ILAP Testimony About School Resource Officers (SROs) Before the Portland School Board

“Good evening. My name is Julia Brown.  I am the Advocacy and Outreach Attorney at the Immigrant Legal Advocacy Project (ILAP) and I am a resident of Portland.  ILAP is Maine’s only statewide nonprofit provider of immigration law and related legal aid to Maine’s low-income residents.   

I want to provide context that we have not yet heard about serious immigration consequences stemming from having a law enforcement presence in schools. We’ve heard about the school to prison pipeline, but there is also a school to deportation pipeline, caused by many of the same factors. 

Black and brown kids, many of whom are also immigrants, are stopped and arrested more often by SRO’s than their white classmates. Many immigrant youth have higher rates of anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder, due to anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies as well as fears of immigration enforcement as well as concerns about immigration status of themselves and family. These can manifest in behaviors that may be mistakenly treated as disciplinary problems. When SRO’s become involved in school discipline, kids may end up getting arrested for behavior that normally would be handled by school staff.  We also cannot ignore the enormous increase in immigration enforcement by Border Patrol and ICE over the last few years. Even if an SRO does not or would not contact ICE, students could reasonably fear that they would, and could even associate SROs with ICE.  

Once a noncitizen child has been arrested or convicted of an offense, immigration agencies will see the arrest, adjudication, or conviction, if the child ever applies for an immigration benefit, like a green card or Special Immigrant Juvenile Status. Even a simple arrest could lead to complications in or denial of a youth’s immigration application. It does not matter if an arrest or deferred disposition does not show up on a background check – a student must disclose an arrest on every immigration application. One arrest could be used as evidence to deny a student’s application for immigration status.  

The simple presence of law enforcement in schools leads to more interaction between students and the police. Students of color are more likely to be arrested by SRO’s, and many of those Portland students are immigrants. It is no exaggeration to say that an SRO’s arrest of a noncitizen student could lead to that student being denied immigration status and possibly being deported. The School Board must consider the immigration consequences of continued law enforcement presence in schools.”