Immigrant families get cheerful welcome on first day of school in Memphis

Roughly 20 people lined up outside Belle Forest Community School in Hickory Hill on the first day of class Monday morning, holding signs with messages such as "We love our immigrants" and "Say it loud, say it clear, immigrants are welcome here."  

The welcome party outside Belle Forest was one of a broad range of efforts meant to ensure that thousands of Hispanic students enrolled in Memphis-area schools came to class as scheduled. School officials had expressed concern that recent immigration arrests would prompt these families to avoid schools.

More:Memphis-area schools tell immigrant families their data is safe

Eight-year-old Juan de la Cruz and his five-year-old brother Sebastian shook hands with the people in line, at the urging of their mother.

Inside the school gate, the boys' mother, Maria Trinidad, a 33-year-old immigrant from Mexico, said she appreciated the welcome. "You feel really good," she said in Spanish. "You feel the family warmth." 

Volunteers respond to arrests

Arrests last month by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Memphis and throughout the country drew a large amount of attention and spread fear among some in the Hispanic population. Immigration officials have said 83 people were arrested in a July operation in Tennessee and surrounding states. The agency said most were "noncriminal" - they allegedly violated civil immigration law, but have no serious criminal history.

More:Feds say 83 immigrants arrested in Tennessee, nearby states last week, most 'noncriminal'

Until recently, the government rarely enforced immigration law in non-border states like Memphis, and when it did, it focused on immigrants who committed crimes. The arrests of a large number of immigrants without serious criminal records represents a big policy shift under the Trump administration. 

In response to the arrests, the Shelby County Schools administration issued public statements telling immigrant parents the schools are safe and administrators won't share data with outside agencies. At Belle Forest, which serves children in grades Pre-K through five, staffers made phone calls to Hispanic parents urging them to come, said the school's principal, Lori Phillips. 

"We do a lot to assure parents that their children are in good hands," she said.

And the group Latino Memphis issued a call for volunteers, churches and community groups to greet students outside local schools on the first day of class. At Belle Forest, several of the greeters were members of New Direction Christian Church, which is affiliated with a Spanish-speaking congregation, Nueva Direccion.

New Direction senior pastor Stacy Spencer said that Nueva Direccion's pastor, Greg Diaz, had told him about the impact of recent ICE arrests, and that the church wanted to let parents know their children are safe and welcome in school. "Specifically to let Latino families know that we stand with you." 

Similar welcoming demonstrations took place at other schools in the Memphis area, according to people involved. "Between St. John’s United Methodist, Teach for America and residents of the Annesdale Park neighborhood, we had 20+ people at Bruce Elementary welcoming ALL students,"  Dr. Johnny Jeffords, senior pastor of the Methodist church, wrote in an email. Bruce Elementary is in Midtown.

More than 50 people greeted students and parents at Brewster Elementary School in Binghamton, Dr. Steve Montgomery of Idlewild Presbyterian Church wrote in a message. 

Six adults came to welcome students at Treadwell Elementary and Middle schools in the Highland Heights neighborhood, according to Steve Noblett, executive director of the Christian Community Health Fellowship. "Several of the ladies have decided to continue to be there on Monday mornings with coffee for the mostly Hispanic moms who walk their children to school to show their continued support and love," he wrote. 

Growing population

The situation shows how Memphis-area government and community groups are attempting to maintain good relationships with the Hispanic population as immigration arrests ramp up. 

In Memphis, most Hispanics are Mexican immigrants or children of immigrants. Many adults either entered illegally or on visas that later expired, according to hundreds of interviews of immigrants conducted since 2006 by The Commercial Appeal.

Many unauthorized immigrants have lived here so long that they have U.S. -- born children in school -- and any child born in the United States is a citizen.

The Hispanic local school population grew from almost zero in the early 1990s to nearly 14,000, or about 12 percent of the school population, in the 2015-2016 school year. And anecdotal evidence suggests the local Hispanic child population continues to grow. 

At Belle Forest, for instance, statistics from 2015-2016 said the proportion of Hispanic students was 14 percent. Today, though, it's around 32 percent, said the school's principal.

It may take some time to determine how the aftermath of the ICE arrests has affected school enrollment. At Belle Forest, many families, including many Hispanic families, were still registering in the school cafeteria Monday morning.

Reach reporter Daniel Connolly at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@commercialappeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.

Opinion and engagement editor David Waters contributed to this story. Reporter Daniel Connolly wrote a nonfiction book about children of Mexican immigrants in Memphis entitled "The Book of Isaias: A child of Hispanic immigrants seeks his own America." St. Martin's Press, 2016.

The eight majority Hispanic public schools in the Shelby County system

Wells Station Elementary - 73.8 percent Hispanic

Jackson Elementary - 67.7 percent

Kingsbury Middle - 64.3 percent

Kingsbury Elementary - 61 percent

Berclair Elementary - 55 percent

South Park Elementary - 52.8 percent

Aurora Collegiate Academy - 52.5 percent

Knight Road Elementary - 51.1 percent

Shelby County Schools, all schools - 12.3 percent, or 13,816 students.

Source: Tennessee report card data from 2015-2016. Anecdotal evidence suggests the Hispanic school population continues to grow and additional schools may since have become majority Hispanic.