After crossing the border for better schools, some parents are pulling their kids and leaving the US

By BIANCA V ZQUEZ TONESS of The Associated Press NEAL MORTON and ARIEL GILREATH of The Hechinger Review and SARAH WHITES-KODITSCHEK and REBECCA GRIESBACH of AL com For the last two months of their life in the United States Jos Alberto Gonz lez and his family spent nearly all their time in their one-bedroom Denver apartment They didn t speak to anyone except their roommates another family from Venezuela They consulted WhatsApp messages for warnings of immigration agents in the area before leaving for the rare landscaping job or to buy groceries But majority days at a m Gonz lez s wife took their children to school The appeal of their children learning English in American schools and the desire to make money had compelled Gonz lez and his wife to bring their - and -year-old on the monthslong journey to the United States They arrived two years ago planning to stay for a decade But on Feb Gonz lez and his family boarded a bus from Denver to El Paso where they would walk across the limit and start the long trip back to Venezuela Even as immigrants in the U S avoid going out in community terrified of encountering immigration leadership families across the country are mostly sending their children to school That s not to say they feel safe In certain cases families are telling their children s schools that they re leaving Classroom aid Zhour Boutyebi works with students in a second grade math class at Place Bridge Academy May in Denver AP Photo Rebecca Slezak Already thousands of immigrants have notified federal officers they plan to self-deport according to the Department of Homeland Safeguard President Donald Trump has encouraged more families to leave by stoking fears of imprisonment ramping up governing body surveillance and offering people and transportation out of the country And on Monday the Supreme Court allowed the Trump administration to strip legal protections from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan immigrants potentially exposing them to deportation Without Temporary Protective Status even more families will weigh whether to leave the U S advocates say Departures in crucial numbers could spell trouble for schools which receive funding based on how several students they enroll The amount of fear and uncertainty that is going through parents heads who could blame somebody for making a choice to leave announced Andrea Renter a principal of a Denver elementary school serving immigrant students I can tell them as a principal that I won t let anybody in this school Nobody is taking your kid But I can t say the same for them out in the workforce or driving somewhere FILE As a neighbor documents with a mobile telephone a woman is escorted by a law agents from an apartment during a raid Feb in east Denver AP Photo David Zalubowski File Rumors of immigration raids on schools became a turning point When Trump was elected in November after promising to deport immigrants and depicting Venezuelans in particular as gang members Gonz lez knew it was time to go He was willing to accept the trade-off of earning just weekly in his home country where community schools operate a scarce hours a day I don t want to be treated like a delinquent Gonz lez commented in Spanish I m from Venezuela and have tattoos For him that means I m a criminal It took Gonz lez months to save up the more than he needed to get his family to Venezuela on a series of buses and on foot He and his wife didn t tell anyone of their plan except the single mom who shared their apartment afraid to draw attention to themselves Telling people they yearned to leave would signal they were living here illegally They sent their children to their Denver school regularly until late February when Gonz lez s phone lit up with messages claiming immigration agents were planning raids inside schools That week they kept their son home Honestly we were really scared for our boy Gonz lez announced Because we didn t have legal status A second grader uses his hands to do math at Place Bridge Academy May in Denver AP Photo Rebecca Slezak In the months following Trump s inauguration Denver Society School attendance suffered according to district information Attendance districtwide fell by in February compared with the same period last year with even steeper declines of up to at schools primarily serving immigrant newcomer students The deflated rates continued through March with districtwide attendance down and as much as at particular newcomer schools Various parents explained Denver school staff they had no plans to approach their children s campus after the Trump administration ended a guidelines that had limited immigration enforcement at schools The Denver school district sued the regime over that reversal saying attendance dropped noticeably across all schools particularly those schools in areas with new-to-country families and where ICE raids have already occurred A federal judge ruled in March the district failed to prove the new program caused the attendance decline Attendance dropped in plenty of schools following Trump s inauguration Facts obtained from districts across eight additional states including Texas Alabama Idaho and Massachusetts established a similar decline in school attendance after the inauguration for a meager weeks In the majority places attendance rebounded sooner than in Denver From to more than Venezuelans and Colombian settlers received shelter or other assistance from Denver Trump mentioned during the campaign he would begin his mass deportation efforts nearby in the suburb of Aurora because of alleged Venezuelan gang activity Students raise their hands to be called on by second grade math tutor Johanna Correa at Place Bridge Academy May in Denver AP Photo Rebecca Slezak Nationwide schools are still reporting immediate drops in daily attendance during weeks when there is immigration enforcement or even rumors of ICE raids in their communities commented Hedy Chang of the nonprofit Attendance Works which helps schools address absenteeism Dozens of districts didn t respond to requests for attendance material A few reported they feared drawing the attention of immigration enforcement In late February Gonz lez and his wife withdrew their children from school and stated administrators they were returning to Venezuela He posted a goodbye message on a Facebook group for Denver participants he used to find work and other help Thank you for everything friends he posted The day after I leave with God s favor Related Articles UMN names Gretchen Ritter executive vice president provost H sker D s Bob Mould receives honorary degree and delivers Macalester College keynote Aspirant loans have been confusing lately Here s a guide to know where you stand NYU denies diploma to scholar who criticized Israel in commencement speech Americans are divided over DEI programs on college campuses poll finds This instant half a dozen Venezuelan and Colombian women solicited him for advice on getting back We plan to leave in May if God allows one woman posted in Spanish In Denver students have withdrawn from school through mid-April an increase of compared with the same period last year Denver school authorities couldn t explain the uptick At the -student Denver elementary school Andrea Renter a heads at least two students have withdrawn since the inauguration because of immigration concerns One is going back to Colombia and the other didn t say where they were headed School representatives in Massachusetts and Washington state have approved specific students are withdrawing from school to return to El Salvador Brazil and Mexico Haitians are trying to go to Mexico or Canada In Chelsea Massachusetts a -student district where nearly half the students are still learning English a handful of families have just now withdrawn their children because of immigration concerns One mother in March withdrew two young children from the district to return to El Salvador according to district administrator Daniel Mojica Her -year old daughter will stay behind on her own to finish school a sign that these decisions are leading to more family separation In Bellingham Washington two families withdrew their children after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement raid in early April at a local roofing company where agents arrested fathers of children attending Bellingham schools Both families returned to Mexico family engagement specialist Isabel Meaker mentioned There s a sense not just with these families that it s not worth it to fight They know the end conclusion Meaker declared Immigrant families are gathering documents they need to return home Countries with large populations living in the United States are seeing signs of more people wanting to return home Applications for Brazilian passports from consulates in the U S increased in March compared to the previous year according to information from the Brazilian Foreign Ministry Birth registrations the first step to getting a Brazilian passport for a U S -born child were up in April compared to the previous year Guatemala reports a increase over last year for passports from its nationals living in the United States Last month Melvin Josu his wife and another couple drove four hours from New Jersey to Boston to get Honduran passports for their American-born children It s a step that s taken on urgency in event these families decide life in the United States is untenable Melvin Josu worries about Trump s immigration program and what might happen if he or his wife is detained but lately he s more concerned with the difficulty of finding work File Law authorities escort a suspect from an apartment to a waiting utility wagon for movement during a raid Feb in east Denver AP Photo David Zalubowski File Demand for his drywall crew straightaway stopped amid the economic uncertainty caused by tariffs There s also more reluctance he explained to hire workers here illegally The Associated Press agreed to use only his first and middle name because he s in the country illegally and fears being separated from his family I don t know what we ll do but we may have to go back to Honduras he announced We want to be ready The size of the exodus and its impact on schools remains unclear but already specific are starting to worry A consultant working with districts in Texas on immigrant teaching commented one district there has seen a critical drop in summer school sign-ups for students learning English They re really worried about enrollment for the fall mentioned Viridiana Carrizales chief executive officer of ImmSchools a nonprofit that advises school districts how to meet the demands of immigrant students and their families Development finance experts predict budget problems for districts with large immigrant populations Every aspirant that walks in the door gets a chunk of money with it not just federal money but state and local money too noted Marguerite Roza a Georgetown University professor focusing on coaching finance If a district had a lot of migrant students in its district that s a loss of funds potentially there We think that s a real high liability Trump s offer to pay immigrants to leave and help them with transportation could hasten the departures Gonz lez now back in Venezuela says he wouldn t have accepted the money because it would have meant registering with the U S administration which he no longer trusts And that s what he s telling the dozens of refugees in the U S who contact him each week asking the best way home Go on your own he tells them Once you have the cash it s much easier going south than it was getting to the U S in the first place Bianca V zquez Toness who speaks Spanish and Portuguese has spent a decade writing about immigration or teaching Associated Press writer Jocelyn Gecker contributed to this overview The Associated Press instruction coverage receives financial backing from multiple private foundations AP is solely responsible for all content Find AP s standards for 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