'Atmosphere of fear': A new Trump policy could expel thousands of students from classes

As President Donald Trump ramps up immigration enforcement, targeting immigrants at workplaces and street corners across California, his administration is turning its attention to adult students.

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In a memo earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education said adult students without legal status must be banned from federally funded career technical education classes, English-language programs and high school equivalency courses. Adult schools offer these courses to anyone over 18 years old, including immigrants, and many school leaders say the new policy could lead to enrollment declines. California’s K-12 districts may also need to adapt since they use federal funding to offer numerous career technical education classes that teach skills such as welding and farming.

The new policy poses administrative challenges for these schools, which don’t require students to prove their legal status. Many students, including U.S. citizens, lack the proper verification documents.

“It’s going to perpetuate this atmosphere of fear,” said Randy Tillery, the director of economic mobility for the nonprofit WestEd, which helps collect data on behalf of the state.

Last week, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said the state is suing over the new policy.

The U.S. Education Department refused to comment on the new policy. In a press release, the department said it will enforce it starting Aug. 9.

Adult schools ask students to voluntarily share their Social Security numbers, which are only available for those with a legal right to work in the U.S. Of the more than 500,000 adult learners taking classes in California, about 10% voluntarily share their numbers with their schools, Tillery said.

Schools across the state say that they are waiting for more guidance from state and federal agencies before barring students from any classes.

‘What if you don’t return?’

V., a student at Huntington Beach Adult School, has been taking a beginner-level English-language class for the past two years, in-person, Monday through Thursday, for two and a half hours a day. V. agreed to be interviewed on the condition that CalMatters not identify her because she doesn't have legal status and fears deportation.

Her three children, who are U.S. citizens, couldn’t stand the idea of their mom going to school this summer as the threat of immigration raids loomed. “When I grabbed my backpack to go to school, my kids said, ‘Don’t go, mom. What if you don’t return?’” she told CalMatters in Spanish, her voice shaky, on the verge of tears.

Last month, she sent a note to her teacher, saying that, because of “uncontrollable anxiety” she needed to take the class online. “I was, I am and I continue to be terrified to leave (my house),” she said later.

Normally her class has about 40 students, but this summer, it’s down to 24, according to her teacher. The class is livestreamed, and an increasing number of students are opting to take the course online, the teacher said. CalMatters is withholding the teacher’s name to ensure V.’s anonymity.

It was harder to focus while taking online classes, V. said — her kids often interrupted the livestream or something on the computer distracted her. After about two weeks of online school, V. returned to class in person, despite her kids’ fears.

Steve Curiel, the principal, said the school is allowing students without legal status to attend, at least for now, until the education department provides more guidance about its new policy.

For a month now, adult schools have been managing uncertainty over federal policy and funding. Federal funding for adult schools typically comes through on a yearly basis, with the fiscal year beginning July 1, and it provides as much as 30% of a school’s budget. The education department withheld the money for a month, leading California Attorney General Rob Bonta to sue Education Secretary Linda McMahon. On Friday, the department said it would begin releasing the money this week, but the lawsuit is still ongoing, according to Elissa Perez, a spokesperson for Bonta's office.

“We’re feeling optimistic but we’re still holding our breath a little bit because we want to see the actual release of the funds,” said Curiel. He was about to begin making cuts on Friday to contracts at Huntington Adult School but said he will now hold off.

“It’s going to perpetuate this atmosphere of fear.”
Randy Tillery, director of economic development at WestEd

Many states rely entirely on the federal government to fund English-language learning and high school equivalency programs for adults, whereas California has a financial cushion: The state provides over $650 million each year specifically for adult education, representing the bulk of funding for California’s adult schools.

Turning teens away from classes

The education department’s new policy on adults without legal status could also affect high school students. Although much of the federal funding in question supports adults taking English classes and high school equivalency courses, career technical education is part of a separate pot of money, known as Perkins funds, and includes hundreds of high schools across the state. The education department memo says that funding for those programs should be restricted to students who are legal residents or citizens.

An estimated 150,000 children between the ages of 3 and 17 live in California but lack legal status, according to the Migration Policy Institute. The vast majority are enrolled in school.

The U.S. Supreme Court case Plyer v. Doe requires K-12 school districts to provide all students, regardless of their legal status, with “a basic public education,” but in the memo, the U.S. education department said that career technical classes are no longer considered part of a “basic” education. The memo also says that children without legal status are now prohibited from taking college-level courses in high school.

To implement the education department's new policy, public K-12 schools would need to tell certain students that they can’t take specific classes because of their legal status. It would create “an enormous problem for schools,” said Tillery, since schools don’t ask students about their legal status. Public schools would need to gather data about who is a legal resident and who isn’t, he said, which could deter some students from attending school at all.

The U.S. Education Department did not respond to CalMatters’ questions asking how schools should respond or what enforcement might look like. The Los Angeles Unified School District said it was “awaiting further guidance” from the state’s education department, which also declined to comment.

For V., the English classes are about her family more than anything, she said repeatedly. Her daughter is about to be 11 years old and prefers to speak English over Spanish, though she has a speech impediment and struggles to communicate in either language. V. said she wants to be able to speak more English with her daughter, hoping it might help, despite the risks of going to class.

“We’re not living our own lives,” said V. “We’re living for our children.”

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives license.