School Board Chair Teri Barenborg was scrolling through her Facebook feed last weekend when she came upon a troubling post about two immigration-enforcement operations conducted recently in this area.
“Someone wrote that parents are concerned that immigration agents might come into our schools,” Barenborg said, “so they might consider keeping their kids home.”
In fact, as this week began, neither of the recent raids conducted jointly by local sheriff’s deputies and federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Border Patrol involved the county’s public schools.
And School Superintendent David Moore also said reports of the traffic stops employed to find and detain undocumented immigrants – and arrest those deemed to be criminals – have not impacted student attendance.
“Except for one day,” Moore added, referring to the Feb. 1 protest at the intersection of State Road 60 and 58th Avenue in Vero Beach, where more than 100 people, many holding signs and waving the flags of Mexico and other countries, gathered to express their opposition to nationwide deportation efforts.
The superintendent said school attendance here, which usually hovers between 90 percent and 92 percent, “dipped into the 80s” on that day, with the largest number of absentees at Fellsmere Elementary.
About 80 percent of Fellsmere’s residents are Hispanic.
Moore said he didn’t know how many local students were undocumented – or were born to undocumented immigrants – because that information is not included on the questionnaires parents are required to complete when enrolling their children in county schools.
“It’s not a question we ask, but I’m sure we have some,” he said. “Many, if not most, of the school districts in Florida do.”
As for the effect of the Trump administration’s ongoing crackdown on illegal immigration, Moore said the local school district’s policy hasn’t changed: Law enforcement agents seeking to remove students from schools must produce arrest warrants.
School district officials are required by both state and federal law to abide by the warrant and cooperate with authorities, he said, adding that school resource deputies would be expected to help facilitate and coordinate the arrest.
“For us, it’s the same as it has always been,” Moore said. “But it’s really not a thing. These agents haven’t gone into schools, and from what we’ve been told, they’re not looking for students.
“They’re looking for the worst of the worst,” he continued. “They’re looking for criminals.”
According to the Sheriff’s Office, however, not all of the people detained during traffic stops on Jan. 30 were wanted in connection with crimes. Eight adults were arrested on state charges, but at least 12 others were held and turned over to ICE for further investigation.
The local protest was conducted two days later, when participants accused the deputies and agents of racially profiling Hispanic men, particularly those traveling in trucks containing landscape crews.
Sheriff’s spokesman Captain Joe Abollo denied that the stops were racially motivated, saying deputies are “trained to follow agency policies and state and federal laws that prohibit racial profiling.”
Two weeks ago, deputies again joined federal agents in a similar operation, relying on the traffic stops to detain more than a dozen undocumented immigrants, including five who were arrested on driver-license-related charges.
School board Vice Chair Peggy Jones, a former Sebastian River High principal, said she has been contacted by parents who are aware of the immigration-enforcement actions being taken locally and worried about sending their children to school – or being stopped by authorities while driving them there.
“I’ve received a couple of emails from former students who now have kids at Fellsmere Elementary,” Jones said last weekend. “They’re not undocumented, but they’re still concerned.”
She said she also has received phone calls from parents.
Barenborg said she understands why parents are worried, because immigration-enforcement agents entering local schools could cause disruptions and frighten students.
“But if that happens,” she added, “we have a strong policy that protects both parents and children.”
Photos by Joshua Kodis
