Education
Lehi immigrant families face deportation fears and uncertainty
Megan Wallgren | Lehi Free Press
As concerns over deportation increase throughout the United States, Lehi immigrant families face ongoing uncertainty over their resident status. This uncertainty has led to the quiet disappearance of some multilingual learners from area schools.
According to a report from October 2024, Alpine School District had 6,712 multilingual language learners (MLL) students. Those students represented 40 different languages from their countries of origin, the top languages were Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin, and Japanese and Korean tied for fifth place.
According to the Utah State Board of Education MLL students account for six percent of the school district’s population, and nine percent statewide.
Mark Williams, an immigration attorney with Perretta Law Offices who works with clients in the Lehi area said his clients are experiencing heightened fear and uncertainty due to increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement tactics under the Trump Administration.
Some of the new policies have led to immigrants withdrawing from public services, causing some to keep their children from attending school or taking advantage of school services.
In January, the Trump Administration rescinded a policy that protected certain areas, like churches, schools, and hospitals, from immigration enforcement.
“News gets out and parents are afraid to send their kids to school,” Williams said. “Now principals are having problems with enrollment because even though the kids are citizens, the parents are afraid.”
Kristin Robinson, an assistant principal at Viewpoint Middle School said the school has noticed enrollment of MLL students has decreased. “Generally, we get more students enrolling mid-year that may be from out of the country, but it has slowed significantly. We’ve only had one MLL student move in since January, and during the last few years we would get several,” Robinson said.
Robinson said the school is following policies outlined by Alpine School District to ensure student safety and make sure they don’t fear officials coming to school to question them. “It’s business as usual. We are still supporting MLL students as much as we previously did.”
Despite this, some teachers have noticed reluctance from someimmigrant parents to allow their children to participate in school activities because of fears of federal government interference.
Williams spoke of one set of parents who participated in a meeting with a school because their student qualified for special education services. “Ultimately they refused the services because they didn’t want paperwork with their information on it available to federal government who funds special education services,” he said.
Another policy affecting Lehi families is intensified enforcement of the Alien Registration Act, requiring non-citizen adults to register with the federal government. In April, the Department of Homeland Security began enforcing a mandate that requires registration for non-citizens aged 14 and older.
“I’ve heard of people not updating an address so that ICE can’t find them,” Williams said.
A legal immigrant from Venezuela living in Lehi, who will not be identified because of fears of being targeted for being an immigrant, said there is a lot of fear in the Venezuelan community. “It feels very much like Venezuelans are being targeted,” she said. “People don’t know what is going on and so they are very confused and afraid.”
In her experience, many in the Venezuelan community are moving or not updating their addresses so that government officials will not know where to find them. This sometimes includes not sending their kids to school.
“If the government doesn’t know where you are, you think it will be OK,” she said.
On Monday, May 19, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a significant decision allowing the Trump administration to terminate Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for approximately 350,000 Venezuelan immigrants residing in the United States.
Many immigrants in Utah and around the country have received letters from the federal government asking them to self-deport. Williams said this has led to a lot of fear and confusion.
“I’ve read these letters. They are replete with inaccuracies and misstatements of the law,” he said. “They are meant to intimidate and cause fear.”
Despite the unease, many immigrants are committed to staying in the US. “There’s a feeling of resolve for a lot of people. They think ‘This is where my family is. This is where my life is. There’s a reason I came here, so I’m willing to stay here and be under the risks the administration is creating for me’,” Williams said.
