Nearly 100 Kona educators, allies protest to keep immigration agencies out of schools, homes

Nearly 100 educators, students, community members, and education allies gathered Thursday in Kona on Hawaiʻi Island to advocate to keep immigration agencies out of schools and support students who have already been detained from their homes and even from public schools.

This comes after reports of a Kona boy being 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.

The incident incited Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association to organize a sign-waving rally to voice its opposition to federal agents picking up children at public schools. Nearly 100 people waved signs that read “Education NOT Deportation,” “Shoulds Should Be Safe Zones, and “The ABCs belong in schools, not ICE.”

The event attracted area educators, administrators, community partners, and allies who support keeping schools a safe zone for children.

Madison Coluzzi, a second grade teacher at Honaunau Elementary, said that her student and his family, who are from Honduras, are in the process of getting deported.

“I think it’s an important thing that people aren’t made aware of what’s going on and how it’s happening,” she said.

After she and her colleagues learned her student was getting deported, “all of us as teachers, especially the ones who work with these families, we’ve just been crying and devastated and trying to figure out ways we can help the community and let the kids know they’re safe.

I mean, these kids are terrified, even the ones that don’t have anything to be terrified of. It’s their peers, it’s their best friends, it’s, you know, it’s family members that they’re doing this too…you know, it’s just like in his home. You know, these are our kids.”

Waikōloa Elementary and Middle teacher Julie Reed who attended the event said that when she found out about the student taken from school, she was “heartbroken.”

“I think it’s abhorrent behavior. I think it’s irresponsible. I think that the powers that be that have called for these kinds of actions across our country are talking out of both sides of their mouths. I think that they are purporting to want to protect kids and want to do what’s best for kids, and yet they come into schools, traumatize and terrify students, use them basically as bait to bring in parents so that they can put them through yet another traumatic experience.

There’s nothing worse in my mind than to use a child to win some sort of a battle that should be only between adults. And in this case, I don’t think it should be taking place in schools or any sanctuary. I think that hospitals, churches and schools should be off limits no matter what,” she said.

She also emphasized that educators in Hawaiʻi can no longer take a “laissez-faire” attitude to these types of issues.

“I feel like a lot of us, because we are so far removed, sort of geographically, from a lot of things, I think some of us are just like, well, you know, it’s not happening here, or it’s not going to affect us here, or everything is going to be okay.

The more you’re silent, the more power you give to the people who obviously have a playbook and are running it, and I think we need a playbook too, and that’s why I’m here today, to take action. And I’m done sort of twiddling my thumbs and just saying to myself, ‘Well, I’m going to close my classroom door, and I’m not going to worry about it, because it is going to affect my school.’ It is going to affect my students, and I don’t want it happening on my watch, whether I’m in Hawaii or anywhere else.”