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They’re Fining Our Families and Scaring Our Kids: Trump’s Immigration Policy Hits the Classroom [1]

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Date: 2025-04-09

Here we go again—but this time, it ain’t just talk.

Trump’s back in the White House, and his immigration policies aren’t waiting for roundtables or second terms. They’re already smashing through communities like a runaway train. He’s got DHS reviving century-old laws like the Alien Enemies Act, pushing daily fines—yeah, daily fines—of $998 for migrants who don’t leave fast enough after a deportation order. That’s not policy. That’s punishment disguised as patriotism.

And you know where this crackdown shows up first? Not at borders or airports. At schools.

I was at a middle school in Salinas last week—one of those places where you can smell hope and heartbreak in the same hallway. A seventh grader, Joel, usually the first to class, didn’t show up until the bell rang. His eyes were red, backpack loose like he’d rushed out the door. Later, his teacher told me Joel’s uncle got picked up by ICE the night before, flagged as “noncompliant” because of some paperwork technicality.

The worst part? Joel thought it was his dad. Spent the whole night staring at the door, waiting.

This is what “national security” looks like under Trump’s second round of immigration enforcement: 12-year-olds missing sleep, worrying their families will disappear.

We can dress it up in legalese, but let’s call it what it is. Mass deportation by design. Trauma by decree. And for students—especially those in immigrant families—school stops being a safe space and starts feeling like borrowed time.

And here’s the kicker: these are kids born here. Dreamers. Siblings. Friends. Some on DACA. Some waiting. Some just scared because the grown-ups on TV are saying their families don’t belong.

So when Trump brags about “flooding the zone” with immigration agents and ending parole for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans, remember this: our classrooms are the first places hit. Not with agents—but with fear.

Ask any teacher. The test scores drop. The heads go down. The absences pile up. And kids like Joel—who should be dreaming about science fairs and baseball games—spend their mornings calculating the risk of saying goodbye at breakfast.

I don’t care if you’re red, blue, or somewhere in between. If we’re okay with that, then we’ve failed not just as a country but as adults.

We’ve seen this movie before. The sequel’s here. And it’s crueler, faster, and unapologetically loud about what it wants.

So yeah, the policy may say it’s targeting undocumented migrants. But it lands first on the backs of children. In classrooms. In lunch lines. In the silence when a kid like Joel stops raising his hand—not because he doesn’t know the answer, but because the world outside just got too loud.

We owe them more than that.

—Lefty Gomez

Still on the Left. Still loud. Still listening.

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/4/9/2315521/-They-re-Fining-Our-Families-and-Scaring-Our-Kids-Trump-s-Immigration-Policy-Hits-the-Classroom?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web

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