New Trier High School continues to issue precautionary measures against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) presence to ensure the safety of students and staff at the school following arrests on the streets of Wilmette and activity throughout the Chicagoland area. Though top Border Patrol Agent Gregory Bovino and many other officials left Chicago for Charlotte, North Carolina and New Orleans, New Trier remains diligent, following reports from the Chicago Sun Times that 1,000 agents will return to the city in the spring, three times the amount of personnel seen in the fall. 

After ICE launched Operation Midway Blitz in September, targeting immigrants in the Chicago area, students and staff raised concerns about safety and how the school would protect the community. Social Work Department Chair Tiffany Myers said the school is doing their best to give information and advice to students concerned about their own safety or the safety of their families. 

“We’ve had more students who are either scared because of the color of their skin…we’ve seen an uptick of people who are just really nervous,” Myers said.

According to Assistant Superintendent and Winnetka Campus Principal Denise Dubravec, New Trier and Illinois State law does not prevent students from enrolling in public school based on their immigration status, nor does the school disclose this information to authorities.

In addition to continuing to support students who are concerned about ICE presence in the area, the school plans to remain cautious about approving field trips and club activities in areas with reported ICE occupancy if the number of agents increases again.

“We’ve been consulting with the facilities that our students are going to to get their assessment of what it looks like,” Dubravec said. “And then for some of our trips, we’ve put some of these requests on temporary pause. We continue to talk back and forth with some different agencies so that if things change, we adapt so our students can go to those areas.”

In recent weeks, many clubs that are a part of Social Service Board, a class period club at New Trier that connects students with tutoring and community centers that need volunteers, were unable to go out to their sites in the city due to ICE activity and concerns about student safety. Following security increases at club sites such as Centro Romero and Northside Tutoring, and overall decreased ICE activity, all clubs were reinstated on Dec. 2. 

“The administration has been monitoring where ICE has been,” Social Service Board president and senior Maeli Finn said. “They have maps, and if ICE hasn’t been in that area for a certain period of time, then the club site can reopen.”

During the time when volunteers were unable to work with the kids in person, they returned back to practices from during COVID-19: writing letters and hosting Zoom meetings with the kids they used to work with weekly in person. In the case that club sites get shut down again in March if ICE returns, they will adjust in the same way. 

“At Centro Romero they were doing penpal initiatives, where they would write a letter and then send it to the club site to be printed out so the kids could write back,” Finn said. “It helps improve literacy and worked during COVID.”

New Trier students and local community members also protested as a part of nationwide No Kings demonstrations that called for the end of ICE deployment into cities, among other things. The Wilmette protest occurred two weeks prior to the first confirmed sighting of agents in the village. After arrests in the community, Wilmette approved an anti-ICE policy, passing an ordinance that prevents ICE agents from using village space. Additionally, Wilmette employees cannot ask about immigration status or deny benefits or services based on status, in efforts to protect residents, workers, and visitors.  

Myers encourages students to continue to do research on how to protect themselves as best they can, including recording any altercation they witness with an ICE officer and staying in familiar areas. Additionally, students should continue to stay aware of ICE sightings in the community, utilizing the New Trier Rapid Response Network, which tracks and verifies reports of agents. 

Myers hopes students will come to her and the Social Work Department if they are worried about their safety and getting to school or home as ICE activity may change in the coming months.

“I don’t want anyone to suffer in silence,” Myers said.

Additional reporting by Isla Luciano.