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A potential resolution limiting United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents from using district property appears headed for a vote by Mount Prospect Elementary School Dist. 57 board members. Following a lengthy debate at their Jan. 15 meeting, board members on a 4-3 vote directed district staff to draft a resolution that could be acted on Thursday (Feb. 19).
Those voting in favor of drafting a resolution were Dist. 57 Board President Corrin Bennett-Kill along with fellow board members Pam Nelson, Eileen Kowalczyk and Ray Doerner. Board members Chris Lettow, Alan Deitch and Kimberly Fay voted against.
According to Bennett-Kill, federal agents can only be allowed in a school building if they have a signed judicial warrant. A resolution, she said, would outline where the district stands on this issue.
“This is about immigration enforcement operations on district property such as parking lots, playgrounds, asphalts, etc.,” Bennett-Kill said, adding a resolution would be similar to ones recently passed by Maine Township High School Dist. 207 and Wheeling Township Elementary Dist. 21.
She added that Dist. 21 went further by posting signs on district property articulating that federal agents are not allowed on those grounds.
“It is important to point out that we have had community input in favor of this (resolution),” she said.
According to Fay, guidance the district has received so far has stated that any resolution would be difficult or almost impossible to enforce and there would be a legal cost to defending any legal action, if a situation should arise.
“I cannot look away at what is happening,” Nelson said. “You cannot be arrested without a judicial warrant. ICE agents are going door-to-door and kicking down doors and grabbing kids. I see a strong parallel to what is happening here to Germany and the concentration death camps. I am strongly in favor of a resolution and having signage.”
Nelson asked the rest of the board during their discussion Jan. 15 what the district would do when “ICE shows up in a parking lot with assault rifles and their fingers on the triggers like they did in November at a nearby 7-Eleven?”
“I am speaking for the people who are scared of coming out of their houses,” Nelson said. “I cannot witness and be part of something I know that parallels Germany and Nazism.”
Deitch commented that his concern with signage would be that it creates a false sense of security.
Fay emphasized she sympathizes with the many people who are fearful due to recent immigration enforcement.
However, she said the district and school board have had opportunities to address issues that have occurred in the community and the country, such as gun violence, and the board has considered other resolutions, but has never acted upon them.
Fay said she believes a resolution like this would mean the board is making a political statement, which is not appropriate for a non-partisan form of government, and the subject matter being considered is outside the scope of what a school board is charged to do.
Lettow emphasized he has empathy for families and children who have been affected by immigration enforcement.
“At the same time, I worry a lot about the unintended consequences we might be putting through if we put signage up or even a resolution,” Lettow said. “The message to the community then might be if you see ICE or law enforcement on school property, you can physically remove them because that’s what the signs say and we know that is not true. The ability to enforce this is murky at best and worst, not at all, and then what happens when someone physically removes an ICE officer? It creates additional problems for that person so I fundamentally have a problem with the message this is sending.”
Lettow said he is about keeping staff and children safe at all times, but passing a resolution like this could cause the opposite effect.
“ICE is not law enforcement,” Nelson replied. “They do not use the Constitution. They are anti-constitutional. They do have judicial warrants that may not even be signed. They do not ask for identification and when people are screaming and show their identification, they don’t even take it. They are bounty hunters interested in grabbing people.”
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