The L.A. teachers union and its allies held a rally Saturday calling on the school district to more aggressively fight for immigrant families, including by demanding that the federal government return all detained and deported students to Los Angeles.
School district officials — in both a statement and at the rally — downplayed the union’s confrontational tone and said they are united, along with various constituent groups, in supporting immigrant families.
The Saturday rally was held outside school district headquarters and included a march through downtown. It drew about 500 raucous participants, many of them wearing the bright red shirts associated with United Teachers Los Angeles, which represents about 38,000 teachers, counselors, social workers, nurses and librarians.
“Education not deportation,” they chanted.
And: “Say it loud! Say it clear! Immigrants are welcome here!”
Speakers at the rally included rising senior Vanessa Guerrero, who attends the nearby Miguel Contreras Learning Complex. She spoke about a classmate who was seized and deported.
“She was going to be a senior this year,” Vanessa said. “She’s known for coming to school every day, working hard, and she was an honors student. She did contribute to the community of the school. And was a great person.”
Her classmate and the girl’s mother were seized when they attended an immigration appointment, said Vanessa and others.
“Honestly, everybody is terrified,” Vanessa said.
The union called for a directly confrontational approach with the Trump administration — including involvement in litigation to protect immigrant rights. The school system is not currently involved in litigation with the Trump administration, officials said, although district leaders have strongly criticized its actions.
Specific union demands include establishing a two-block perimeter around schools where immigration agents would not be allowed.
It’s not clear that district officials or staff would have jurisdiction beyond school grounds.
Kindergarten teacher Esther Calderon joins hundreds of other educators in a Saturday rally calling for better protections and support for immigrant students and families.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The union also called for a “formal campaign” that would work with families to update emergency cards and add additional trusted adults to the list of a family’s contacts, in case, for example, a student’s parents are detained.
L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho has said outreach for this purpose is ongoing.
The union also is calling for counselors to be paid to return to work prior to the first day of school to make sure families affected or potentially affected by immigration enforcement are willing and prepared to have their children return to school.
It’s not clear how many students or family members of students have been taken into custody or deported. The school district does not collect information on immigration status. A few cases have become high profile and widely reported on. In other instances, however, both district policy and privacy protections limit what the school system discloses.
Union leaders said they also want the district to provide food and personal care items “to undocumented families who are sheltering in place in their homes,” as well as provide a virtual learning option for students “who are afraid to attend school in person because of immigration raids.”
And they called for the district to develop a “pathway” for students who have been deported to earn their LAUSD diplomas through virtual completion of all required high school units, and to be a “leader” in providing legal support for all those affected by the immigration raids — including school staff who stand up in defense of immigrants.
The superintendent’s office had no immediate response to the specific demands, but school board President Scott Schmerelson said the district would consider any steps to protect and support families.
Schmerelson attended the Saturday rally as a spectator.
“Some of these ideas seem very workable,” Schmerelson said. “The superintendent is working on the safe passageways,” he said, referring to the concept of a safety perimeter.
In their chants, union members vowed to shut the school system down if it did not meet their demands — even though their hostility was more clearly directed toward the federal government.
“This violence affects all of us,” said UTLA President Cecily Myart-Cruz. “Immigrant students are Black, they’re brown and they’re Asian. And the trauma inflicted on these communities impacts every single one of them. When a student is torn from their family or lives in fear, their classmates feel it, too.”
She added: “The mental well-being of entire classrooms is at stake. That is why we demand LAUSD join educators in publicly calling our local and state leaders for the immediate return of all students who have been deported or detained so that they can resume their education.”
In a statement in response to the union rally, the school system emphasized shared goals.
“It is clear that Los Angeles Unified and our labor partners are united in our deep commitment to protect every student, including our immigrant children,” the statement said. “Together, we will continue to take every measure necessary to ensure that all children in Los Angeles are safe, supported, and educated — rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution.”
At his traditional back-to-school address — classes begin Aug. 13 — Carvalho saluted two principals who, along with their staff, turned away immigration agents at two elementary school campuses.
The agents — who stopped at the schools on the same morning in April — said they were doing welfare checks on particular students but provided no documentation to support this claim.
The principals turned them away.
“You became shields, protecting the innocent lives of 7-, 8-, 10-year-olds from fear they should never, ever know,” Carvalho said in his remarks. “Yes, you followed protocol, but more importantly, you followed your conscience. Because of your conviction, … an unimaginable day did not become an unthinkable tragedy.”
School district officials have touted a list of measures taken to protect students and families and characterize campuses as a safe environment from which federal immigration agents will be excluded to the fullest extent of the law.
The union is involved in contract negotiations with Los Angeles Unified, the nation’s second-largest school system. It’s standard practice for the union to rally members around its contract demands and put pressure on the school system at this stage of negotiations, but Saturday’s rally was almost entirely focused on supporting those affected by immigration sweeps targeting the L.A. area under the Trump administration.
