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Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Deportation Database Puts Students at Risk
School (in)Security is our biweekly briefing on the latest school safety news, vetted by Mark Keierleber. Subscribe here. Tennessee state Sen. Bo Watson wants to eject undocumented students from public school classrooms. But first, he needs their data. Watson seeks to require students statewide to submit a birth certificate or other sensitive documents to secure their seats — one of numerous efforts nationwide this year as Republican state lawmakers seek to challenge a decades-old Supreme Court precedent enshrining students' right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status. In my latest feature this week, I dive into why those efforts have alarmed student data privacy advocates, who warn that efforts to compile data on immigrant students could be used not just to deny them an education — it could also fall into the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As the Trump administration ramps up deportations and tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency reportedly works to create a 'master database' of government records to zero in on migrants, data privacy experts warn that state and federal data about immigrant students could be weaponized. Click here to read my latest deep dive. Cybercriminals demanded ransom payments from school districts nationwide this week, using millions of K-12 students' sensitive data as leverage after the files were stolen from education technology giant PowerSchool in a massive cyberattack late last year. The development undercuts PowerSchool's decision to pay a ransom in December to keep the sensitive documents under wraps. | The 74Gutted: Investigations at the Education Department's civil rights office have trickled to a halt as the Trump administration installs a 'shadow division' to advance cases that align with the president's agenda. | ProPublica Civil rights groups, students and parents have asked courts to block the Education Department's civil rights enforcement changes under Trump, saying they fail to hold schools accountable for racial harassment and abuses against children with disabilities. | K-12 Dive Among the thousands of cases put on the back burner is a complaint from a Texas teenager who was kneed in the face by a campus cop. | The 74 'The hardest case for mercy': Congratulations to Marshall Project contributor Joe Sexton, who was named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his reporting on a legal team's successful bid to spare the Parkland, Florida, school shooter from the death penalty. | The Marshall Project The city council in Uvalde, Texas, approved a $2 million settlement with the families of the victims in the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School, the first lawsuit to end with monetary payouts since 19 children and two teachers were killed. | Insurance Journal In Michigan, a state commission created in the wake of the 2021 school shooting at Oxford High School, which resulted in the deaths of four students, issued a final report calling for additional funding to strengthen school mental health supports. | Chalkbeat Meanwhile, at the federal level, the Education Department axed $1 billion in federal grants designed to train mental health professionals and place them in schools in a bid to thwart mass shootings. | The 74 A high school substitute teacher in Ohio was arrested on accusations she offered a student $2,000 to murder her husband. | WRIC Connecticut schools have been forced to evacuate from fires caused by a 'dangerous TikTok trend' where students stab school-issued laptops with paper clips to cause electrical short circuits. | WFSB Eleven high school lacrosse players in upstate New York face unlawful imprisonment charges on accusations they staged a kidnapping of younger teammates who thought they were being abducted by armed assailants. | CNN Get the most critical news and information about students' rights, safety and well-being delivered straight to your inbox. The Future of Privacy Forum has 'retired' its Student Privacy Pledge after a decade. The pledge, which was designed to ensure education technology companies were ethical stewards of students' sensitive data, was ended due to 'the changing technological and policy landscape regarding education technology.' | Future of Privacy Forum The pledge had previously faced scrutiny over its ability to hold tech vendors accountable for violating its terms. | The 74 New kid on the block: Almost simultaneously, Common Sense Privacy launched a 'privacy seal certification' to recognize vendors that are 'deeply committed to privacy.' | Business Wire Google plans to roll out an artificial intelligence chatbot for children as the tech giant seeks to attract young eyeballs to its AI products. | The New York Times Kansas schools plan to spend state money on AI tools to spot guns despite concerns over reports of false alarms. | Beacon Media HHS Condemns Gender-Affirming Care in Report That Finds 'Sparse' Evidence of Harm Chicago Public Schools' Black Student Success Plan Under Investigation Over DEI SCOTUS to Rule in Case That Could Upend Enforcement of Disabled Students' Rights Birds are chirping. Flowers are blooming. And 74 editor Bev Weintraub's feline Marz is ready to pounce.
Yahoo
08-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Trump's Massive Deportation Database Puts Students at Risk, Advocates Warn
Tennessee state Sen. Bo Watson wants to eject undocumented children from classrooms. But first, he needs their data. Under legislation proposed in February, students statewide could be required to submit birth certificates or other sensitive documents to secure their seats — one of several state efforts this year designed to challenge a decades-old Supreme Court precedent enshrining students' right to a free public education regardless of their immigration status. Watson, a Republican, argues undocumented students are a financial drain on Tennessee's public schools even though state officials don't know how many are enrolled there. He sees a way to find out. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter 'If someone is not able to produce their documentation then you would make the assumption that they are here illegally and it would allow you to begin to collect some data as to the number of students in a school system that are either undocumented or are here illegally,' Watson said in an interview with The 74. 'So that's sort of a starting point for us, in terms of trying to understand what the financial cost is.' The controversial legislation, which has drawn protests and could jeopardize more than $1.1 billion in federal money for Tennessee schools, has also sparked alarm among privacy advocates who warn efforts to compile data on students' immigration status could be used not just to deny them an education — it could also fall into the hands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. As the Trump administration ramps up deportation efforts and tech billionaire Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency reportedly works to create a 'master database' of government records to zero in on migrants, civil rights advocates warn that education data about immigrant students, such as home addresses, could be weaponized. 'That would be an easy grab for federal officials,' said Cody Venzke, a senior policy counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union focused on surveillance, privacy and technology. 'Schools are a geographically based governmental service and that makes that data particularly vulnerable.' Get the most critical news and information about students' rights, safety and well-being delivered straight to your inbox. Republican lawmakers in Tennessee, Oklahoma and Idaho seek to compel educators to collect records about students' immigration status that have traditionally been outside their purview. Meanwhile, reams of existing information about immigrant students — including their birth locations and how long they've lived in the U.S. — could serve as proxies to help authorities identify and track undocumented students or those with undocumented family members, said Elizabeth Laird, the director of equity in civic technology at the nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology. For Laird, a recent executive order signed by President Donald Trump to merge federal and state data, surveillance-driven immigration enforcement efforts and irregular data collection efforts across federal agencies set off alarm bells. Laird recently published a white paper on schools' legal obligations to keep sensitive student data secure. 'What we've seen in the last three months is unprecedented access to and consolidation of data about people across a number of federal agencies, and that means taxpayers, it means student loan borrowers, it means Social Security recipients,' Laird said. Immigration enforcement officials have already turned to data to deport international college students, unaccompanied minors who came to the U.S. without their parents and immigrant taxpayers whose IRS returns were once considered absolutely confidential. Additional irregular data collection efforts have been carried out across federal agencies in the name of rooting out fraud and waste. 'You don't have to go very far to see the connection between the data environment that they've created in the name of fraud, waste and abuse and how it relates to immigration enforcement,' Laird said. As Republicans argue that immigrants are wrongly accessing benefits and causing financial turmoil in public schools, she said, 'Immigration has become a fraud, waste and abuse issue.' Officials at the White House and Education Department didn't respond to requests for comment. At just over 100 days into Trump's second term, there is no evidence that K-12 students' data have become a specific target for immigration enforcement, even after ICE scrapped a longstanding policy this year that restricted agents from carrying out raids at schools, churches and other 'sensitive locations.' Watson told The 74 his legislation is about ejecting undocumented children from public schools and not about removing them from the country altogether. But a recent Center for Democracy and Technology survey suggests that educators even pre-Trump were already sharing student information with immigration enforcement officials. Some 17% of teachers reported that their schools provided student grades, attendance and discipline information to immigration authorities last school year, the survey found, as well as information collected by digital surveillance tools on school-issued laptops. Related A recent executive order seeks to make vast data collection a lot easier. With a stated purpose of promoting government efficiency, Trump signed an executive order in March to eliminate 'information silos' between federal agencies that have historically existed to prevent the government from abusing its access to Americans' sensitive personal information, including adoption records, citizenship information, IP addresses and student loan histories. Under the order, a whistleblower claims the Trump administration is building a database of individual people unlike anything the U.S. government has had before — and one that's been compared to the tactics of authoritarian regimes. 'Most breathtaking,' Venzke said, is the Trump administration's efforts to gain unfettered access to information held at state agencies. Experts said the broadly defined order could apply to schools, state education agencies and third-party contractors. The U.S. Department of Education generally doesn't maintain large datasets of student data beyond financial aid records — which include students' and family members' Social Security Numbers and Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers. Tax ID numbers are used by taxpayers without Social Security numbers to pay taxes regardless of their immigration status but could be leveraged as an indicator that someone is undocumented. Related The real student data trove, however, resides at the state level. In fact, states have maintained data about foreign-born students for years and the threat of immigration enforcement is 'not limited to undocumented students,' according to the CDT white paper. More than 1,400 international college students in the U.S. lost their visas in the first months of the Trump administration, although it recently reversed those revocations in the face of court challenges. State education data is used to populate the U.S. Department of Education's EdFacts initiative, which centralizes state-by-state information to guide policy development and includes information about students who were born outside the U.S. and have been enrolled in U.S. schools for less than three years. Though the data states provide to the federal government is aggregated, Laird warned that local education agencies could be compelled to share the underlying records that identify specific students. Schools also identify immigrant children and English learners in order to receive federal grants that support their learning. Additionally, under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act, which requires students nationwide to take standardized tests, immigrant students who have lived in the U.S. for less than a year can opt out of the English assessments — waivers the CDT noted 'can only be provided if schools know who these students are.' Despite the recent executive order's stated goal of preventing fraud, Laird said the mandate mirrors a 2019 executive order, issued during Trump's first term, which sought to consolidate data for the explicit purpose of streamlining immigration enforcement. At least four states — South Dakota, South Carolina, Iowa and Nebraska — agreed to share driver's license data with the Trump administration as it sought to pinpoint the citizenship statuses of every adult residing in the U.S. 'We're in a time when the government is asking for things that they've never asked for before. So I'm really not sure what might happen if the government went to a state and said, 'Give us your entire database with every piece of information about every student in public schools.' ' Julia Sugarman, associate director Migration Policy Institute Julie Sugarman, associate director for K-12 education research at the nonprofit Migration Policy Institute said educators nationwide have taken steps to ensure students' records aren't used beyond their intended purposes, including for immigration enforcement. But the Trump administration's vast data collection efforts present an unprecedented situation. 'States generally would have a full spreadsheet that includes identifying information, so yeah, if the government was to go to states and ask for that, that would set off huge alarm bells,' Sugarman said. 'We're in a time when the government is asking for things that they've never asked for before,' she continued. 'So I'm really not sure what might happen if the government went to a state and said, 'Give us your entire database with every piece of information about every student in public schools.' ' Digital surveillance tools being used by federal immigration officials to track down deportation targets — including social media monitoring software — have become widespread in K-12 schools. Digital surveillance tools, which track students' online communications and web searches, could offer valuable data to immigration officials, Laird said. In some instances, students' digital communications are automatically shared with local law enforcement officers who, in communities nationwide, have been increasingly deputized to help enforce federal immigration laws. Related Social media surveillance tools used by K-12 schools and university educators have previously been leveraged to surveil student protests. In the last few months, some K-12 students have already been warned to be careful about what they post on the internet as the government moved to revoked the visas of foreign-born college students for their participation in protests, social media posts and writing for college newspapers. Martin Milne, president of the Connecticut-based Assist Scholars, said his organization has told international K-12 students that their ability to learn in the U.S. is conditional — and can be eliminated at a moment's notice. The nonprofit scholarship organization currently helps nearly 200 international students enroll in U.S. private secondary schools. 'We've sent a really general reminder to students applying for visas to be particularly mindful that obtaining a student visa is really a privilege and it's not a right and it comes with important responsibilities,' Milne said, echoing language recently used by the Trump administration. 'And that if they abide by the responsibilities that come with being a visa holder, they're not going to draw attention to themselves.' Back in Tennessee, a Republican-led effort to collect data about undocumented students and bar their access to public schools has stalled. Despite claims that immigrant students are a drain on school resources, a state audit warned the move could cost Tennessee as much as $1.1 billion in federal education money if officials fail to comply with federal laws that prohibit discrimination based on race or national origin. Related Still, the climate caused by the legislative effort and Trump's deportation efforts has students on edge, Kyle Carrasco, a high school government and economics teacher in Chattanooga, told The 74. Although his school doesn't ask students about their immigration status, Carrasco said he suspects at least some are undocumented and several have already had family members taken into ICE custody. 'At the end of the day, immigrants regardless of documentation status are paying taxes, they're paying into the system that they — if these bills become law — will be withheld from,' Carrasco said. 'So I don't necessarily understand the reasoning and the logistics beyond why we need to be identifying and tracking these students.' Watson, the state senator, hasn't given up, telling The 74 he hopes his bill will resurface after local officials receive assurance they won't be penalized by the federal government. In an April 21 letter to the U.S. Department of Education, state Fiscal Review Executive Director Bojan Savic asked if Tennessee risked losing federal money for its failure to comply with civil rights laws. With Trump in charge, Watson said he didn't think the letter was necessary. 'This bill, were it to be enacted into law, would align with the strategies that the current administration is exercising,' Watson said, 'and it would not put our federal dollars in jeopardy.'
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Economically Reckless' Businesses Slam Bill to Bar Immigrant Kids From School
This article was originally published in Tennessee Lookout. More than two dozen Chattanooga business owners are condemning a bill to require student immigration background checks in Tennessee's public schools as 'economically reckless.' The Tennessee Small Business Alliance represents restaurants, real estate firms, retail stores and other local employers operating within the district represented by Sen. Bo Watson. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Watson, a Republican, is cosponsoring the legislation to require proof of legal residence to enroll in public K-12 and charter schools. The bill would also give public schools the option of charging tuition to the families of children unable to prove they legally reside in the United States – or to deny them the right to a public education altogether. House Leader William Lamberth of Gallatin is a co-sponsor of the bill, which has drawn significant — but not unanimous — support from fellow Tennessee Republicans. Lamberth's version of the bill differs from Watson's in that it would make it optional — rather than mandatory — to check students' immigration status in all of Tennessee's more than 1700 public schools. The bill, one of the most controversial being considered during the 2025 Legislative session, has significant momentum as the Legislature winds down for the year even as it has drawn raucous protests at times. The legislation will next be debated on Monday in a House committee. A statement released by the business alliance described the legislation as a 'political stunt that's cruel, economically reckless, and completely out of step with local values.' Citing estimates compiled by the nonprofit advocacy organization, American Immigration Council, the statement noted that more than 430,000 immigrants in Tennessee paid $4.4 billion in taxes – more than $10,000 per immigrant. Watson, in an emailed statement from Chattanooga public relations firm Waterhouse Public Relations, said his bill 'raises important questions about the financial responsibility of educating undocumented students in Tennessee—questions that have long gone unaddressed.' The statement said the Supreme Court's 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe, which established the right to a public school education for all children regardless of immigration status, has 'never been re-examined in the context of today's challenges.' The statement said Watson is committed to a 'transparent, fact-driven discussion about how Tennessee allocates its educational resources and how federal mandates impact our state's budget and priorities.' Watson has previously also said the legislation was prompted, in part, by the rising costs of English-language instruction in the state's public schools. Democrats have criticized that argument as based on inaccurate assumptions that English language learners lack legal immigration status. Kelly Fitzgerald, founder of a Chattanooga co-working business and one of 27 employers that signed onto the statement of condemnation, criticized lawmakers. 'Do our representatives believe that undocumented children — who had no say in their immigration status — should be denied a public education, even though their families already pay taxes that fund our schools?' said Fitzgerald, whose own children attend Hamilton County Public schools 'My children are receiving a great education in our public schools, and I want every child to have the same rights and opportunities as mine do,' she said. 'In my opinion, this is not something our legislators should be spending their resources on when there are much larger issues at hand in the current environment,' she said. 'We should leave children out of the conversation.' Tennessee Lookout is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Tennessee Lookout maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Holly McCall for questions: info@
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Schools director speaks on undocumented students bill
JONESBOROUGH, Tenn. (WJHL) — A bill that took another step forward in Tennessee's legislature Thursday has school systems across the state preparing for something they might prefer to avoid. Bill that could bar undocumented students passes TN Senate 19-13 with 7 GOP 'no' votes The full state Senate — with seven out of 27 Republicans joining all six Democrats in opposition — passed Hixson Republican Bo Watson's version of a measure that would let school systems charge tuition to undocumented students or deny them admission. The vote was 19-13 for a bill that has drawn opposition from groups ranging from education organizations to clergy, civil rights and immigrant rights advocates. 'All of those organizations representing the various groups (that) superintendents, Tennessee school board members are aligned with, they're opposed to the bill,' Washington County Director of Schools Jerry Boyd told News Channel 11 Friday. Boyd says his board members have discussed the bill and aren't interested in the option of charging tuition or excluding students. Watson has said he introduced it so school systems could recoup what he called exponentially rising costs of providing extra help for English language learners. 'Our main mission is to serve children, and so we don't say we serve some children,' Boyd said. 'We serve all children that are in our community.' The bill's Senate version also requires schools to collect citizenship or legal immigrant documents from each enrolling child – regardless of whether the system wants to charge tuition to those here illegally. 'In our normal enrollment process, it would be another layer, and it's certainly information that we have not required in the past,' Boyd said. One reason is because federal law doesn't allow any student to be denied enrollment. That law springs from a 1982 Supreme Court decision, Plyler v Doe, that prohibited the denial of public education to any child in the U.S. regardless of legal resident status. Boyd thinks a required list could send some families into the shadows even when it comes to the traditionally safe space of schools. 'Reasonably so if they have a fear of being removed from the community and from the nation,' Boyd said. He said he's confident all parents, including those who are undocumented, are 'supportive of the education process in Washington County. 'If there was a tuition, if they could pay it, knowing their commitment to education of their children, they would probably try to find a way,' Boyd said. 'But there will be some because of fear and because of just finances, they would make decisions to not enroll or even attempt to enroll their children in schools.' Tennessee's ACLU policy director Bryan Davidson told News Channel 11 the element mandating documentation was troubling. 'It kind of begs the question, if they're collecting the information, then, you know, what are they planning to do with that information, which we think is incredibly concerning,' Davidson said Thursday. Davidson said the House version doesn't have that mandate. And he said after Thursday's vote, passage into law isn't guaranteed despite a Republican-dominated legislature. 'I do think that that the vocal Republican opposition today on the floor sends an important signal that this is not pure politics. This is an issue of basic human decency,' he said. Boyd doesn't know how many undocumented kids attend Washington County schools. The Pew Research Center estimates Tennessee is home to about 140,000 undocumented people, and just under 6 percent of its students live with an unauthorized parent. The 30-year veteran educator says, in his opinion, the number's not the issue. 'While they're here, we need to serve children, and to put a law in place that would prevent that opportunity, I certainly, as an educator, as a citizen of Tennessee, a citizen of the United States of America, as a father — I don't agree with it.' Davidson thinks the bill could still face serious headwinds. 'The margins in the votes in the House have been just as close, if not closer than some of the Senate committee votes in the last couple of weeks,' Davidson said. 'I think all eyes are on the House Finance subcommittees and full committee meetings next week, and, you know, we'll see what happens.' News Channel 11 requested interviews from a half dozen area House members Friday. One was unavailable due to illness, and the remainder declined to respond. The bill is in the House Finance, Ways, and Means subcommittee at 9 a.m. Central time Monday. That 29-member committee includes five Northeast Tennessee members: Chair Gary Hicks (R-Rogersville), Tim Hicks (R-Gray), John Crawford (R-Kingsport), David Hawk (R-Greeneville) and Bud Hulsey (R-Kingsport). Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Tennessee Senate passes controversial bill that would allow school districts to deny undocumented students
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A bill that would allow Tennessee school districts to charge an enrollment fee for undocumented students has passed the Tennessee Senate. The bill passed all the senate committees needed to make it to the Senate floor. However, it was met with several protests. 📧 Have breaking news come to you: → On Thursday morning, the rotunda was full of people of all ages holding up signs, speaking up against the proposal, with some reading 'let us learn,' and 'education for all.' Those against the bill questioned how removing children from school benefits Tennesseans. Meanwhile, those in support of the measure said the decision should be left to local agencies, not the federal government, and there's a price to pay for education. Bill 386, sponsored by House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland) and Sen. Bo Watson (R-Hixson), directly challenges the 1982 Supreme Court Plyer v. Doe decision, which ruled school districts cannot deny undocumented students access to free public K-12 education. In February, when asked where undocumented students would go if the bill passed and is upheld, Leader Lamberth reportedly said they would move to a sanctuary city or return to their home countries. The bill passed the Senate 19-13 and is still working its way through state House committees. 📲 Download the News 2 app to stay updated on the go.📧 Sign up for WKRN email alerts to have breaking news sent to your inbox.💻 for Nashville, TN and all of Middle Tennessee. This is a developing story. WKRN News 2 will continue to update this article as new information becomes available. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
