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How to Support Immigrant Students and Families

Strategies for Schools and Early Childhood Programs

Published by Colorín Colorado, December 2018

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About This Guide This Colorín Colorado guide presents more than 50 strategies that educators in schools and

early childhood settings can use and share with colleagues, families, and community partners.

Educators can use a number of these ideas with a broader population as well.

Viewing and sharing the guide

Summary and highlights

• Download the summary >

• Ten Strategies for Supporting Immigrant Students and Families >

Complete guide

• View the guide online >

• Download the PDF >

About the strategies

Each strategy includes features such as:

• Why this matters: An overview of how the topic relates to immigrant students/families

• Tips for getting started: Specific, concrete ideas targeted for educators

• Recommended resources: Guides, books, articles, research reports, and other materials

• Recommended videos: Video clips that can enhance staff training

• Examples from the field: Brief anecdotes and quotes from a 2017 audience survey,

news items, and communication with our audience, partners, and advisors

Seeking legal guidance

This guide includes numerous resources that provide useful information for educators. While

some of those resources include advocacy information, Colorín Colorado and our parent

organization, public broadcasting station WETA-TV-FM, do not take political positions or

participate in political advocacy. In addition, the information in this guide should not be

interpreted as legal advice. Any individual or organization seeking legal advice related to

immigration issues should consult with the appropriate attorneys, local government officials, or

non-profit organizations specializing in immigration law. We also remind educators not to

provide legal advice.

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Getting started

• Introduction

• Reflection Questions: Before Reading the Guide

Strategies by topic

Serving immigrant students

• Immigrant Students' Legal Rights: An Overview

• Making Students and Families Feel Welcome

• Building Partnerships with Immigrant Families

• Special Considerations for Young Children in Immigrant Families

Social-emotional support for students

• Addressing Students’ Basic Needs

• How Immigration Issues Impact Students

• Providing Social-Emotional Support for Students

• Addressing Student Anxiety, Depression, and Trauma

Questions and concerns about immigration issues

• Addressing Immigrant Families' Questions and Concerns

• Addressing Questions About Immigration Enforcement

• Connecting Immigrant Families with Legal Resources

Staff training, collaboration, and support

• Encouraging Staff Collaboration

• Providing Social-Emotional Support for Staff

Closing thoughts

• What Would Be Helpful in the Future

• Reflection Questions: After Reading the Guide

Strategy list

See a complete list of

strategies by topic in the

Appendix.

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Introduction

We are trying to find answers for students and families we care deeply about.

– Kristina Robertson, English Learner Program Administrator, Roseville Public Schools (MN)

Across the country, educators are looking for ways to support immigrant students and families

facing great uncertainty. In some cases, these efforts have started at the top with district

leaders, school board members, school principals, and early childhood program directors. In

other cases, the efforts have been smaller and quieter, taken on by a single individual whose

actions ripple outward in meaningful ways.

Since educators and parents of English language learners (ELLs) — many of whom are

immigrants, refugees, and unaccompanied minors — are the heart of our audience, we have

been tracking these issues very closely. This guide highlights strategies educators can use to

ensure that schools and early childhood settings remain safe, welcoming places for all children.

Our recommendations are based on input and examples from:

• the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) ELL Educator Cadre

• our network of National Education Association (NEA) educators

• our national audience

• related news stories, research reports, and resource guides.

We also include responses to a survey we conducted in 2017 and research from the UCLA Civil

Rights Project on the impact of immigration enforcement on schools. You can learn more about

this research from our webinar with Dr. Patricia Gándara and Shena Sanchez. In addition, we

include resources created and compiled by numerous organizations.

The examples throughout the guide showcase schools and early childhood centers that are

striving to become more welcoming, build bridges with families, and create new leaders. It is

our hope that other educators will find inspiration from their stories.

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Who are immigrant students?

Immigrant students may include:

• Recently arrived newcomer students

• Refugees

• Students with interrupted/limited formal education

• Unaccompanied minors who came to the country without their parents

• Children of migrant farmworkers

• Children who are undocumented

• Children who have been separated from parents/family members at the border

• Immigrants with Temporary Protected Status

• DREAMers (young people eligible for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival, or DACA)

You can read more about these populations in Colorín Colorado’s related resource sections, as

well as in How are English Learners and immigrant-origin students related? from Re-imagining

Migration.

It is important to remember that a large share of children that are affected by immigration

issues are themselves U.S. citizens. All children born in the United States — including children of

undocumented immigrants — are citizens. In these “mixed-status” families, at least one

member of the household is undocumented, while others are U.S. citizens or authorized

immigrants. In their research on the impact of immigration enforcement on schools, The Civil

Rights Project at UCLA shares the following data:

• It is estimated that about 88% of children of immigrants were born in the U.S. and are

therefore U.S. citizens.

• There are 4.5 million children with at least one parent who is undocumented; 1.6 million

of those children are under the age of five.

• As of 2017, there were an estimated 600,000 children and youth in the U.S. under the

age of 18 who are undocumented (Gándara & Ee, 2018a, p. 3).

Californians Together reports that in the state of California:

• half of all children have at least one immigrant parent.

• nearly two million children live in “mixed-status” households.

• at least one in eight students have at least one undocumented parent (Californians

Together, 2017).

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Immigration policies have the potential to affect millions of students in U.S. schools and early

childhood settings, particularly when taking into account the combined impact of intensifying

immigration enforcement measures, travel restrictions, changes to Temporary Protected Status

programs and DACA, and changes to U.S. visa programs or rules regarding immigration status.

How do these issues affect students?

All students in public K-12 schools have certain educational, civil, and privacy rights regardless

of immigration status. It is critical for schools and districts to understand what those rights are;

to review whether their policies protect those rights for all students; and how those policies are

being implemented throughout the district.

At the same time, changes to federal immigration policies have resulted in two trends that this

guide addresses:

• Schools are looking for guidance on how to respond to questions from students,

families, and staff on immigration issues.

• Educators and researchers are noticing troubling patterns in both early childhood and K-

12 settings in terms of the social-emotional health of their immigrant students.

While not all students are having these experiences and many demonstrate high levels of

resilience, researchers have documented some trends nationally, which include:

• an increase in social-emotional distress and in the bullying of immigrant students

• a decrease in motivation and engagement

• a growing sense of distrust and isolation among students

• a changing constellation of factors impacting immigrant families’ levels of stability.

While educators should never make assumptions about a family’s situation, it is important to

note that even if students or families have not mentioned these concerns, they still may be

experiencing these issues and not sharing them with others. (For an in-depth discussion about

this topic, see our related section on immigrant students’ silence.)

In addition, immigration enforcement activity (or the fear of such activity) can affect student

attendance, participation in school activities, and parental engagement in both K-12 and early

childhood settings, particularly as schools grapple with ways to increase student safety and

school security. For example, Dr. Eva Thorp (2017) writes that many teachers she has worked

with “report that immigrant parent participation in school-based or volunteer activities has

decreased in part…because of extra security measures, which may deter immigrant families

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from feeling that the can safely enter the school building.” These steps might include leaving a

photo identification at the front office, for example, in order to visit a child’s classroom (p. 36).

These impacts are not limited just to immigrant students – classmates and educators can be

affected by these trends and events as well, as described in our article about a massive

immigration raid in Postville, Iowa in 2008. Many educators nationwide are reporting increased

stress and anxiety among other students and classmates, colleagues and the broader school

community with respect to immigration issues and immigration enforcement in particular.

In our webinar about the UCLA research on the impact of immigration enforcement in schools,

Dr. Gándara notes, “More than ever, it is important to reinforce [to immigrant students]: ‘We

really want you here at this school. We care about you and we want you here’” (Gándara &

Sanchez, 2018).

Research on immigration raids

According to the National Association for Secondary School Principals (NASSP), arrests due to

immigration enforcement increased by 300% from 2017 to 2018. In addition, NASSP cites

research from the Urban Institute and UnidosUS (formerly National Council of La Raza)

conducted in communities affected by immigration raids finding that “the number of children

affected was about half the number of adults arrested.”

In some cases, where school officials had prior notification of the raids:

(S)chools were able to ensure that students whose parents were detained in the raids

had a safe place to go after school. School leaders and teachers reported that they felt ‘a

heavy burden’ helping the students maintain a normal school routine while dealing with

the aftermath of the raids. The fear created for immigrant parents and students resulted

in symptoms of mental health problems that affected students’ academic performance.

Months after the raids, however, students seemed to have benefited from normalized

school routines and the support and services provided by their schools. (p. 2)

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Recommended resources

Articles and guides

For additional ideas on addressing immigrant family needs and problem-solving, we

recommend the following:

• 4 Practical Steps to Help Immigrant Families in Your School Community by Dr. Emily

Crawford-Rossi and Dr. Lisa M Dorner (Education Week)

• Creating a Safe Environment for Immigrant and Refugee Students, Families, and

Communities (Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees)

• Migration, Displacement, and Education: Building Bridges, Not Walls (UNESCO Global

Education Monitoring Report)

• All In! How Educators Can Advocate for English Language Learners (National Education

Association)

• Advocating for English Learners: A Guide for Educators by Dr. Diane Staehr Fenner

(Corwin & TESOL, 2014)

• Educator Guide: Supporting Undocumented Students & Their Families (Informed

Immigrants)

• Immigrant Students Are Internalizing Stereotypes. Educators Can Help (Education Week)

Immigration data and research

For more immigration data, look at the Migration Data Hub from the Migration Policy Institute and the resource library from Grantmakers Concerned with Immigrants and Refugees (GCIR). GCIR has also published a guide entitled, “What Can Philanthropy Do? Coming Together for Children in Immigrant in a Changing Policy Landscape.”

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Researchers studying immigration and education

For in-depth research on immigrant students, see the work of the following scholars:

• Dr. Leisy Abrego (University of California-Los Angeles)

• Dr. Germán Cadenas (Lehigh University)

• Dr. Frances Contreras (University of California-San Diego)

• Dr. Emily Crawford-Rossi (University of Missouri)

• Dr. Dafney Blanca Dabach (University of Washington)

• Dr. Sarah Gallo (Ohio State University)

• Dr. Patricia Gándara (University of California-Los Angeles)

• Dr. Roberto Gonzales (Harvard University)

• Dr. Bryant Jensen (Brigham Young University)

• Dr. Jill Koyama (University of Arizona)

• Dr. Leigh Patel (University of Pittsburgh)

• Dr. William Pérez (Claremont Graduate University)

• Dr. Sophia Rodriguez (University of North Carolina, Greensboro)

• Dr. Carola Suárez-Orozco (University of California-Los Angeles/Re-imaging Migration)

• Dr. Marcelo Suárez-Orozco (University of California-Los Angeles/Re-imaging Migration)

• Dr. Julie Sugarman (Migration Policy Institute)

See this information online

• Introduction: http://www.colorincolorado.org/immigration/guide/intro

• Reflection questions: http://www.colorincolorado.org/immigration/guide/reflection

Complete guide: http://www.colorincolorado.org/immigration/guide

Excerpted from How to Support Immigrant Students and Families.

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