Teachers were concerned they hadn’t been trained on how to handle immigration raids
Posted: March 28, 2025
The Hawaiʻi State Department of Education released a 10-page Law Enforcement Guidance Policy on Friday, March 21, one week after the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association asked the department for “clear and comprehensive guidance” for its members about federal immigration raids.
HIDOE emailed out the guidance and placed it in Lotus Notes memos for all public school employees across the islands on the last day of spring break.
The department had sent out an initial law enforcement guidance document on March 12 to principals, vice principals, and other educational officers, but teachers were not included in that distribution.
The afternoon of Thursday, March 13, Schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi told the Board of Education that enforcement guidance had been sent to schools, but HSTA and its teacher members had not seen or been briefed about the guidance.
On Friday, March 14, HSTA sent Hayashi a letter telling him that educators across the state needed clear direction on how to address fears about federal immigration enforcement involving public school students on and off public and charter school campuses.
That same day, Hawaiʻi News Now interviewed HSTA Deputy Director Andrea Eshelman and Teacher Lobbyist Sarah Milianta-Laffin for a news story called “Teachers want DOE’s new immigration enforcement policy to include more than just administrators.”
The guidance document sent to school employees last Friday details 13 steps school officials need to take if law enforcement officers enter their campuses. The guidance includes sample federal paperwork such as a “Warrant for Arrest of Alien” from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. There is also a color chart called “What to do when law enforcement comes to your school.”
Teachers had grown concerned because they’d received little guidance before a Kona boy was taken out of Konawaena Elementary by a school resource officer late last month after his father was detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.