Newsweek reports that school officials and students in Bridgeport are planning to stand up for their fellow students who are immigrants. Meanwhile, the students are protesting in the best way possible, holding posters that say: “WE ARE ALL ILLEGALS.” The kids are alright.
A school district in Connecticut is defying President Donald Trump‘s order to allow Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to go to sensitive locations.
Bridgeport Public Schools announced on Tuesday guidelines designed to protect students in the event of an attempted raid by ICE agents at any of its schools.
Newsweek has contacted the White House via email for comment outside of normal office hours.
Why It Matters
Trump has begun implementing sweeping immigration reforms and is preparing to target millions of undocumented immigrants. The school district’s stance signals the emergence of grassroots opposition to the administration’s plans to initiate the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history.
What To Know
Bridgeport Public Schools’ announcement came after the acting director of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a directive on January 21 ending the policy that ICE agents would not conduct actions in or near “sensitive” areas, such as churches, hospitals or schools.
Interim school superintendent Dr. Royce Avery reaffirmed that the school district’s immigration enforcement guidelines remain in place. Avery said that ICE agents and other government officials are prohibited from entering school buildings, boarding buses or attending school events without prior written approval from the superintendent.
“Every student in Bridgeport, regardless of their immigration status, has the right to feel secure and supported in our schools,” he said.
Avery did not say if any ICE raids were planned in Bridgeport. He added that Bridgeport Public Schools does not collect or store information about students’ immigration status, ensuring their privacy is protected….
What People Are Saying
Interim school superintendent Dr. Royce Avery said in a press release: “I became an educator to advocate for all students, and I will ensure their rights and privacy are upheld. Our schools will remain a safe space where all students can learn, grow, and succeed without fear or discrimination.”
Acting Secretary of Homeland Security Benjamine Huffman said in a statement: “This action empowers the brave men and women in CBP [Customs and Border Protection] and ICE to enforce our immigration laws and catch criminal aliens—including murders and rapists—who have illegally come into our country. Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest. The Trump Administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement and instead trusts them to use common sense.”
Janet Murguía, president and CEO of Latino civil rights and advocacy organization UnidosUS, told Newsweek: “Many of the president’s proposed executive orders, however, are strictly punitive measures such as changing enforcement targets to include schools, churches and hospitals, and are designed to inflict pain on the most vulnerable—families, children and even the sick and injured.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
The 3,539th posting on this blog advocating for open borders. This blog is way out of touch with public opinion.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2025/01/23/cnns_enten_there_has_been_a_massive_shift_on_immigration_the_majority_of_americans_believe_illegals_should_be_deported.html
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So you advocate ICE raiding schools? These guidelines are put in place to keep schools a welcoming environment where the safety of school children is prioritized. We have similar guidelines in Boston that make sure that due process is followed. We do not allow unauthorized people in our buildings and we don’t release children to anyone but that has not been authorized by their parents/guardians. This is as it should be. People, regardless of immigration status, still have the right to due process – for now. And using children as bait is unconscionable.
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If you truly believe in freedom then you would support open borders. Why should any government have the right to say you can’t cross some arbitrary line on the ground?
For people like you though, your racism overrules your alleged love for freedom. You like those arbitrary lines on the ground because they keep those nasty dark people away from you, amiright?
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When you don’t have facts and logic on your side, scream racism. No first world country can take in every impoverished person who wants to move there. The infrastructure would be overwhelmed: health care, education, housing, water resources, etc. Simple minds don’t realize this reality.
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The world has plenty of resources for everyone. The problem comes when some countries steal resources from other countries and thereby impoverish those countries and when some individuals hoard resources at the expense of the majority. If everyone would be satisfied with what they need instead of greedily gobbling up whatever they want, we could live happily in our own places and immigration wouldn’t be a problem. If scarcity is your concern, then take your anger out on the hoarders, not the desperate ones struggling to survive.
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Dion Sandman: Is everything seen through the simple eyes of absolute extremism? Where is your thinker? CBK
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I don’t support open borders. I support legal immigration. I also support kindness, compassion, and mercy. If the laws are broken, we fix them. We should not terrorize and exploit decent people.
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You have written many times that you don’t support open borders. But you have never said who you wouldn’t allow to stay once they are inside the U.S. How many low-skilled, minimally educated, low-income people would you allow in? The country already has a big surplus of those people who are here legally, most of them citizens.
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People who are citizens should not be deported.
In my ideal system, every new immigrant would have a sponsor. That’s the way it was done decades ago.
Immigrants create economic growth. Catharine Rampell of the Washington Post has written several articles that demonstrate with data that immigrants have been a big plus for our economy.
Do you want to plant or pick crops? Do you intend to clean hotel rooms or do the dishes in a restaurant?
Here is one article Rampell wrote last year:
As the economy has improved and consumers have begun recognizing that improvement, Republicans have pivoted to attacking President Biden on a different policy weakness: immigration. After all, virtually everyone — Democrats included — seems to agree the issue is a serious problem.
But what if that premise is wrong? Voters and political strategists have treated our country’s ability to draw immigrants from around the world as a curse; it could be a blessing, if only we could get out of our own way. Consider a few numbers: Last week, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office released updated 10-year economic and budget forecasts. The numbers look significantly better than they did a year earlier, and immigration is a key reason.
The CBO has now factored in a previously unexpected surge in immigration that began in 2022, which the agency assumes will persist for several years. These immigrants are more likely to work than their native-born counterparts, largely because immigrants skew younger. This infusion of working-age immigrants will more than offset the expected retirement of the aging, native-born population.
This will in turn lead to better economic growth. As CBO Director Phill Swagel wrote in a note accompanying the forecasts: As a result of these immigration-driven revisions to the size of the labor force, “we estimate that, from 2023 to 2034, GDP will be greater by about $7 trillion and revenues will be greater by about $1 trillion than they would have been otherwise.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/02/13/immigration-economy-jobs-cbo-report/
I sense from your tone that you hate immigrants. I don’t. My mother was an immigrant. She entered legally in 1919.
I don’t hate immigrants.
Hate is very corrosive. I’ve heard it shortens your life span. Let the love in your heart include people who are seeking a better life.
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You have no idea how many minimum wage jobs we need to fill in farming, manufacturing and the service industries, do you? And why is it that Diane must been an immigration expert able to design and execute a sane policy? Certainly Trump has shown no ability to do that. He trashed a bipartisan bill that was at least a start and apparently met almost all Republican demands, so he could rail against the failure of Biden to enact one!
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Kudos to Dr. Royce Avery for standing up to the courage of his convictions. It makes perfect sense for ICE to arrest violent criminals and deport them. There is no need to terrorize hard working immigrant families that are simply trying to survive. I know these decent people well. They work hard, contribute to the economy and pay taxes for services that can never benefit from. Many of the children have already been terrorized by violence in their home country, and some have witnessed the executions of family members. Some still suffer from PTSD, and they bear the scars of both physical and mental suffering. It is inhumane to make churches and schools targets of ICE raids.
By the way In 2022, undocumented immigrants paid $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes. They paid $59.4 billion in federal taxes, $37.3 billion in state and local taxes, and $25.7 billion in Social Security taxes. They also paid $6.4 billion in Medicare taxes and $1.8 billion in unemployment insurance according to AI. Trump’s anti-immigrant zealots will damage the economy a great deal.
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Folks: As we speak, Trump is acting like an aggressive cancer on the body politic. It’s the weekend, and while everyone is weekending, he and his Project 25 neanderthal people are doing everything they can to destroy democratic order, like getting rid of Inspector Generals in various departments and firing DEI workers.
Like in the Hitler playbook, work fast to take everything apart while the people are not looking and while they still expect you to work for them/us.
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The extreme right has caught the car it has been long chasing. Suddenly, they are required to quit barking. What will they do?
What if all the children claim to be illegal? How will they house them? What if they raise tariffs? How will they placate a nation suffering double digit inflation? There is so much more.
The dog has caught the car. It does not know what to do.
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Good point, Roy. The price of eggs continues to climb due to increase due to bird flu. Putin apparently told Trump to mind his business. There is no instant end to the war in Ukraine. He has gone “full fascist” on health and science by issuing an “an information freeze” on the NIH, CDC and FDA. People are starting to understand this tinpot dictator has no clothes.
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Roy: A philosophy teacher once said when talking about the great depression that it wasn’t that things were not available, but that the system was huge but had lost its delicate order. Trump is making disorder all over the place. If we get the chance, putting things back in order, or righting a huge ship, is going to be a tough road. CBK
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With no one in his administration to tell him he can’t or shouldn’t do it like his first four years, will FELON47 send in armed troops or recently pardoned, deputized armed fiends [not friends], who took part in the January 6, 2021, violent attack on our capital and will he claim immunity with more pardons after they mow down children, administrators and teachers’ … citizens or not, with bullets.
That is what General Miley stopped IQ45 from doing and why FELON47 wants Miley executed with a firing squad explaining why President Biden pardoned him for the alleged crime of saying no to Donald Trump.
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ICE raids a business in Newark, New Jersey. Detains a U.S. citizen and military veteran. Mayor Ras Baraka responds in this press conference…
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POPE FRANCIS declared that Trump’s mass deportation of immigrants is “shameful” and that “This is not the way to solve things.”
Every Catholic church in America could become an immigrant sanctuary surrounded and defended by Catholics faithful to the teachings of Jesus.
What will Trump’s minions do then — storm Catholic churches, beating down and arresting throngs of Catholic Christians?
Seven of the nine U.S. Supreme Court Justices are Catholic, so what would the Supreme Court say about that?
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