Less than a few days away from President-elect Donald Trump’s Inauguration, it does not appear Mason City Schools will follow in Des Moines Public Schools’ footsteps and address Trump’s proposed policy for mass deportation.
Recently, the Des Moines Public School Board released a statement acknowledging many families with mixed immigration status may be concerned about deportation policies. The statement says, “We want to acknowledge our students and families which may have worries or concerns about what the future holds.”
Trump promises a policy once he is sworn into office that will involve the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants living inside the United States. It would go beyond the policy already in place which focuses on undocumented immigrants with violent criminal backgrounds. Des Moines school board members are among those concerned a broader policy may also affect some students attending schools across the U.S.
“As a district, we remain committed to ensuring equal protection and safeguarding our students from discrimination based on race, ethnicity, citizenship, immigrant status, or national origin,” said DMPS.
Here in Mason City, Superintendent Pat Hamilton is aware of the Des Moines School Board statement, but he says our board is not taking any action on the issue.
“I get why they did it. They did it because they wanted to show support for that group of students,” Hamilton said. “But I think you can show support for somebody without drawing a lot of attention to it. The difference I think people have to understand, too, is that Des Moines has a huge population of 90-97 different languages, a little bit different situation than we are.”
Mason City has seen an increasing growth rate of English Language Learners. According to ELL instructor, Jeremy True, many come from the Marshall Islands and Micronesia.
“We currently have about 243 ELL students in K-12,” ELL instructor Jeremy True said. “Ten years ago that number was twelve. Most of our student growth is off of I-94 visas which allow people from certain countries to live and work freely. ”
Hamilton says people assume ELs are all illegal, but they are not.
“Our Micronesian population was all legal, and we got kids from Puerto Rico that are legal,” said Hamilton. “The Mason City Community School District doesn’t ask anybody about immigration status… We’re not gonna overreact to start with, but we will support our kids the best we can no matter what kid it is, whether they’re a white kid, an EL kid, or a minority student. We’re just gonna support them, and then go from there.”
The mass deportation policy would need enough votes from both houses to pass Congress which will be controlled by Republicans when Trump takes office.
“A lot of this stuff has to go through Congress, and the one party may control both houses but they don’t control it by very many votes,” Hamilton said. “A lot of times what gets said and what gets done, there’s a big gap between those. My hope is it comes back to the ‘We are just gonna try to treat our people right’.”
