Emma, a third grader, cries hot, angry tears when she doesn’t get her way. She is a bit too old to cry over losing in games like foursquare, but she has a “strong internal sense of justice,” as the other teachers and I like to put it.
“Emma,” I say. “You’re out. You have to get back in line.”
“But it’s not fair!” she wails. I tell her that her classmates are playing by the rules — and that rules matter.
That’s what you’re supposed to tell children. But she and I both know that her family has been trying to play by the rules since arriving in this country even though the rules keep changing, and they’re being threatened with deportation.
As a teacher, I have to be consistent, firm and steadfast, even when my instinct is to cry alongside Emma (not her real name; changed to protect her privacy). So I’m unyielding, and she grumbles her way to the back of the line. I see her hurting, and it’s hard to play my part — to be the adult in the room so that she can be the kid — when she is right that so much around her isn’t fair.
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The anti-immigrant movement reduces kids to constitutional hypotheticals and demographic statistics. The effects of the policies the movement pushes are not confined to economic indicators or government reports.
They ripple through neighborhoods, classrooms and playgrounds. The chaotic, legally blurry reality they create shapes even how 9-year-olds play at recess, where teachers like me try to remind kids like Emma that rules are supposed to matter.
If we claim that we belong to a country that creates rules to protect children, then we must not forget the obvious: Immigrant kids are just that — kids. To protect the rights of immigrant children, teachers must clearly inhabit their role as the reliable adult. And educators must stand in opposition to the recent round of confusing and unjust immigration policies.
The modern anti-immigrant movement has been shaped by decades of organized political messaging that frames immigrants as political scapegoats for complex social issues: inflation, the stagnating middle class, the strained health care system and violence against women.
The Trump administration has used this messaging to help expand deportation efforts, broaden enforcement priorities and restrict legal immigration pathways. Children bear the consequences, facing the trauma of family separation and displacement.
Worse, as the administration grows increasingly brazen, children are no longer merely victims of immigration policies — they are direct targets. Thousands of children are now separated from parents at the border, denied asylum protections and threatened with the loss of legal safeguards.
States are proposing laws in defiance of Plyler v. Doe, the 1982 Supreme Court decision that declared that all children, regardless of immigration status, must have access to U.S. public schools.
The GOP hopes to trigger a lawsuit that will inevitably make its way to the Supreme Court, potentially overturning Plyler. Should this happen, it would represent a dramatic shift in U.S. education policy and in the nation’s moral understanding of children’s rights and value.
Amid all this instability and uncertainty around the rules shaping immigrants’ lives, Oklahoma state Republican Rep. Mike Ritze suggested that schools identify English learner students and report them to immigration enforcement: “Turn them over to ICE to see if they truly are citizens — and do we really have to educate noncitizens?” he asked.
Outside school grounds, politicians are playing recess games and monkeying with the rules, tossing our children around like political footballs.
As teachers, we know the importance of consistently holding kids to high expectations. In our classrooms, we need to be the steady adults that children can count on, so they have the safety to grow, play, explore and take risks.
No matter how cruelly politicians and pundits discuss them, and no matter how desensitized the American people become by this rhetoric, immigrant kids are still kids.
Kids like Emma, crying at recess after getting out in the game of foursquare. Kids who already experience the injustice of the world, sensing that they may never be welcome in this country.
Emma wakes up every day not knowing whether she and her family will be deported. And still, like every other child, she goes out to play at recess.
Hannah Harshe is an English Language Development educator in San Diego, California. She is also the founder of Yoga for Immigrant Justice, a fundraising initiative that supports immigrants in the border regions of California and Baja California.
Contact the opinion editor at opinion@hechingerreport.org.
This story about immigrant children was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Hechinger’s weekly newsletter.
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