‘This community is not the enemy’: Hillsboro teachers form neighborhood ICE watch

Normally, Andy Bunting spends the hour or so before his class begins at Hillsboro’s Eastwood Elementary School prepping for the day and chatting with colleagues.

On Friday, instead of his usual routine between 7 a.m. and the start of class at 8 a.m., Bunting and nearly a dozen other teachers and volunteers were posted at various points in the neighborhood around the school, watching out for their students — and for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Four days earlier, ICE reportedly detained a parent about 100 feet from the school shortly after drop-off. Federal agents have also been seen patrolling the neighborhood in the morning.

Immigration officers have hit the city of Hillsboro hard in the past two weeks. Between Oct. 14 and 23, ICE made at least eight arrests in Hillsboro, and four last Thursday alone.

Teachers also told OPB that immigration officials recently raided an apartment complex 500 yards from the school, though OPB was unable to independently confirm this.

Staff at the elementary school and nearby J.W. Poynter Middle School, along with representatives from the teachers’ union, have responded by standing watch in the neighborhood surrounding the schools to make students and parents feel safer as they come to school.

“We’re making ourselves present and visible so that our families see we stand with our community and we stand as a message that our students deserve to learn in confidence and not in fear,” said Bunting, who teaches third and fourth grade.

As the county seat of Oregon’s most racially diverse county, Hillsboro, a city of around 110,000 residents, is known for its large Latino population.

Eastwood Elementary School, particularly, has a large share of Hispanic and Latino students. According to data from the Hillsboro School District, Hispanic and Latino students constitute 75% of the student population.

Hispanic and Latino students are also the largest racial demographic at Poynter, making up 45% of the student body.

Eastwood Principal Jose Barraza sent an email to families the day a parent was arrested near the school.

“While we will not be able to communicate every time there is ICE activity, we did want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the fear and uncertainty many of you are feeling and remind you that our school is a safe and welcoming space for all,” Barraza wrote. “Myself, our front office staff, and family liaison have received training on protecting confidential student information and what to do if ICE agents come to our school, and we - along with our counselor - are ready to help answer questions and connect you with resources, as needed.”

Though historically ICE policy barred agents from operating in certain sensitive locations, including schools, the agency abandoned the policy earlier this year. Subsequently, ICE arrested a Beaverton chiropractor outside his child’s preschool in June and immigration agents have recently been reported outside schools in Woodburn, Wilsonville and Gresham.

OPB asked ICE to confirm whether it was making arrests at or near Oregon schools and to explain the reasoning behind the approach.

An agency spokesperson wrote back to OPB, “ICE is safeguarding schools and places of worship by preventing criminal aliens and gang members from exploiting them as safe havens, a practice previously restricted under the Biden Administration. DHS now allows its law enforcement agencies to act with supervisory approval, ensuring such actions remain rare and discretionary.”

Hillsboro School District Communications Director Beth Graser said if ICE truly believes it is “safeguarding schools” from “criminal aliens and gang members” through its actions near Eastwood and Poynter then, “they are operating on faulty intelligence.”

“We do not have these problems and have not asked for assistance of this kind,” Graser added. “Our experience has been that their presence has merely served to decrease school attendance and increase fear, anxiety, and frustration.”

‘Families are too scared to send their children to school’

Bunting and other teachers who spoke to OPB on Friday morning said the recent escalation in immigration enforcement has had a marked impact on students.

Lucy Brush, a seventh-grade language arts teacher at Poynter, said the signs are more clear in some students than others.

“Some students whose families are directly impacted are definitely aware of what’s going on,” Brush said, standing on a corner a couple blocks from Poynter before school last Friday. “I’ve even seen it in some of my students’ creative writing where they’re processing what’s going on and they’re talking about it in these in ways where I know they feel this panic and there’s not many outlets for them to be able to talk about it because they’re 12 years old.”

Rochelle Gutierrez, who teaches dual language social studies and newcomer English at Poynter, said the effects of the recent ICE activity have been even more prominent in her students.

“I have a smaller class size regularly because families are too scared to send their children to school,” said Guiterrez, who was paired with Brush for Friday’s ICE watch.

The teachers also noted some students are coming in late or getting picked up early as they alter the ways and times they travel to school with the hope of avoiding ICE.

Eastwood saw the highest rate of absences for the year on Oct. 21, the day after a parent was arrested.

At Poynter, the school’s chronic absentee rate was up 2.5%, or 17 students for Oct. 20-24, the first week of heightened ICE activity in the area.

While Graser noted attendance was down over the past two weeks particularly among Hispanic and Latino students, she said based on her conversations with school supervisors, all students are feeling the impacts of the increased immigration enforcement.

“It would be fair to say our students are feeling the pressure of ICE in the community, and that they are all experiencing different layers of emotions and connections to the increased ICE raids,” Graser told OPB. “Our students are experiencing trauma from family members being taken and the worry of more loved ones being impacted.”

She added that staff are feeling the impacts as well, through concern for the students, family and community and a heightened sense of responsibility for students’ safety.

From the way Gutierrez described recent immigration enforcement in the neighborhood, it’s easy to see how it could impact students.

“We had ICE drive up into our parking lot and be asked to leave (by staff),” she said. “We’ve had several families in the district that have had family members taken. We have helicopters that have been flying over our neighborhood, regularly. We’ve had people taken just down the street at the Burger King so it’s all around us. It really feels like this area is being targeted heavily.”

Community members reported an ICE arrest on Thursday at a Burger King across the street from Poynter’s athletic fields. The school is also less than a mile from the Hillsboro Airport, which has served as the base of operations for U.S. Department of Homeland Security helicopters for the past month leading to an onslaught of noise complaints.

‘This community is not the enemy’

As the members of the watch arrive at Eastwood around 7 a.m. Hillsboro Education Association President Mary Kay Babcock hands them a map of stations around the neighborhood to occupy for the next hour.

She also double checks to make sure they have the number for the Portland Immigrants Rights Coalition, a hotline where people who’ve witnessed an ICE arrest can report information. In pairs, the teachers and volunteers then make their way to their posts.

Babcock repeats these steps about 45 minutes later, four blocks away outside Poynter, where the bell to start class rings at 8:35 a.m.

The teacher patrols began organically after the Oct. 20 arrest of a parent, according to union representatives who helped organize the watch. The patrols began the next day.

Their ranks have grown since then as parents, community members and retired teachers saw what was happening and decided to join in.

Maureen Barnhart, a retired Hillsboro teacher, said she thought it was important to join because students can’t learn if they’re not in school and they can’t come to school if they don’t feel safe.

Laura Ffitch, an Eastwood parent, said she and her husband joined because students should not have to worry about issues like this at school.

For Bunting, Gutierrez and Brush, giving up an hour of prep time is worth it to make sure kids get to school safely.

According to Gutierrez, ICE seems to have an aversion to the teachers.

“We’re just standing here and letting them know that we’re present. We’re watching and that’s pretty much it. We’re not engaging with them. We’re not approaching them in any way,” she said. “And most of the time they drive away. They don’t want to approach when they see us so they just drive.”

Elvyss Argueta of the Oregon Education Association, the state’s largest teacher union, said educators are working on similar school patrols in Portland, Woodburn and Albany.

Babcock, the president of the Hillsboro teachers’ union, made the educators’ message to the community– and to ICE — clear: “This community is not the enemy and they don’t deserve to be targeted.”