Immigrant advocates in New Bedford cheered a recent vote by the city’s school committee to establish a “Safe Zone” for immigrant students.
On Monday, the school committee passed the resolution, which was first introduced in February. It doesn’t change district policy per se. Rather, it affirms that New Bedford Public Schools would follow federal law regarding student privacy and the state Attorney General’s guidance on dealing with immigration officers. For instance, school officials should check for a judicial warrant when ICE officers want to speak to a student.
Cynthia Roy, a member of the New Bedford Coalition to Save Our Schools, said several local organizations had been pushing for the resolution’s passage in the wake of ICE raids in New Bedford.
“There have been so many deeply traumatizing experiences in New Bedford already that we knew in order for kids to return to school this school year and feel that they are welcome and cared about and safe, that we had to do something,” Roy said.
Roy went on to say that the resolution would only be effective if “people stick to it.”
“I think it goes back to the organizing, the grassroots organizing, the people-power that it’s going to take to continue to hold New Bedford Public Schools and other leaders accountable,” Roy said.
The resolution also suggests the school district create a “rapid response team” to prepare for a situation in which a student is “deprived of adult care, supervision, or guardianship outside of school due to a federal law enforcement action, such as detention by ICE or a cooperating law enforcement agency.”
Alicia López Gonzalez, co-director of the local organization Mujeres Victoriosas, said she hopes other local school districts pass similar resolutions soon.
“If we don’t do anything about this, then they’re just going to repeat this again,” López Gonzalez said. “And they’re going to traumatize our community, and they are going to make (the kids) feel that they’re the worst criminals, when they’re not.”
