Democratic state legislators say they want to better protect North Carolina students from federal immigration agents looking for noncitizens on school property.
President Donald Trump vowed on the campaign trail to carry out the largest deportation operation in U.S. history and in recent months has ordered immigration crackdowns in several U.S. cities, including Charlotte and Raleigh. During November enforcement operations in North Carolina, tens of thousands of students missed class amid fears that immigration agents might target them at school — worries federal officials have said are unfounded.
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Still, Democrats in North Carolina’s Republican-led General Assembly say that the state’s students deserve to be able to attend class with peace-of-mind. To that end, Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation this week that would govern public school interactions with federal immigration agents.
State law currently offers no uniform guidance for how public schools should interact with federal immigration agents, said state Rep. Julia Greenfield, D-Mecklenburg. Greenfield filed proposals that would require all North Carolina public school systems to develop a plan for interacting with immigration agents, obtain written permission from parents before sharing student information with immigration authorities, and notify parents anytime immigration officials request student information or request to enter school property.
“They come in and they look very scary in their tactical gear,” Greenfield said during a news conference Tuesday, referring to federal immigration agents.
“One of the big purposes of this bill is to not only make sure that these young, innocent children can attend school, but also to make sure that every other person who's in that school or who is related to that child knows what's going on and knows what to do if things were to go awry,” she said.
Greenfield said she felt compelled to seek more predictability for North Carolina students after witnessing how many students skipped school in November during “Operation Charlotte’s Web,” a crackdown on undocumented immigrants by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that led to more than 1,300 arrests in the state.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
One of Greenfield’s bills, House Bill 1061, also attempts to guarantee noncitizens’ rights to an education in state law. The U.S Supreme Court ruled in the 1982 “Plyler v. Doe” decision that states cannot deny children access to a public education because of their immigration status. The ruling is the reason the state Department of Public Instruction doesn’t track students immigration status, department officials have told WRAL.
However, Republicans in other state legislatures have proposed laws to prevent noncitizens from enrolling in public schools. For instance, lawmakers in Tennessee proposed a bill that would allow school districts — known as local education agencies — to refuse to enroll students who are in the U.S. unlawfully.
“This [bill] is an attempt to preempt that and to draw attention to the rights of our children and families,” state Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, said Tuesday.
House Speaker Destin Hall, R-Caldwell, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Greenfield acknowledged that her bill faces long odds to becoming law in the Republican-controlled legislature.
Republican lawmakers in recent years have focused on laws that crack down on immigration and require state officials to cooperate with immigration agents.