump’s deportation sweep are protected physically, mentally and legally.

Schools should be a place of safety and security. Youngsters shouldn’t be fearful of leaving home and going to school.

Educators themselves must feel they are under attack with Trump moving forward to dismantle the Department of Education and threatening to withdraw funding for school initiatives aimed at promoting greater understanding and support to bolster inclusion.

Our public schools aren’t concerned whether youngsters and their families are living here with or without valid immigration paperwork.

Washington’s prolonged failure to come up with a plan to reform immigration has created a scenario of immigrant families having made their homes here, having the jobs here and having been constructive members of society for several generations. Trump’s political pledges to ramp up raids and deportations has understandably raised fears in those households.

Our nation’s immigration process has been broken for decades and political gridlock has stood in the way of possible repairs. It’s as if Congress has given up.

Now Trump has promised to deport 11 million people, by comparison roughly three times the population of Los Angeles.

The scope of that promise is hard to fathom.

Its net will surely touch Marin, and affect youngsters in our schools.

Local schools need to know what to do and what to say when approached by immigration agents. They should be ready to connect families with local social services that can get them legal counseling as they wind their way through the deportation process.

The Marin County Office of Education has already taken a lead, holding bimonthly countywide meetings for local educators to learn about immigration law, legal rights and the responsibilities of schools.

The office has formed similar groups to help deal with mental health issues and social-emotional stress.

That’s a strong and important start.

All families in our schools, from elementary to college, need to be aware that local support is there and ready when needed.

Huffman, who in November won reelection with 72% of the vote, has been vigilant in challenging the Trump administration. During the election he was one of the party’s pointmen in deriding “Project 2025,” an arch-conservative agenda and its connection to Trump’s own.

In Marin, Trump and his agenda got only 16.7% of the vote.

Since the election, when Trump won a second term with 49.8% of the vote, he has done little to unite the country. He’s deepened the divide over many important issues with immigration being only one.

Huffman is urging his constituents to speak out and act.

Making sure local support is on hand at our school campuses for immigrants facing the threat of deportation – especially youngsters – is one way of sending a message to Washington, D.C., that our community believes there are better ways to address the challenges that years of Washington’s failure to adopt needed reforms have created.