Fears of ICE affects children's routines
Elementary schools kids, parents avoid campus
By: Emiliamo Tahui Gomez
Austin American-Statesman
USA today Network
AUSTIN, Texas - Maribel Galvanez isn't particularly scared of the recent federal immigration detentions that have ramped up in Austin, and across the country, under the Trump administration. She and her young son, who moved to Austin form Honduras three years ago, both have visas.
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But despite those legal protections - Galvanez has opted to drive her second-grader to school in rent weeks rather than put him on the bus where she fears he might witness an mitigation arrest or overhear constant chatter over deportations from his classmates.
..... "They're too small to see those things," Galvanezz said in Spanish by phone. "He wouldn't know what too make of it."
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Galvanez is one of many Andrews Elementary parents who have recently changed their habits in response to the uncertainties brought by President Donald Trump's heavily publicized immigration crackdown and the arrival of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement "enhanced targeted operations" in Austin.
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Some have taken more dramatic measures.
..... The school - which mostly serves immigrants from Mexico,
Central America and Afghanistan and where more than 3 in 4 students are considered English language learners - had pickup lines shrink and attendance plummet by about 50% during the week of Trump's inauguration, according to Audrey Guerrero, principal of Fanny M. Andrews Elementary.
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Absences might have ticked up the week due to a holiday, a snow day and possibly some flu cases, but Guerrero said she believes many families opted to keep their children home because they were scared of being detained.
..... The fear culminated one afternoon in late Janaya [2025] when many families decided not to pick up their children right when school ended amid rumors of immigration enforcement activity on nearby Cameron road, according to several parents.
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School staff members had to stay with the children until the evening, as cars trickled in.
..... "They're afraid that something's going to happen to them while their kids are at school, or that something;s going to happen to their kids at school," Guerrero said.
..... Austin city leaders have tried to assuage fears among the city's immigrant communities. In a recent American-Stateman/KVUE interview, city leaders emphasized that ICE's sweeps appear targeted at violent offenders and individuals with final deportation orders. ICE also has said it is focused on people with outstanding warrants.
..... Yet the scope of enforcement actions largely is still unknown, in part because of the lack of information shared by federal immigration officials.
..... Soon after Trump's inauguration, ICE started posting national deportation totals on it's X account every day that showed the agency was deporting double or triple the number of immigrants it did on a typical day last year [2024] under the Biden Administration.
..... But those social media posts, already lacking detail about where exactly the deportations were occurring, stopped February 1. [2025]
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Amid the information vacuum, fears have grown and been further stoked by some evidence of larger and less targeted sweeps.
..... MBC News citing an administration official, reported that about half the arrests on one day in January [2025] were of people without criminal records, meaning that they were detained only because they lacked legal authorization to be in the United States.
..... Workplace raids in other parts of the country, including New Jersey and Tennessee, appear to have resulted in arrests of individuals who did not commit any crimes and were detained only because they lacked legal authorization to reside in the United States.
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The fear has been "undeniably disruptive" to education and community building, said Jose Carrasco, director of a family resource center that serves schools in northern Austin.
..... During mitigation scares like the one that happened at Andrews and elsewhere, students "are worried about ICE. They're not worried about math class," he said.
..... Carrasco said he hopes students and parents will learn not to share information about immigration enforcement actions to avoid :feeding into the doom machine." Yet, he said, it's hard to completely negate a parent's fear because of schools' lack of information.
..... "What they want to hear is that their kids are safe," Carrasco said. And that's a difficult guarantee to make, he said.
..... On January 26, [2025] the Sunday after Trump's inauguration, Austin Police chief Lisa Davis confirmed to the Statesman that ICE had started "enhanced targeted actions" in the city.
..... The news hit Andrews elementary particularly hard.
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The next day, shortly before the school's 3 PM. pickup time, a parent called to say they had heard rumors of immigration agents nearby. The news spread "like wildfire" among families, said Guerrero, the principal. The campus phone line rang with calls from distraught parents. Teachers tried their best to reassure kids who had seen the rumor through text messages and were afraid to board the bus.
..... School employees waited with about 10 children until the evening when families felt it was safer to show up on campus.
..... The week that followed "was spooky,"" Guerrero said. "the buses didn't have kids. There were no cars in the car line."
..... Carmen, the grandmother of an Andrews preschool student, has continue to drive her grandson to campus each day, but she is well aware of the risks as an immigrant living in the U.S. without authorization.
..... The Statesman is withholding Carma's last name because of her legal status.
..... At times recently, Carmen had had her daughter, the boy's aunt, drive him home. But Carmen still goes most of the time, concerned he will have to wait too long for his afternoon snack.
..... "You have to drive with more caution," Carmen said.
..... On the Friday after the ICE scare at Andrews, about 30 parents crowded into a room for the school's monthly coffee chat with the principal. Guerrero noticed she hadn't seen many of them for days.
..... The parents asked about the district's policy in dealing with mitigation agents on campus. Others asked about the potential punishments for their children's unexcused absences. Several began to cry.
..... The emotional meeting was one way Guerrero said that she tried to communicate to families "that I value them, that they are important to the school."
..... Guerrero said attendance at Andrews bottomed out February 3 [2025] when a loosely coordinated "Day Without Immigrants" protest was held. One class had only two students.
.... Attendance has recently begun to return to pre-inauguration levels, Guerrero said. But she remains worried about what could happen in the coming months.