And within the moments in between, the college counselor had agonized over how he would inform his different college students at ELLIS Preparatory Academy that Dylan Lopez Contreras, a first-year pupil from Venezuela, had been detained.
He was notably anxious about telling one pupil.
Bridget, an 18-year-old Ecuadorian immigrant, was a pal of Dylan’s, shut sufficient that he shared arepas together with her at lunch. Bernard knew that Bridget and her mom, Marta, have been dreading their very own upcoming courtroom date and immigration check-in, and phrase of Dylan’s arrest would get out quickly. He wished Bridget to listen to it from him. In her eight months at ELLIS, Bridget had typically retreated to his cramped workplace and sunk into a luxurious black bean bag each time her stress turned an excessive amount of to bear.
Hedin Bernard, a founding employees member and faculty counselor at ELLIS, in his workplace in Might, 2025. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
For Bridget and Marta, who requested to make use of pseudonyms as a result of they concern immigration enforcement, life in New York Metropolis as undocumented immigrants had been outlined by hardship. That they had bounced between three associates’ and family’ flats earlier than touchdown in a homeless shelter in midtown Manhattan. Marta collected cans, making about $20 a day, and was typically unable to afford meals.
Their anxiousness had elevated since President Donald Trump started his second time period in January, promising to launch the “largest deportation program in American history.” Fearful that any unsuitable transfer might get them detained, separated, or deported, the mom and daughter tried to stay collectively. Marta even used a few of her valuable {dollars} to commute with Bridget to highschool.
With Dylan’s arrest, Trump’s enforcement marketing campaign had arrived on the college’s doorstep.
Based in 2008, ELLIS’ mission is predicated on the assumption that every one of its college students, together with undocumented ones, can construct a future within the U.S. The Bronx college has pushed a whole bunch of newly arrived immigrants into faculty and out of poverty with a playbook staffers have honed for years, counting on sturdy relationships with college students and a classy community of help for households’ wants. For Bridget and Marta, ELLIS typically felt like the one public establishment with its arms open in a metropolis and nation that in any other case appeared to not need them.
“They’ve given her a lot of hope,” Marta stated in Spanish. “It’s the reason we don’t want to leave.”
ELLIS is one among seven colleges that share the John F. Kennedy Excessive College campus within the Spuyten Duyvil part of The Bronx. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
However over the past seven months, ELLIS educators have been compelled to confront a elementary query: Might the college proceed to assist its college students work towards a life on this nation when the federal authorities was sending the message that lots of them weren’t welcome right here?
Bernard stood in his workplace with Bridget that Thursday afternoon in late Might, explaining how plainclothes brokers had seized Dylan. He watched her smile fade.
He knew the arrest was stirring up painful reminiscences from Bridget’s personal immigration journey.
Bernard had helped Bridget discover free meals and garments, navigate town’s advanced shelter system, and entry authorized recommendation. He had celebrated together with her when she’d handed the Algebra I Regents examination required for commencement. He had seen her face mild up speaking about plans to attend faculty and grow to be a veterinarian.
However now, Bridget simply wished to know if her pal was OK. And Bernard didn’t know what to inform her.
Beginning highschool, once more
In Guayaquil, Ecuador, Bridget had been a powerful pupil, only one 12 months away from ending highschool. However gangs had grow to be so prevalent in her neighborhood that she not felt protected strolling dwelling from night time lessons.
Bridget’s oldest sister, now 38, got here up with the concept of immigrating to the U.S. so Bridget might proceed her training.
Bridget poses for a portrait in Manhattan. She left Ecuador searching for a greater training. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
Bridget, who loves Korean pop music and animals, was devastated to half together with her canine, Molli, a small white Pekingese, however excited for what the longer term held. Marta, anxious by nature, anxious most in regards to the journey, however agreed to go for Bridget’s sake.
“It’s not going to be my fault that her dream dies,” Marta determined.
The ladies had one benefit: Marta’s center daughter, who left Ecuador six years earlier at age 19, had an residence within the Bronx together with her husband and two children, giving the remainder of the household a roadmap and a spot to remain.
However the journey rapidly veered off target. They received caught for a few month in Mexico, dropping virtually all of their belongings. They arrived within the U.S. in April 2024 with simply the garments on their backs and some prized possessions: a Bible, a hymnal, and a lightweight brown stuffed mouse named Mickey who stays hooked up to Marta’s fanny pack.
Marta exhibits off “Mickey,” one among her solely possessions that survived the journey to the U.S. Credit score: Michael Elsen-Rooney / Chalkbeat
As quickly as they crossed into Texas, the ladies have been detained by U.S. Customs and Border Safety and separated. As Bridget was a minor, she and Marta have been launched with airplane tickets to New York. Her eldest sister was imprisoned by border brokers for a month earlier than being deported to Ecuador.
Bridget and Marta have clung to one another ever since.
In New York Metropolis, Bridget and Marta moved in with Bridget’s center sister. Sharing a small residence together with her household of 4 wore on everybody. Marta struggled to search out work. Then at their first check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, officers inspired Bridget to enroll in class.
Bridget received a listing of 4 public colleges from an Training Division enrollment middle, however three rejected her, saying they didn’t have house and didn’t settle for older college students.
Final on the record was English Language Learners and Worldwide Help Preparatory Academy, or ELLIS, a nod to the well-known New York Metropolis island by way of which tens of millions of immigrants have handed. That’s the place Bridget began lessons in September 2024.
She was a part of a historic wave of roughly 50,000 migrants who’ve enrolled in New York Metropolis colleges beginning in summer time 2022, in response to town’s estimates — a sample echoed throughout the nation as cities like Denver, Chicago, and Los Angeles absorbed hundreds of households fleeing Latin America, Africa, and different components of the world.
Bridget (proper) and an ELLIS classmate work on an project for historical past class. ELLIS is without doubt one of the few NYC colleges geared towards older newcomers. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
The inflow has posed new challenges, as colleges scrambled to rent bilingual employees, add counselors and social employees to assist college students fighting trauma from their journeys, and help older college students searching for to graduate rapidly. However the brand new college students have additionally been a boon for varsity districts beforehand dropping college students and funding. In New York Metropolis, former colleges Chancellor David Banks described the migrant inflow as a “godsend,” saying they staved off potential college mergers or closures.
ELLIS, a small college with 275 college students, is one among solely a handful within the metropolis explicitly designed to enroll older, newly arrived college students, who face a steep climb to commencement. At a gathering with the steerage group early within the college 12 months, Norma Vega, ELLIS’ founding principal, informed staffers: “Our 67% graduation rate is someone else’s 98%. The amount of work everyone does to get each kid to the finish line is beyond comparison.”
Not like different colleges, ELLIS requires all new college students, no matter age or how a lot highschool they’ve accomplished of their dwelling nation, to enter as first-year college students. The mannequin ensures that college students depart college with the English fluency and familiarity with the American training system they want to reach faculty and past.
Beginning highschool once more made Bridget nervous: Her solely information of American excessive colleges got here from films. She anxious about talking English and making associates. However she was additionally hopeful. She and her mom had traveled almost 3,000 miles for this opportunity.
ELLIS Prep braces as Trump takes workplace
What Bridget and her mom hadn’t counted on was arriving within the U.S. at a second when a rising variety of People noticed unlawful immigration as a important drawback. A July 2024 ballot discovered that 55% of People stated they wished to curb immigration — the primary time since 2009 {that a} majority of the nation expressed that view.
Within the run-up to the presidential election, Trump centered his marketing campaign on immigration, although he promised to focus on his deportation efforts on violent and harmful criminals that the majority People agreed needs to be expelled from the nation.
An ELLIS pupil works on an project within the hallway. A lot of the college’s college students hail from Latin America or Africa. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
Even some ELLIS college students supplied help for Trump’s immigration platform in school discussions, a historical past trainer stated.
Some conservatives questioned, too, whether or not the nation ought to proceed to teach undocumented college students, a observe codified within the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court docket case, Plyler v. Doe. Critics, together with the authors of the influential Mission 2025 home coverage blueprint, argued that the latest inflow of migrants put an unsustainable pressure on public colleges, to the detriment of U.S.-born college students.
Counselor Hedin Bernard has been at ELLIS for the reason that college launched in 2008. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
College programs don’t monitor the immigration standing of scholars, making it troublesome to know what number of undocumented college students have enrolled in public colleges. However an estimated 850,000 undocumented youngsters reside within the U.S., in response to Pew Analysis Middle. One other estimated 4.4 million U.S.-born youngsters have a minimum of one guardian who’s undocumented — an umbrella time period describing migrants and not using a legitimate visa or authorized residence.
After Trump’s win within the 2024 election, Bernard, the college counselor, observed an uneasy quiet fall over the college.
A founding ELLIS employees member with a dry humorousness and encyclopedic information of historical past and geography, Bernard stored a fourth-floor workplace that was seldom empty, with guests starting from a teen caught vaping marijuana exterior to a colleague seeking to vent.
Bernard had lived his personal model of the immigrant success story. His dad and mom got here from the Dominican Republic and ran a grocery retailer on Manhattan’s Decrease East Aspect so they might afford Catholic college. He wished to present his college students that very same help, and he typically served as a type of stand-in member of the family for college kids who’d left their properties and family members hundreds of miles away.
Within the days after the November election, Bernard anticipated a queue of scholars with questions and considerations. However few college students wished to speak in regards to the new administration. It felt like everybody was simply “waiting for the other shoe to drop,” he stated.
That occurred the week of Jan. 21, after Trump delivered a fiery inauguration tackle vowing to “begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.” The subsequent day, Trump rescinded longstanding steerage prohibiting ICE from finishing up immigration raids at or close to colleges.
Absences at ELLIS skyrocketed, like they did throughout town. Bernard and different counselors tried to achieve households by cellphone and WhatsApp to guarantee them it was protected to attend. Many college students, together with Bridget, stated they wished to attend a few days.
Every week later, Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem posted a video of an ICE raid within the Bronx — one among a number of in neighborhoods surrounding ELLIS — accompanied by the message: “Getting the dirt bags off the streets in New York City this morning.”
ELLIS college students noticed movies of ICE on social media and heard rumors of immigration brokers displaying up of their neighborhoods. ELLIS staffers posted “Know Your Rights” steerage on bulletin boards within the hallway, and Vega, the principal, went round to school rooms instructing college students on what to do in the event that they got here into contact with immigration brokers.
“They wanted to know: ‘Is someone going to come pick me up?’” stated Vega. “The answer in this building is that every student here is going to be protected. The goal is to make sure every student … is aware of their rights. That they’re entitled to be in school.”
Principal Norma Vega, pictured in her workplace, sought to reassure college students they’d be protected in school after Trump’s inauguration. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
A lot of the ELLIS college students who skipped college rapidly returned. However a number of — like a senior who missed greater than a month of faculty and solely got here again after Vega did a house go to — have been paralyzed by concern of immigration enforcement.
The specter of deportation had grow to be one other impediment standing between ELLIS college students and commencement, one which the staffers confronted like every other problem: with a perception that caring educators can maintain college students on monitor. However Trump’s message was proving highly effective, too.
Paving a path to varsity for immigrant college students
Halfway by way of the college 12 months, Bridget had come on ELLIS’ radar as a first-year pupil with uncommon maturity and potential who handled important stress exterior college.
Bridget had confirmed a fast research in English and math. Her attendance was wonderful, and her grades have been virtually all As and Bs. Her fluency in English had progressed, and he or she’d made an impression on associates and educators together with her generosity and kindness.
Vega believed Bridget would earn a scholarship to an excellent faculty if she made it to commencement.
Bridget works on an project for her English class at ELLIS. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
In her 17 years main ELLIS, Vega had developed a type of radar for the obstacles that might maintain every pupil from making it to commencement and faculty.
The daughter of a tight-knit Puerto Rican household, Vega attended public colleges on the Decrease East Aspect till her household was priced out to the Bronx. Earlier than founding ELLIS, she had labored as a social employee and principal of one other college for brand new immigrants, however she was pissed off by the dearth of choices particularly geared towards older newcomers.
Beginning and main ELLIS had been a labor of affection, propelled by the small colleges motion below former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
When it got here to Bridget, Vega and Bernard rapidly realized Marta’s anxiousness about immigration enforcement was taking a toll.
Bernard requested Marta for permission to carry Bridget on an ice skating discipline journey in Manhattan. Marta refused, too anxious about what might occur to Bridget to present her consent. “‘She’s all I have,’” she informed Bernard.
The college didn’t quit. In early March, Bernard and Vega invited each Marta and Bridget on a faculty journey to John Jay Faculty — a CUNY establishment with an particularly well-developed set of assets for undocumented college students.
For Vega, it felt like a turning level in getting each Bridget and Marta to purchase into the college’s guiding imaginative and prescient: {that a} faculty training and a future within the U.S. are inside attain.
“[Marta] started crying when she realized there’s hope,” Vega recalled.
The journey additionally gave Vega an opportunity to supply a fragile piece of recommendation she typically shares with fearful dad and mom — one she sensed can be notably related for Marta and Bridget, who have been so fiercely hooked up: If Bridget have been to construct a life within the U.S., her mom would wish to loosen her grip and let her discover.
Staying the course regardless of rising threats of deportation
On a Friday afternoon in mid-March, Vega was driving her children to a martial arts match, listening to bachata on a music streaming app and attempting not to consider work, when she heard an advert that made her jaw drop.
In a Division of Homeland Safety advert, Noem stated, “President Trump has a transparent message to those who are in our nation illegally: Go away now.
“If you don’t, we will find you, and we will deport you. You will never return.”
Vega was horrified. She took the app off her cellphone. However the advert popped up on one other platform later that day.
Within the months since Trump took workplace, Vega had completed all she might to insulate her college from anti-immigrant political rhetoric. However listening to the advert, it occurred to Vega that if she was having problem escaping the concern marketing campaign, it have to be even tougher for her college students and their households.
“What they’re trying to do,” she stated, “is scare people into leaving.”
A screenshot of an advert that includes Homeland Safety Secretary Kristi Noem. Credit score: Screenshot of U.S. Division of Homeland Safety advert
Simply weeks earlier, she’d discovered {that a} pupil who stopped coming to highschool after the presidential inauguration returned to Colombia — the primary time Vega knew of that occuring within the college’s 17-year historical past.
The advert, a part of a multimillion-dollar marketing campaign taking part in on radio, TV, and music streaming platforms throughout the nation, was one prong of the administration’s rapidly escalating immigration enforcement techniques.
Brokers had detained U.S. inexperienced card-holders at airports, together with a German citizen who had lived within the nation for 17 years. The Trump administration had invoked an arcane regulation, the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, to deport a whole bunch of migrants to a infamous mega-prison in El Salvador. One in all them was a 19-year-old Venezuelan residing within the Bronx. He might have been an ELLIS pupil, Vega thought.
New York Metropolis Mayor Eric Adams, in the meantime, had signaled his willingness to cooperate with the enforcement push regionally. Trump’s Justice Division succeeded in getting federal corruption costs in opposition to Adams dropped, partially, so he might higher help the administration’s immigration agenda. After a gathering with Border Czar Tom Homan, Adams vowed to reverse a metropolis coverage barring ICE from making arrests on Rikers Island.
The college had a number of annual discipline journeys approaching, together with an in a single day journey to Washington, D.C., for first-year college students. The journey felt fraught with new threat this 12 months, and a few staffers and fogeys — together with Marta — had expressed considerations. However Vega knew how vital it was to present her college students, all of whom got here from low-income households, the identical sort of wealthy cultural experiences as college students from extra prosperous households.
Vega believed, too, that going to the nation’s capital, the place federal officers crafted the immigration insurance policies shaping the lives of ELLIS college students, would ship a robust message that the college wouldn’t cow to concern.
“We’re going. We’re going,” Vega stated as the college started preparations for the journey to Washington.
A mom and daughter from Ecuador confront their future in NYC
By mid-April, Bridget and Marta have been rising more and more nervous about their upcoming courtroom listening to and ICE check-in. Regardless of their finest efforts, they hadn’t discovered a lawyer to signify them in entrance of an immigration choose in June.
However with Bernard’s suggestion, Bridget and Marta visited a Manhattan church that helps join immigrants to companies, securing a cellphone appointment with a screener for a authorized group.
They took the decision at ELLIS in a storage room that Bernard unlocked so Bridget and Marta might have privateness.
The screener defined that profitable an asylum declare — the most typical path to authorized standing for Latin American migrants — can be an uphill battle given the excessive bar to show they confronted a particular concern of violence or persecution in Ecuador.
Marta embraces Bridget in Manhattan’s Madison Sq. Park. Credit score: José A. Alvarado Jr. for Chalkbeat
However there was one other doable authorized route. The screener instructed that Bridget can be a powerful applicant for Particular Immigrant Juvenile Standing, a sort of authorized safety out there to immigrants below age 21 who had been deserted or uncared for by one or each dad and mom. Bridget informed the screener her father had by no means been part of her life.
The safety would solely apply to Bridget, not Marta.
After the screener hung up, the mom and daughter sat quietly for a number of moments. Marta started to cry, and Bridget wrapped her arms round her.
“Maybe they’ll let her stay and send me back home,” Marta stated, as if pondering out loud, earlier than turning to Bridget. “Don’t help me, help your sisters. Be humble, love your sisters, keep moving forward. Don’t be like me and be nothing, and have to collect bottles.”
Bridget glanced at Mickey, the dirt-encrusted mouse hooked up to Marta’s fanny pack who’d been with them since they left Ecuador.
She considered all they’d been by way of and the entire sacrifices her mom had made to allow her dream of pursuing an training within the U.S. She couldn’t think about life right here with out her mother.
Over the times and weeks forward, Bridget’s resolve to stay within the nation started to falter.
It could be as much as her college to maintain it alive.
Associated
