By Riya Bhattacharjee
High Principal Jim Slemp cheers on more than 3,000 high school students
who formed a human chain around the campus last week to protest
immigration raids by ICE agents in Berkeley. What
seemed like typical lunch-time ruckus to visitors at Berkeley High
School last week was in fact an act of solidarity with immigrants
across the nation.
More than 3,000 Berkeley High students trooped out of their
classrooms May 22 at a prompt from their principal, Jim Slemp, and
surrounded the 17-acre Milvia Street campus to protest the recent
arrest of a Berkeley family by U.S. Immigration and Cus-toms
Enforcement (ICE) agents.
In less than 10 minutes, members of Fighting for Immigrants”
Rights and Equality (FIRE)-a group formed by Berkeley High staff and
students-helped students form a human chain, dotted with posters and
placards decrying what they said were violations to immigration rights.
The May 6 arrest of a Latino family who lived near the
Berkeley High campus sparked protest among local immigrant groups and
advocates and prompted the Berkeley Unified School District to send out
a telephone message advising parents not to panic, after rumors started
circulating that ICE agents were rounding up students in Berkeley and
Oak-land schools.
“If you had seen our children’s faces when ICE officers took
the family in Berkeley you could see the kids really cared,” said
Slemp. “People were fearful. It’s important that we treat people
equally and make Berkeley High a safe place for everyone. This is a
statement about who we are. Kids could have gone out to lunch if they
wanted to, but they chose to stay back for this.”
Berkeley High sophomore Giovanni Guzman waved a red and blue
“Fire Melts Ice” poster next to a 6-foot-long “Power to the People”
banner.
“I am here trying to show where we stand,” said Guzman, who
was born in Mexico. “Many of my family members are undocumented, and I
was afraid for them when ICE was in the city.”
“Immigrants Are People,” chanted the crowd, as cars and buses
stopped for a second to honk and absorb all the action.
Beatrice Leyva Cutler of United in Action cheered the students on.
“This really shows the unity we have in Berkeley,” Cutler, the
mother of a Berkeley High sophomore, said. “It shows the support of the
school for immigrants. The voice of students and teachers is extremely
powerful for our community.”
Although ICE agents did not enter any school campuses in
Berkeley, the Berkeley Board of Education is drafting a policy that
limits access to the district’s schools from outside agencies,
including Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS, now ICE)
officials.
The district currently has no policy outlining whether or not it should cooperate with ICE agents.
“While we are not asking our employees and students to break
the law, we will not volunteer or cooperate with immigration
officials,” said board member Karen Hemphill. “We have a legal
responsibility to educate all Berkeley residents, regardless of their
citizenship status or national origin, and we cannot do it unless our
schools provide a safe and secure environment. We want to make it clear
to immigrant families that they and their children are safe on our
campuses. We also want them to know that we will not share student
information with the INS.”
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1982 in Plyler v. Doe that
public schools were prohibited from denying immigrant students access
to elementary and secondary public education.
“The reaction within the community [regarding the arrests]
was fear and anxiety and part of [ICE’s] intent was intimidation,” said
school board president John Selawsky. “Our kids have to be comfortable
coming to school every day. We don’t want them to be afraid of outside
agencies and worry about being questioned and detained and taken away
in vans.”
Hemphill said the district’s new policy will be modeled on
the City of Berkeley’s 1971 resolution, which declares Berkeley as a
“City of Refuge” and directs the Berkeley Police Department not to
participate or collaborate with ICE.
Hemphill said the panic around the May 6 incident had prompted board members to establish a new policy.
“Even though ICE agents did not set foot on any school campus,
they can do so with permission from higher authorities,” Hemphill said.
“That’s not a warm and fuzzy feeling for me.”
The district is researching several school district policies
opposing ICE raids, including the one adopted by the San Francisco
Unified School District in 2007, which was drafted after reports of ICE
raids caused immigrant families to stop sending their children to
school, afraid for them to leave their homes.