The Los Angeles Unified school board on Tuesday unanimously passed a resolution aimed at making LAUSD campuses safer for immigrant students and their families who might face deportation or detainment by ICE agents.
The resolution, proposed by board members Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez, comes shortly after the arrest of Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, an undocumented immigrant who was detained by U.S. Customs and Immigration Enforcement agents as he took his daughter to school on Feb. 28 in Highland Park.
ICE officials said Avelica-Gonzalez was targeted because of prior criminal convictions, including a DUI conviction from 2009 and an outstanding order of removal from 2014.
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“My father was detained in front of me on Feb. 28 on the way to school,” said Fatima Avelica, 13, who recorded her father’s arrest with her phone. She and her sister Yuleni Avelica, 12, joined Garcia, Rodriguez and other organizers behind the resolution at a press conference Tuesday morning ahead of the board vote.
“I’m here to ask that the (LAUSD makes) schools sanctuaries so that nobody else can pass through what I passed through and not be scared to go to school,” Avelica said.
Garcia and Rodriguez created the resolution in concert with a recently formed coalition of organizations, including the ACLU and California Charter Schools Association called California Schools Are Sanctuaries Coalition, which formed in response to Avelica-Gonzalez’s arrest. Avelica-Gonzalez remains detained at Adelanto Detention Facility, according to Jennifer Cuevas, who is representing the two girls.
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The resolution before the board Tuesday was framed as a reaffirmation of a 2016 measure the board passed, which designated any LAUSD campus as a “safe place” for immigrants and their families. But the new resolution goes further. Under it
• schools can’t ask about a student’s or family member’s immigration status;
• the district will partner with legal services organizations to create “Know Your Rights” presentations for students and their families to educate them about their rights when interacting with law enforcement and immigration agents;
• district employees can refuse, to the fullest extent possible under the law, to share information with immigration agents;
• the district will help with legal support for immigrant students and their families by offering referrals to reputable legal organizations;
• the district will create a “rapid response network” to help students or family who have been detained by immigration officials.
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“We know that there are things beyond our capacity, so we are not offering any undocumented students or their families or an employee a magic bullet,” Garcia said just before the vote. “What we are saying out loud is that we are going to focus on doing our job and that our students, our families, their support, they are welcome in our schools.”
“We are living in uncertain times where many of our families and children are living in fear,” said Linda Lopez, Chief of the Office of Immigrant Affairs for Los Angeles, representing Mayor Eric Garcetti during comments before the vote. “Many of our families are afraid that they will deported. And part of our job as government is to reassure them that we will continue to be there to support them.”
Board President Steve Zimmer said immigrants in Los Angeles have been fearful about enforcement action since the November election.
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Since then, that fear has become “constant. It is aggressive. It is invasive, and it is interrupting our process of public education, and that is why it is altogether appropriate that this board … take this action today,” he said before the vote.
“This act of noncooperation follows in a important history of noncooperation with unjust laws, unjust actions that are contrary to our Constitution and contrary to our value system, but also contrary to our mission as a school district,” Zimmer said.
