When ‘We Will Protect You’ Isn't Enough

One Texas principal captured the shift: "We had some students who reported that some of their peers were saying, 'Go back home, you don't belong here.' And that hadn't been their experience before—until this administration. Students told her: 'I've known this kid since third grade, and he's never called me names.'"

This is the gap that emergency protocols cannot close. Legal services help families navigate systems, but they cannot rebuild a student's sense of belonging after a trusted friend tells them they don't belong.

The deeper problem: Schools have generally treated immigrant students' needs as specialized rather than central. Support has been concentrated in English language / multilingual learner (EL/MLL) programs, in crisis response, in targeted interventions. This creates a fundamental vulnerability. When students transition out of specialized programs, when political winds shift, when crisis hits—they enter environments that were not designed with them in mind. The infrastructure to support them doesn't exist.

From Reactive to Systemic

Most schools are responding in reactive mode—supporting students in crisis, addressing incidents as teachable moments, sharing emergency protocols, disciplining bullying when reported.

But systemic belonging looks different. It means culture, rituals and structures designed for belonging from the start. It means migration visible as a throughline across the curriculum—not a special topic. It means belonging embedded in professional culture schoolwide, not delegated to specialists. It means students themselves leading peer-to-peer belonging initiatives.

The goal isn't to do everything at once. It's to recognize where you are and move deliberately toward approaches that don't depend on crisis response or individual champions.

Starting Where You Are

Here are three things any educator can do now:

• Notice who's gone quiet. Watch for changes—fear, withdrawal, distraction, absences. Don't assume you know what's causing the change. Check in: "I want to see how you and your family are doing." Don't force disclosure. You need to be a trusted adult who sees them.
• Connect students to each other. Social support is the strongest predictor of well-being after trauma. Don't wait and hope students find friends. Instead, pair a struggling student with a peer who would welcome that role. Connect families with other families. Loneliness makes everything worse; connection is intervention.
• Make your classroom a space of possibility. For some students, your class may be the only hour where they can forget what's happening outside and feel joy, belonging and hope. That's not a distraction from learning—it's the condition that makes learning possible.

For more on recognizing trauma and supporting students, see these suggestions from Psychologist Maryam Kia Keating. 

When a 5-year-old is detained in his driveway, when students are afraid to come to school, when classmates turn on each other—this is the work.

For school leaders ready to go deeper:

Conduct a belonging audit using Re-Imagining Migration's Belonging Organization Assessment Tool. Gather a cross-functional team—not just EL specialists—and ask: Does every student have an adult who knows them and is proud of them? Are school rituals signaling that all students belong, or do some feel like guests? Is belonging everyone's job, or has it been delegated?

Then pick one area to strengthen: school culture, curriculum, professional learning, or student leadership. You don't need to work on all four at once. You need to move one forward deliberately.

If your school is in crisis:

Focus on protection first—emergency protocols, legal resources, support for overwhelmed staff. But as you respond, pay attention: Which students are being seen? Which relationships are helping students get through? Crisis response can become infrastructure if you're intentional about what you're building.

Re-Imagining Migration's guide "Beyond Protection: An Administrator's Guide to Building Belonging in a Time of Fear" offers suggestions for moving from reactive to systemic approaches.

Why This Matters for Everyone

Twenty-six percent of U.S. school-age children come from immigrant backgrounds. But building belonging benefits everyone—what researchers call the "curb cut effect." Protection keeps students safer today. Belonging builds schools where all students can thrive—regardless of what comes next.

For educators seeking to connect protection with collective action, the AFT is hosting a webinar on Jan. 28 at 6 p.m. EST: "Immigration Enforcement: A Nation at Risk." Register at go.aft.org/AtRisk.