California lawmakers have passed a bill requiring schools to alert families and teachers when immigration enforcement authorities are on campuses as the Trump administration continues its aggressive mass deportation campaign.
Under the bill, K-12 schools, state universities and community colleges must notify students, faculty and staff, “similar to early warning systems in place for other campus emergencies”, according to a statement from state senator Sasha Renée Pérez, who authored the legislation.
It now heads to Gavin Newsom, who has until 12 October to sign it into law. The legislation would take effect immediately if signed and remain in effect until 2031.
“With students returning to school, this legislation is more important than ever,” Pérez, the chair of the senate education committee, said in a statement.
“In the face of mass deportations, raids and immigration enforcement authorities showing up at schools, the Safe Act can help inform and empower school communities to make the best decisions about their safety and their family’s safety,” she said.
The bill comes as the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown has thrown communities into turmoil, and immigration agents have arrested people outside schools and in shopping centers. State lawmakers passed a slate of proposals in response to the crackdown on Tuesday, and advanced bills banning immigration authorities from entering nonpublic areas of school or hospital grounds without a warrant.
“Students cannot learn unless they feel safe,” Democratic assemblymember Al Muratsuchi said. “For decades we had a bipartisan agreement to keep educational institutions, schools, campuses, free from immigration enforcement activities.”
The legislation was backed by Tony Thurmond, the state superintendent of public instruction, who oversees California’s public school system.
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“Our immigrant families are living in fear and our time to act is limited. The school year has begun, and now is the time to make decisive efforts to protect our communities and maintain schools as a safe place for learning,” Thurmond said.
Other Democratic-led states introduced legislation this year aimed at protecting immigrants in their homes, at work and during police encounters amid Trump’s mass deportation plans.
As the school year began at Los Angeles unified last month, officials urged immigration authorities not to conduct enforcement activity near campuses during the school day. The school district, which is the country’s second-largest, includes approximately 30,000 immigrant students, an estimated quarter of whom are without legal status, according to the teachers’ union.
In August, federal immigration agents detained a 15-year-old boy at gunpoint outside a Los Angeles high school, a case that has drawn widespread outrage in the city.
