Sacramento moves to block immigration officials from student data
As federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents ramp up arrests of residents who are in this country illegally, California lawmakers are taking steps they hope will prevent that agency from accessing student records that could help agents deport people.
The federal Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Pratt said, prohibits student information from being released without permission from parents or guardians.
But law enforcement is exempted from that law.
Pratt has researched the issue for lawmakers on the Assembly Education Committee. And his research has led the committee chair, Assemblyman Patrick O'Donnell to author Assembly Bill 699 that would, among other things, prohibit school districts from collecting a student’s immigration status in order to prevent immigration agents from looking at student files that could in some way lead them to the immigration status of students or their parents.
The move comes as the Trump administration’s stepped up deportations and have netted people who are in this country illegally who have not committed serious crimes. California state and city officials have taken a confrontational position towards the federal policies.
“We have heard that some local school districts are in fact collecting the immigration status of pupils," O’Donnell said. "So what we’re doing, going forward, is seeking to prevent that from occurring."
O’Donnell did not say which school districts were collecting student immigration data. The bill, he said, was the result of parent, teacher and school officials' concerns as arrests of people by immigration agents increase in their communities.
Many school districts have said their campuses are safe zones from arrest by immigration agents.
A 1982 federal court case, Plyer v. Doe, prohibits schools from asking students to Sacramento moves to block immigration officials from student data | 89.3 KPCC:
