By Zoe Sinclair
Community volunteers are advocating for policy change and better crisis response after the surge of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activity that disrupted public schools across North Carolina.
When ICE agents came to the state last fall as part of the federal government’s crackdown on illegal immigration, school administrators and community members worked together to ensure student safety. Many districts developed strategies to support families fearful of deportation and sudden separation, with some issuing public statements outlining their protocols and commitments to students’ well-being.
But organizers say that school and community efforts alone are not enough to keep children and their families safe.
Jaime Gottlieb, a member of Charlotte Area Liberal Mommies (CALM), a local advocacy organization, hopes for more consistent, statewide protections in the future.
“Right now, we need clearer policies that keep schools safe and focused on education, better communication with families and more accountability around how these actions impact children,” Gottlieb said. “Long term, I think we need to evaluate policies not just on enforcement outcomes, but on whether we are protecting the well-being of the next generation.”
Some districts, such as Durham Public Schools (DPS), began preparing for potential ICE activity months before agents were reported in the Raleigh-Durham area in late November.
DPS administrators proactively developed clear protocols for responding to immigration agents on campus. Faculty and staff were instructed to immediately contact district officials and legal counsel to verify whether agents have proper documentation, such as a signed judicial warrant, before allowing any interactions with students.
“We did not wait until Thanksgiving to begin to formulate procedures, processes and guidelines for our schools,” Dr. Anthony Lewis, DPS superintendent, said. “We actually began that process in January of 2025, with sharing some guidance and consultation with our legal counsel.”
As part of the district’s protocol, local law enforcement, including student resource officers, would assist if a school encountered ICE agents. All agents were also required to check in at the front desk upon entering the building.
Bus drivers also received training on how to respond to ICE activity in residential areas where students live. In those cases, they were instructed to return students back to school to assess the proper next steps.
To ease fears and build trust, DPS prioritized direct communication through small, in-person meetings where families could voice concerns and ask questions. The meetings, called “Café con Pan Dulce,” were conducted entirely in Spanish with English interpreters. They were intentionally held in a controlled, private space where families felt safe to meet and speak freely.
Those early conversations were crucial, as feedback from families helped district leaders better understand concerns and take more informed actions as situations progressed. As a parent and community volunteer who ran errands for families who felt unsafe leaving their homes, Gottlieb affirms the importance of open communication in times of crisis.
“In situations involving potential trauma, predictability and transparency really matter for both children and parents,” she said. “Going forward, I think schools benefit from having clearer crisis response plans that prioritize psychological safety, communication, and making sure every child feels school is a safe place to learn.”
While all of the district’s efforts demonstrated its ability to support students and families, organizers also say it highlights gaps.
“Many schools stepped up to help their families and children feel safe, but policies should be put in place so that it’s not up to individual school administrators to push back for the best interest of their students,” Gottlieb said.
Beyond policies, Amalie Jahn, a Charlotte-based author and local volunteer, said that community organizations should also take steps to improve their emergency response plans. She emphasized the need for establishing preemptive measures, such as maintaining a list of active volunteers for more efficient mobilization moving forward.
As community organizations worked quickly to recruit volunteers and respond, panic and uncertainty remained high. National reports of parents detained at bus stops and people tackled on school grounds forced many families to weigh difficult choices about their children’s education and safety.
Claudia Acevedo, a DPS bilingual communications specialist, said that children and families no longer wanted to leave their homes, causing school attendance to drop.
“There was a lot of fear,” she said. “Whether they were real fears or things that maybe blew out of proportion, people were hearing all kinds of things, and they didn’t know what was true or false.”
That fear extended beyond those directly affected by their immigration status.
“You can’t explain or rationalize what’s happening to a 7-year-old whose best friend stopped coming to school, and they’re panicking,” Acevedo said. “They almost saw it as ‘the monster’s coming, and he’s going to get everybody.’”
In the midst of the fear, however, community members and organizations across the state came together, many witnessing an outpouring of support.
“I realized that the members that were being affected felt an even bigger sense of community in a very strange way.” Acevedo said. “It’s like, I’m being told that I don’t belong here and I need to get out, but at the same time, I’m being told that I belong here and I’m being loved and supported. So it was beautiful, as tragic as it was.”
When immigration enforcement activity increased in her area, Jahn joined her network of local grassroots organizations, including Indivisible Charlotte and CALM, to help families where schools and state policy couldn’t.
“We have so much to learn from each other,” Jahn said. “There’s so much beauty in our different cultures and our different ways of living. Anytime somebody shows up with another way of looking at the world, why would we not embrace that? I think you’re just either wired for it or you’re not, and people just run scared. And I guess, I’m just not scared. There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
In partnership with local schools and community organizations, Jahn and hundreds of other volunteers in the Charlotte area created a system to walk children home from school, reducing the need for families to pick them up or wait at bus stops and risk detention.
“They’re all our babies,” Jahn said. “All that mattered was making sure those kids stayed safe and that the parents felt comfortable.”
That same sense of collective responsibility extended into schools themselves. Parents organized supply drives, made food runs, delivered diapers and formula and checked in with each other.
Jocelyn Dawson, PTA president at a Durham elementary school, said she helped coordinate community support efforts through Durham Public School Strong, a local chapter of Public School Strong. According to its website, the national organization, founded in North Carolina, advocates for all children to have equitable access to quality public schools that don’t discriminate.
Through collaboration with groups such as Durham for All, a political grassroots organization, volunteers organized food distributions for families and formed “school care and protection teams.”
The teams consisted of organized volunteers who stood at bus stops, escorted children to and from school and provided transportation when needed.
“I think this work was rightly a community effort,” Dawson said. “Our schools are underfunded, and staff are already stretched thin. The efforts led by Durham Public School Strong and other organizations to provide transportation and food for families afraid to leave their homes was work created by the current political situation, not by any failure on the part of the school system.”
Dawson said more than 2,000 volunteers signed up across Durham to support these efforts, with over 60 individuals assisting at her school alone.
“I’ve never felt as connected to the greater Durham community as I did during that time,” Dawson said. “We saw so much love and bravery in our community. You always fear that when something terrible happens, people will choose to do nothing, but that’s not what we saw. We saw that people made a choice to do something.”
To Jahn, these efforts reflected a broader belief in community care, rooted in a shared sense of purpose and commitment to serve others.
“If everyone’s too scared, they win,” Jahn said. “What is the point of being here if we’re not in service to each other? My purpose is to take care of other people. That’s it. That’s all the reason why any of us are here is just to take care of each other, because you can’t do it on your own.”
