In response to community concern regarding U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the district is working to inform the immigrant community of their rights through Know Your Rights workshops, Supervisor of Wellbeing and Immigrant Support Norma Morales said. She began planning Know Your Rights workshops last school year, she said.
Last year, students, especially Latino students, stopped showing up to school out of fear of ICE activity, Morales said. The fear among students and their families sparked the idea to hold Know Your Rights workshops, she said. Morales received questions from students asking how to protect themselves and their families, so she wanted them to know their rights, she added.
“The reason why it’s important to teach our students is just because they remember more than an adult, and they have more time,” Morales said. “And most of the time, these students might be translating for their adult parents.”
Now that students are more aware of their rights, the workshops have started teaching about a Family Plan, Morales said. The Family Plan is meant to prepare students if a family member is detained, ensuring that paperwork and legal documents are prepared, Morales said.
“Sometimes you just don’t think, ‘If they take my mom and I don’t have a dad, or vice versa, who’s going take care of me?’” she said. “So that’s when you want to be proactive, just doing it right now and writing it down.”
The district hires lawyers to keep watch on new legislation that affects the district’s ability to provide students with public education, MUSD Board President Chris Norwood said. The superintendent, as well as the school board’s president and vice president, are notified of how these new laws will be enforced before the information is sent directly to school sites, he said.
“The goal here is to inform and at the same time keep as many families safe as possible,” Norwood said.
There is always concern based on what’s being reported in the news, so the district is always providing information to school sites about their protocol if ICE is spotted in the area, Norwood said.
“We are in a constant state of alert or awareness that that could be a possibility, and we have to be prepared to respond,” he said.
All of the new immigration policies passed in California are designed to protect its residents who may be subject to this current federal administration’s approach to immigration enforcement, Norwood said. MUSD works to keep school staff informed of any changes to legislation and has recently started informing families of new policies directly, he added.
“If new legislation comes out, we want to make sure all the school sites — the principals and the folks in the office — are aware if it affects our ability to provide public education services,” Norwood said. “So for this particular topic (immigration), while it is new, it’s already a practice of the district that when legislation comes out that may have an impact in our ability to provide education, folks are made aware.”
In the case of AB 49, the “Safe Haven Schools Act,” passed on Sep. 20, 2025, the school district already had a similar policy in place, Norwood said. AB 49 prohibits school officials and employees from allowing ICE officers to come on campus, he said. In addition, school employees are not informed of the immigration status of students, Norwood added.
“And again, one of the things about California that’s unique is that once you’re in California, you’re in California, so you have rights, and we honor those rights in terms of your privacy, in terms of your personal belongings, all of those things,” he said.
In the event that ICE did want to enter the school or was looking for a particular student, they would not be permitted to do so by California law, Norwood said. As long as a student, their family, or an employee is on campus, they are protected from ICE, he added.
“If they’re on campus participating in a school activity, yes, it’s a safe space,” Norwood said. “At the same time, though, if ICE agents have a warrant for someone’s arrest that works at a school because they are aware of their immigration because they don’t have immigration status, that’s separate because they have a warrant.”
Additionally, the district has created a web page to keep its community safe and informed on legislation, Norwood said. MUSD has a good relationship with other districts within Santa Clara County, and the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors has a strong relationship with the state, Norwood added.
“So when the immigration enforcement actually became law, the state got information, the county got information, the district got information, and then also we got information at the legislative action committee, and we began to do research in terms of what should our school districts and superintendents know, and that was one of the reasons why we built that web page,” Norwood said.
Families are still anxious due to the unprecedented nature of immigration enforcement, but the district tries to help students feel as though school is a safe place of learning, Norwood said. The district has succeeded in raising attendance rates back to where they were before immigration enforcement tightened through efforts from the Know Your Rights workshops, the Wellness Center, and close contact with administrators, he added.
“As the news continues to tell these stories that are happening across the country, you don’t know who our parents or who our children know (to whom) that could be happening someplace else,” Norwood said. “So we’re all again on heightened alert.”
Immigrant communities live in fear because of ICE enforcement occurring in other areas, Accompaniment Coordinator at Rapid Response Network Ashley, said. She declined to provide her last name. Teaching community members what is actually happening helps give them peace of mind and lets them know what is happening in their area, she said.
“Because through social media, we see a bunch of different things of what’s happening in other states, so it’s easy to kind of get lost in all that information,” Ashley said. “So, presenting the community with facts of what is really going on here makes them feel a lot better.”
So far, there have been no huge deportations in Santa Clara County, Morales said. Milpitas is technically a sanctuary city, so the police department will not deport or report an undocumented immigrant, she said. Yet student fear still varies from day to day as the Trump administration continues to enforce its immigration policies, she added.
“Being an immigrant myself, I get to feel it (the fear) every day,” Morales said. “Whatever the administration is doing right now, it’s not that it’s just a new thing. It’s actually more enforcing it. But it’s always been like that. So you do live with it, but you just kind of learn, and you’re resilient, learning how to deal with it.”
