Boston school district allowed ICE to access student's data, creating 'dangerous school-to-deportation pipeline'
Boston's public school board has reportedly allowed their students' information to be shared with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency. Immigration advocates are demanding that the board should immediately cease to share students' information after reports emerged that it had been doing so since 2014.
Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), the Center for Law and Education (CLE) and the Multicultural Education, Training and Advocacy group (META), in a press release published on Monday, accused Boston Public Schools (BPS) of allowing over 100 student incident reports containing students' personal information to be shared with the immigration agency since 2014. LCR attorney, Janelle Dempsey, in a statement said that the board has been enabling a "dangerous school-to-deportation pipeline" putting students at risk of being deported.
The issue came to light after an East Boston High School student was deported to El Salvador in 2017. The student was reportedly named in an incident report after he was involved in an altercation during lunchtime. The student reportedly had no criminal record, however, in the report, he had been branded as an associate of the notorious gang MS-13, according to WBUR.
The student incident report had also stated that the documentation of the incident would also be given to the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), which is a unit of the city's police department. The outlet reported that the information was later shared with federal law enforcement, including ICE. The legal bodies, in their press release, said that if the information had not been shared with the police department, the student might still be in the U.S. The boy, instead, was held in a detention center for over a year and was then deported to El Salvador.
Dempsey also warned that the extent of Boston Public Schools' "collusion with federal immigration enforcement" was "much more extensive" than city officials had previously revealed. Over 100 incident reports entailing students' personal information was made available to the immigration authorities since 2014 through the school's filing system, according to the legal organization.
BPS, however, in a statement to Newsweek, said that the school district was "unwavering in its support for our immigrant students and families." "BPS does not share student information with ICE," the spokesperson said.
"The school, however, admitted sharing the report with local police authorities. "BPS does share school police incident reports with our local law enforcement in connection with their criminal investigations or if the incident reports contain information that, if shared with the BPD, is useful to ensure the safety of the school, public, and the City's neighborhood," the statement added.