Information and stories in this article came from formal and informal conversations with 5th-grade Latinx students in Washington, DC, during the 2025-26 school year. All names and references to people have been substituted to protect identities (including the author). The author is a teacher and DSA member.
IT'S FRIDAY NIGHT, PIZZA NIGHT. Maria is in the car with her dad and younger brother driving home from the restaurant where they picked up dinner for the evening. She starts to hear yelling from outside the car. Her dad suddenly turns down an unfamiliar street — this is not the way home they always take. Another turn, and another turn, then Maria sees a lot of flashing red and blue lights several blocks over, where they usually drive home. Her dad continues to drive on the back streets all the way home and rushes her and her brother inside once they arrive. It isn’t until they get in the house that he tells her that ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) was stopping people driving on the street.
Maria is scared. She has heard of what ICE is doing to people who speak Spanish, and her dad only speaks Spanish. They were only able to avoid the ICE checkpoint because people in the community had mobilized to warn others: standing on the sidewalk a couple of blocks up, yelling at cars to turn away and avoid the checkpoint.
This is just one of the stories that came out during conversations I have held with my students. I conducted more formal conversations with my students as part of a graduate degree project aiming to find out the ways in which the federal crackdown in DC had impacted my students’ community engagement. I recorded answers from two students (referred to as Maria and Sylvia in this article) and a school employee, Mx. Z. I was curious what communities they were a part of, including where they went with and without their families, outside of school. My informal conversations took the form of “lunch bunch,” where students can sign up to have lunch in the classroom with me, where I ask about their experiences outside the classroom and learn more about their lives. I get all the gossip, all the “chisme,” but I rarely push back on some of the dead-end answers I get when I ask about their free time outside of school.
The purpose of the formal conversations was to explore what community engagement looks like for my students, and how ICE and related federal agencies are impacting my students’ lives. I did not bring up ICE first in any of the interviews, but I knew what questions to ask to get their perspectives. During lunch bunch, my students complain about not being able to do things when they get home and not being able to see their friends or leave their houses. I don't ask why, because I already know. I don't want them to have to reflect on ICE during something that's supposed to be fun.
The federal immigration crackdown in DC has touched the lives of all of my students, either directly or indirectly. My student Miguel endured his father’s abduction by ICE in the streets of Mount Pleasant back in September 2025. His mother made the difficult decision to relocate what remained of her family (herself and her three sons) back to El Salvador, a country she left years before — a country some of her children could not even remember. Miguel told me the Monday before Thanksgiving that the following day would be his last, and that he was moving back to El Salvador. There was nothing I could do. I rearranged a few seats so his friends could sit with him for those last two days, and I let the school counselor know who might need some support. When we returned from Thanksgiving break, Miguel was gone.
A permanent hole was left in our classroom. Five months removed, my students still tell me they miss Miguel. In the interviews I conducted, another student, Sylvia, brought up what happened to Miguel and his dad. They pointed to it as a reason their parents won't let them walk down the block to their friend’s house. It’s why they have to stay inside on the weekends. It’s why many of my students like to come to school: it’s where they get to actually see their friends.
In speaking with Mx. Z, a similar narrative arose. ICE has been posting up near major bus stops, where families get off to bring their kids to school. Mx. Z has been on top of sending out warnings to parents in the morning, whenever ICE is spotted. At least once a week, a message about “law enforcement activities” goes out to parents who then need to adjust their commute to keep themselves and their kids safe. Mx. Z shared that many families have been keeping students home from school with more frequency this year over fears about ICE.
The federal immigration crackdown happening in DC is close to me for a few reasons. First and foremost, it is a threat to my students. Secondly, this isn’t just a community I work in: I live here as well. I’ve been on ICE watch; I’ve been the person on the sidewalk recording. I’ve been that person from Maria’s story, yelling at cars to turn away because there was an ICE checkpoint ahead. My students are always complaining about “la naranja” or “the orange” (referring to the president), and they’re coming to me and asking: why? Sylvia wants to know why she can hear her neighbor crying through the walls all night. She wants to know why she hasn’t seen that neighbor’s daughter in weeks.
Sitting in all this can destroy a person, and I can see the toll it is taking on my students. To experience what has been going on and not be radicalized against it is to be either ignorant or cruel.
What is to be done? If history teaches us anything, it’s that “¡El pueblo unido, jamás será vencido!” — or, “the people, united, will never be defeated.” From history, we have learned countless stories of people coming together, in community, and working for change. We learned, for example, about the Montgomery Bus Boycott and the massive community organizing that made it a success. The support networks that needed to be created to sustain the boycotts were incredible and intentional. The community was able to support itself throughout the 382-day bus boycott by implementing carpools, shoe drives, and fundraising from the Club from Nowhere. It was this organizing and the overwhelming movement of solidarity with civil rights activists that forced change — not Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, or Johnson.
Movements start small. Organizing communities to effect change in the world around us is the American thing I take most pride in. Without it, we would not have the Civil Rights Movement. We would not have the weekend. Women wouldn’t have the right to vote.
Change starts on the community level; we can’t wait for someone else to save us. So, take action to protect children like Maria, Miguel, and Sylvia. Talk to your neighbors. Get to know the people around you. Engage in direct actions that hold power to account and disrupt the status quo for agencies like ICE. If you are looking to get involved with defending DC, visit the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America Community Defense Instagram page for monthly meetings and community patrols. Because we keep us safe.
