HSTA co-hosts back-to-school ʻKnow Your Rights: Immigration Enforcement’ session

HSTA and its partners held a similar session at the end of last school year.

Tokuda, who joined Wednesday’s virtual session from her home in Hawaiʻi, spoke candidly to educators about the current state of immigration enforcement and educators’ roles as advocates for students.

“Increasingly, year after year, generation after generation, we’ve asked teachers to do so much more than just teach […] You have had to become surrogate mothers and fathers and aunties and uncles to children who don’t have a stable home life, who struggle through many things, and don’t have anyone to turn to with critical questions even about their own identity and who they are.

“While we should never ask this of you to do this on behalf of our keiki, I just want to thank you for never stepping back and for always leaning in and leaning forward, because it is so critically important that our children, especially, understand that they have people who care about them,” she said.

“As you share the stories with me, we’ll make sure those stories continue to be heard, because we cannot allow democracy to die in darkness. They need to hear the stories. They need to hear the atrocities that are happening right now so that we can make sure we put a stop to it,” she added.

Practical advice, rights on immigration shared with educators

During the webinar, Emily Hills, the senior staff attorney at ACLU Hawaiʻi, and ACLU Hawaiʻi Legislative Fellow Nathan Lee shared with educators their constitutional rights and protections, such as the right to remain silent, the right to be free from search and seizures, and more.

“While these rights exist, we are seeing increasingly that they’re not being honored by law enforcement or by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers specifically. And so, you know, there’s no guarantee that unconstitutional violations of individuals might happen in the moment,” Lee said.

With that caveat, he told educators to be careful and document situations meticulously so that their rights can be enforced down the road.

Hills reviewed some dos and don’ts regarding if and when immigration enforcement officers arrive on campus.

She referred educators to the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education’s most recent guidance on immigration enforcement in schools, which was distributed to Complex Area Superintendents (CAS), principals and vice principals in March. Most helpful, she said, was a simple flowchart of what to do when law enforcement comes to your school.

If immigration enforcement officers arrive at a classroom, educators should first ask the agents for their identification and reason for their visit, the ACLU experts said. Do not allow entry to their classrooms unless officers have the proper paperwork, notify administration immediately, and document their interaction, they said.

Lee and Hills emphasized the importance of documentation when ICE agents are on campus, saying educators should:

• Record and photograph: You have the right to record and take photos of ICE agents and their actions, as well as any documents they present. This is protected by the First Amendment, as long as you do not interfere with law enforcement operations.
• Make copies of documents: If ICE presents any paperwork (such as a warrant or subpoena), take photos or make copies for your records.
• Observe from a safe distance: Document from a safe distance, be open about the fact that you are recording, and do not physically interfere with ICE agents.
• Do not narrate or identify individuals: When recording, avoid narrating or providing information about the individuals involved. Let the video speak for itself.
• Secure your recordings: Use a passcode lock (not fingerprint or face ID) on your phone to protect your recordings. Preserve the video or photographs carefully.
• Write down your memory of the incident: After the incident, write down your recollections of what happened as soon as possible.

ACLU says updated immigration enforcement practices affecting children in Hawaiʻi

Hills, the senior staff attorney at ACLU Hawaiʻi, said that since HSTA’s first webinar in May, things have changed with immigration enforcement.

Lee, the ACLU’s legislative fellow, said that under the Trump administration, Hawaiʻi arrests have spiked, and there are more incidents happening in schools, especially in the continental United States.

“Hawaiʻi is no exception, and places like Portland, Ore. are no exception to the kind of enforcement of immigration that’s being accompanied by tactics of fear and of brute force and also of targeting people who pose no risk to other people living in the United States,” Lee said.

“We’re seeing an increase in issues related to language access and other kinds of conditions at the Federal Detention Center in Honolulu,” he said.

Lee said that a policy that denies bond to undocumented immigrants who are in detention is affecting children whose parents are being held in a federal detention center instead of being at home with their family and having access to their lawyer.

“This might affect children, perhaps in mixed-status households, who might have one parent who is watching them, but the other parent might be held indefinitely. This is a new development that’s of concern, additionally, because the Federal Detention Center here in Hawaiʻi cannot detain children.

“We are also seeing some cases where children, along with their parents, are being detained and sent to facilities on the continent,” he added.

The issue lies in children being sent away to the continent, very far away from home, Lee said.

He also shared the troubling reality that police (school resource officers) are cooperating with ICE agents.

“One thing that we have seen is targeting unaccompanied children and using their information to locate family members who are caring for them. We have seen an example of the school resource officer here in Hawaiʻi cooperating with ICE and bringing individual students from their school to ICE directly after school.

“And so I think it’s important to stay on our toes, to pay attention to our rights, to assert them, and also to not have a blind eye or to think that these kinds of enforcement actions can’t happen here in Hawaiʻi,” Lee said.