On January 20, 2025 President Donald J. Trump was inaugurated for a second time. On that same day, the president signed multiple executive orders, one of which was to reinterpret the 14th Amendment to the Constitution—birthright citizenship—in order to move forward on his plans of mass deportation. Portage is a diverse district with many numerous languages and cultures represented and has long been a safe place for refugee students fleeing conflicts in other countries. What do President Trump’s new executive orders mean for the students, teachers, and families of Kalamazoo county?
History and Role of ICE
In order to understand the full extent of President Trump’s legislation regarding mass deportation, one must first learn about the role of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency in the US. It was created as a sub-department of the Department of Homeland Security in 2003 after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001. ICE typically operates within the bounds of the United States and deals with arrests and detained immigrants. They have over 20,000 immigration officials acting all over the country and more than an 8 billion dollar budget. According to their website, their mission is to, “Protect America through criminal investigations and enforcing immigration laws to preserve national security and public safety.” ICE’s role in regulating undocumented immigrants is expected to increase throughout President Trump’s second term, as seen in the first few weeks since the inauguration. CBS reports that ICE made around 1000 arrests on January 26, 2025, compared to an average of 310 per day in 2024. In fact, according to CBS news, ICE had to release detainees after their detention centers reached capacity, holding about 42,000 detainees.
In recent weeks, people have taken to social media and begun spreading rumors about ICE officials in Kalamazoo County, which has created fear across multiple school districts. ICE has employed a Secure Communities program in Kalamazoo County, Allegan County, and other surrounding areas. Secure Communities involves data and information sharing between federal and local law enforcement agencies in order to find undocumented immigrants who were perpetrators of crimes in the past, according to the official ICE website. Though the Secure Communities program has been utilized in Kalamazoo, there is no actual evidence of ICE officials even being present in the county in new ways since the inauguration.
Mass Deportation
The reported statistics show that President Trump won the race for 47th presidency primarily on his mass deportation plan, which would attempt to deport over 11 million people. “I don’t believe that the plan for this mass deportation is really a feasible plan,” says Immigration Lawyer Michael Stroster, who serves clients in Kalamazoo, Grand Rapids, and Detroit. “I don’t see a set of circumstances where […] the Department of homeland security is able or frankly even willing to remove approximately 11 million people from the United States.” In order for President Trump to fulfill his deportation plans over the next decade, he would need a budget over a 100 billion dollars more than the current yearly military budget. There is much more at stake than just the financial impact of such an initiative. While that can be quantified, the human cost cannot. All citizens of America, regardless of immigration status, will be greatly affected if, as the President has suggested, ICE begins to raid schools, churches, and hospitals. “There are things that are far more important than whether or not someone entered the United States illegally and those include things like human beings having access to healthcare, children going to school, people being able to worship in a way that is free from any level of threat or intimidation, getting other basic public services including law enforcement, protection, and things like that, [and] again to me, I think it’s far more important,” Stroster voiced. President Trump’s new policies may work at the actual border, but ICE raids across the countries, especially in locations which should act as safe spaces, will only provoke fear and sow discord.
Birthright citizenship
On President Trump’s first day in office, he signed a number of executive orders, including one that declared that the Fourteenth Amendment has been misinterpreted all of these years, specifically articulating that “the Fourteenth Amendment has never been interpreted to extend citizenship universally to everyone born within the United States.” Since the amendment was ratified in 1868, when a person is born in America, regardless of their parent’s legal status, they automatically obtain U.S citizenship and are issued an American birth certificate. The idea of birthright citizenship becoming illegal in the United States has spread a sense of panic and fear across the country. Social media has aided in spreading the hysteria, but in reality, it’s incredibly unlikely that his executive order will hold up judicially. “It’s not going to happen right now,” Stroster assures. “Right now it’s caught up in the courts, and that’s right where it belongs.” Abolishing birthright citizenship would be a challenging process that would require a constitutional amendment or Supreme Court ruling. Several court cases have been brought to the Supreme Court in the past debating the 14th amendment’s notion of birthright citizenship, including the infamous Plessy v. Ferguson case. Still, even in that notorious case which legalized segregation, the Supreme Court couldn’t find a way around the 14th Amendment’s wording, and it would be near impossible for them to do so now.
ICE’s role in schools
For the first time in 20 years, schools, hospitals, and churches no longer act as a safe haven for undocumented immigrants. The repercussions of this are wide-spread and fear-inducing, creating an environment where, before calling the police, going to the hospital, or walking through school doors, individuals might be tempted to weigh if the risk is worth it. “Schools exist for one reason and should be focused only on that one reason and not being distracted or disrupted by trying to enforce our immigration laws,” said Stroster. Districts all over the state have started preparing for how to respond to potential ICE raids, and at a staff meeting on January 27, Portage Northern teachers were advised that Portage Public Schools’ current policies on student release and FERPA laws still apply, which creates a very specific framework by which a student could legally be removed from school for immigration purposes. “Whether that’s your physical body in school or your student records and information online, that’s all still protected,” shares PPS Title III English Learner coach and teacher Teresa Forton. Furthermore, PPS does not keep a list of students’ immigration status, meaning that if ICE were to visit the school and ask for a list of undocumented students, there would be no list to give. In the unlikely event of an ICE arrival at a PPS building, they would come to the office and have their paperwork reviewed by the principal, who would then contact the superintendent. The superintendent would then contact the school’s legal counsel to ensure compliance with all applicable laws, and a recommendation would be made to finish the visit at such a time as does not interfere with the school setting. “School is the safest place you can be,” shares Forton. “You have a lot of legal protections and you also have a lot of people that are looking out for you and your best interests.”
Community assistance
While this is a time of fear and confusion for many families in Kalamazoo County and across the nation, there are resources and opportunities for the people affected. “Ultimately we are dealing with human beings and there are things that are far more important than whether or not someone entered the United States illegally,” said Stroster. “It is not possible for a person to navigate their way through this process on their own and make sure their rights are protected at every turn, so getting legal assistance if this comes up is the best advice that I have,” said Stroster.
Below is a list of Kalamazoo-area agencies that may be able to provide assistance with immigration law: