A team of scholars at UCLA, led by Professor John Rogers of UCLA, conducted a national survey of high schools principals to gauge their response to ICE enforcement actions in their communities. The survey “draws on a nationally representative survey with more than 600 high school principals in summer 2025 to document the widespread effects of immigration enforcement actions in the first months of the Trump administration.” All of their schools have immigrant children, some undocumented. Many of those students stay home, increasing absenteeism. Students who show up for classes worry whether they will come home to an empty house because their parents were detained by ICE.
The principals they interviewed described their efforts to reassure the students, but admitted that “the fear is everywhere.“
A high school principal in New York said:
“Immigrant students are suffering the most. Chronic absenteeism, post-traumatic stress disorder, and anxiety are interfering with their opportunities for success. They and their families live in a culture of fear. In several cases, students and their families received email notice from DHS indicating that they had 15 days to self deport because they were from XXX and their visa was discontinued without cause. These were hardworking, contributing members of our community.”
A high school principal in Wisconsin said:
“You hear things. So when a kid says, ‘Yeah, I’m a little worried, and yeah, I don’t really want my mom and dad to go out and drive right now, because I don’t know what’s going to happen,’ or you’re sitting at a table with kids, and you’re just chatting about life in general, and one of the kids looks at the kid next to him and says, ‘Just make sure you have your ID with you.’ To pretend it’s not impacting our students would be not a truthful statement. Because it does.”
A high school in Massachusetts said:
“We have seen the negative impact of the increased ICE presence and negative rhetoric around immigrants. Hardworking families who have been in our community for years have been torn apart by a family member being taken from their home or on the street, ICE agents using intimidation tactics around the school. Staff getting involved in taking students home or supporting them while their family struggles. Students staying home for fear of coming to school. There is something just so fundamentally wrong about this—we continue to strive to make school a safe place where all students can thrive, but this task has become increasingly challenging.”
What can we do about this climate of fear? I don’t know. Trump’s Big Ugly Bill allocated $75 billion to ICE over the next four years, more than all of the other federal law enforcement agencies.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How people respond to fear varies.
My “fear” is that I won’t be ready to fight if ICE agents show up banging on my door (or blow it open), or I get trapped in gridlock leading to an ICE checkpoint roadblock, and I don’t have access to firearms like I do at home.
If it comes to that, I want to take two or more of Trump’s ICE thugs with me. That is how most if not all combat vets like me handle fear. The fear that we won’t be able to fight back when confronted by the MAGA-Dictator’s fear police.
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Trump’s rabid, racist deportation raids are harmful to the economy. Most of the people in these roundups are not criminals, and the lawless, inhumane way in which they are being conducted tarnishes our image around the world. According to the Economic Policy Institute, it is undermining the economy and resulting in job loss for Americans since many of the jobs held by immigrants are part of a larger supply chain process that deportations disrupt. It is also causing a tax loss because immigrants contribute far more than they receive for the taxes they pay.https://www.epi.org/publication/trumps-deportation-agenda-will-destroy-millions-of-jobs-both-immigrants-and-u-s-born-workers-would-suffer-job-losses-particularly-in-construction-and-child-care/
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So what do you think can or should be done? Do you support community efforts to protect people from being abducted by ICE? What about people who flee or fight back? Or should people just submit and hope they don’t die or end up in Uganda?
And assuming Democrats take Congress in the midterms, what do you think they should or will do (should and will likely being different things)? I take it you’re opposed to abolishing ICE (even though our country did just fine without it for 228 years)? Would you favor reducing the size/funding for ICE? What about agents who have been in it during Trump’s reign – retrain them? replace them? Any kind of justice for those who have used abusive tactics, or just “look forward, not backward”?
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I have some ideas:
—Make ICE answerable to congressional oversight.
—require extensive training for ICE agents that emphasizes constitutional rights and international law
—I could go on, but everything depends on the mid terms and the honesty of the vote count.
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Interesting how more training is always the answer. We’ve been doing more training my whole life but nothing ever seems to change, at least not for the better. Maybe lack of knowledge isn’t the problem.
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Those who break the law will continue to do so, and escalate their behavior, until a sure punishment for that crime is administered and enforced.
Trump and others with huge monetary resources can skirt around the law, but the henchmen who carry out his illegal directives will think twice if there’s a consequence with teeth to it.
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I agree. Do you think it will every happen?
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”The fear is everywhere”
Mission accomplished for Trump and Co.
I’m sure they would approve the headline.
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