On the outside, 16-year-old “Juan” is your typical American teen. He has a girlfriend, is a sophomore in high school and is getting himself ready for Tennessee’s annual standardized testing. But earlier this month, his life was turned upside down—his mom was among the 100 immigrants swept up in the massive Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid of a meatpacking plant. Following his mom’s arrest, Juan had to leave his school and move in with his aunt, who lives about 40 miles away. And like the 160 other U.S citizen kids and teens directly affected by the raid, he’s not doing well at all:
“I was at school when the raid happened,” he told me. “It was during lunch. My friends came up to me saying that there had been some social media, that ICE was taking people. I tried to call my mom to let her know, but I couldn't get through. No one picked up the phone. That was how I knew.” Last Monday was his first day at a new high school, in Knoxville, where there are fewer Hispanic students. When some of his white classmates learned where he’d come from, they taunted him in the hallway, telling him he should have been deported, too. “I don’t feel normal. I don’t feel the same. I feel lonely, like there’s no one around me anymore,” he said.
More than 500 kids ended up skipping Hamblen County schools and staying home in the days after the raid, leaving community members to try and repair the damage caused by the Trump administration. According to CNN, educators organized “a workshop on how to help students through the crisis,” while a town hall was devoted exclusively to hearing from affected kids. Additionally, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) has offered legal assistance to many of the immigrants swept up in the raid. But, so much damage to our kids has already been done. "We've never had anything of this magnitude," said superintendent Jeff Perry:
The same week Juan started school in Knoxville, the Tennessee Board of Education began administering its annual set of standardized tests, called TNReady, at elementary, middle, and high schools across the state; the testing can take as long as four hours a day and lasts for about a week and a half. High-school students sit for exams in each of their academic subjects—English, science, math, social studies, and geography. Juan had hoped that he could take his exams in Morristown, where school felt more welcoming and familiar, but it was too far to commute, in part because his aunt was reluctant to drive long distances for fear of getting arrested herself.
Then there’s the kids who may be too young to be able to talk about their trauma. One mom who was arrested and then released commented on her son’s schoolwork: “He hadn’t filled them in all the way. It concerned me. He doesn’t talk to me clearly about how he feels, but I could see, just from looking at his schoolwork, that something’s off.” Juan continues: “It’s hard to pay attention. I can’t stop thinking about going back to school in Morristown, or about my mom. I also have a girlfriend back at West. I want to be back there. While my teachers talk, I keep forgetting to listen.”