Interim Superintendent/Receiver Anthony Soto discusses a letter affirming the rights of immigrants that was sent to the community.
Reminder Publishing screen capture by Tyler Garnet.
HOLYOKE — Mayor Joshua Garcia and interim Superintendent/Receiver Anthony Soto sent a letter to the community to ensure and protect the rights of all Holyoke residents and employees.
The letter came after the Department of Homeland Security and announced that schools and churches would no longer be considered “sensitive areas,” with the intent to allow agents from both the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agencies to enter such locations under certain circumstances.
With Massachusetts and other states still reviewing the announcement, Garcia and Soto wanted to remind all residents that as a city and as a school district, they stand by its commitment to protect the rights and safety of everyone who lives or works in the community.
Garcia reissued an Executive Order Relating to the Enforcement of Civil Immigration Detainers, which reaffirms a 2014 executive order made by former Holyoke Mayor Alex B. Morse.
It states, in part, “The Holyoke Police Department will neither honor nor enforce a civil immigration detainer requested from the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or the United States Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) when such order seeks the excessive and/or unnecessary detention of an individual in department custody at the Holyoke Police Department beyond the point at which he or she would otherwise be released.”
Holyoke Public Schools shared guidance with staff that affirms the district’s commitment to upholding the rights of newcomer and refugee children of school age.
While at a joint meeting between the City Council and School Committee on Feb. 12, Soto talked more about the statement and follow up.
Soto stated, “The intent of my messaging, we do have a significant [number] of newcomer families, new to Holyoke, new to the district. My first intent was to ease some of their anxiety. I’ve had families come crying, I’ve had bus drivers actually walking into central office crying, grabbing me asking me about a student they didn’t see that day.”
Soto explained he wanted to ease the anxiety of students and families because there “was a lot of misinformation out there and concern and worry.”
Secondly, Soto said that Holyoke Public Schools has a strong campaign to increase attendance and decrease chronic absenteeism and his joint letter was to let families know their rights.
He explained, “Our chronic absenteeism is almost 50% which is way too high. That means around 50% of our kids are missing 18 or more days. It’s hard to make the academic progress that we’d like to see when that many kids are missing that many days. We had been hearing heightened anxiety from these families to like, ‘hey I’m not going to send my kid to school, I’m scared.’ We wanted to clarify with them what their rights are.”
Soto also said that his team and him needed to educate the staff.
“It is a legal requirement for us to educate all kids. It’s a state legal requirement. We don’t collect immigration status [or] documentation so there’s no way for our staff to know whether a newcomer family has a status or not, but it’s not a requirement and we’re not suppose to be collecting immigration status, work papers because that’s a barrier to enrolling a kid. That’s the guidance we received from DESE.”
In July 2024, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education released the following information as part of its updated Frequently Asked Questions guidance document related to enrolling and supporting newcomer students in Massachusetts schools and districts.
“Newcomer students are legally entitled to equal access to a free public education without regard to their or their parents’ or guardians’ national origin or immigration status as established by the U.S. Supreme Court in Plyler v. Doe, 457 U.S. 202 (1982). Newcomer students have the right to attend the public schools in the town in which they reside and must be permitted to enroll in public schools without undue delay,” it stated.
Soto talked about educating his staff in case a situation arises. He said, “We don’t want staff getting in trouble. Let’s assume ICE does come and they say they want to see these student records, legally you’re not allowed to provide information about a kid unless its their parent. We wanted to avoid any type of confrontation and alert the staff and let them know what they should do if anything was to happen.”
Soto also did explain that there has been an increase in newcomer families to Holyoke but stated, “It is my opinion, and I don’t know this to be fact that the majority of our newcomer families they do have a status. I know there’s like this widespread concern that they’re illegal immigrants and they don’t have a status or they’re undocumented. I don’t know this to be fact but we’ve dealt with a lot of newcomer families and they do have some status and some protections and we wanted to make sure they understand what those are.”
