They say students are staying home from school so they aren’t taken by ICE
Posted: May 14, 2025
More than 40 people, most of them public school teachers, attended a talk-story event with U.S. Rep. Jill Tokuda (D, Hawaiʻi) in Kona Saturday afternoon, organized by the Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association to discuss immigration enforcement concerns. Afterwards, Tokuda called the meeting “heart-wrenching.”
West Hawaiʻi educators, parents and immigrant advocates shared personal stories of how their students and classrooms are being affected by immigration crackdowns under the administration of President Donald Trump.
Some of the significant concerns discussed Saturday included:
- ICE agents not following protocol, breaking into houses without providing warrants, showing up to the same homes on a regular basis even after paperwork was provided.
- ICE agents targeting students who supposedly look like immigrants, even students of Native Hawaiian ancestry. Students are worried that they are being followed home when they get off the bus.
- Students are talking about these issues at school, but there is no guidance on what teachers can clarify and what they cannot without getting into trouble.
- Teachers are worried that if they speak out on behalf of a student who is detained, the student will get deported faster.
- Educators want to know if a student or their family has been detained outside of school. The coconut wireless (also known as word on the street) is the only means of communication as of right now. At Kealakehe Elementary, a student’s mother was taken in the morning, and the student came to school, teachers said. How would teachers know what the student had just experienced if a community member had not called to notify the school? How do schools know that the student has someone to go home to?
Tokuda: Parents, educators are ‘absolutely devastated’ about what’s happening
Tokuda, the congresswoman who represents rural Oʻahu and the neighbor islands, posted a video on social media immediately after the meeting, calling it “a heart-wrenching town hall.”
Tokuda said the room at Kealakehe Intermediate Schoolʻs library Saturday was “packed with parents, educators, community folks, who are just absolutely devastated about what we’ve been seeing here in Hawaiʻi Island.”
Tokuda recounted the concerns she heard from people at the meeting and said, “Children who should be sitting in their classrooms in these final weeks of school are afraid to come in case they might be grabbed away by ICE. Children walking different routes home to school because they’re afraid they’re being used as bait to trap family members. Other students scared for their classmates, asking questions about where their classmates are.”
“This is absolutely unacceptable. It breaks my heart as a mom and as a parent, as a public school product. We need answers,” Tokuda said.
“Our teachers, our administrators, our students, and our families should not be going through this alone. So one of the big questions I have right now is, how is the Hawaiʻi Department of Education making sure that they have the information that they need? No one understands their rights and gets support, because this really hurts inside for so many individuals that are witnessing this firsthand,” Tokuda added.
Konawaena Middle teacher says ‘students are scared’
Erin Griffith, a 6th-grade special education teacher at Konawaena Middle School, was one of the educators who attended Saturday’s session with Tokuda.
Griffith says fear is in the air among the immigrant student population she serves.
“I didn’t even know a student was taken from our school, but I know that the students have been scared. Some of the students were scared when the Navy bands came to play a couple weeks ago. Some Latino students were scared of those men and women in uniform. That’s one of the examples of how the students are scared.”
Some students are staying home out of fear they may be arrested by immigration enforcement, Griffith said, and as a result, “we canceled the Konawaena Latino night.”
“I know that the students are scared, and I care about protecting the students,” Griffith added.
HSTA asks HIDOE to take further action on immigration enforcement
The HSTA is asking the Hawaiʻi State Department of Education to affirm that it won’t retaliate or discipline school employees who refuse to participate in immigration enforcement. The union also wants HIDOE to require administrators to be trained on immigration enforcement issues. HSTA made those requests and others in a letter to Schools Superintendent Keith Hayashi May 14.
HSTA is working to develop more resources and guidance for educators about responding to immigration raids.
In January, the National Education Associated released immigration guidance that laid out information regarding immigration and schools.
On March 14, the HSTA appealed to HIDOE that educators needed clear direction about how to address fears about federal immigration enforcement involving public school students on and off campus.
On March 21, HIDOE released a 10-page Law Enforcement Guidance Policy, one week after HSTA asked the department for “clear and comprehensive guidance” for its members about federal immigration raids.
On May 6, more than 10 public school teachers were detained by ICE officers in an early-morning raid in Kahului that turned out to be a mistake because the felon they were looking for hadn’t lived on the property for more than a year.