I’m deeply troubled by the increased enforcement measures targeting students and immigrant families from Central America. The increased policing and enforcement raids have had a chilling effect on our schools and immigrant families, jeopardizing the safety and well-being of children and threatening the security and safety of entire communities. Several repeated reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in local communities, detaining students on their way to and from school, have been particularly damaging to the trust we’ve worked so hard to build as educators.

By law, public schools should be safe havens that embrace all students and families, regardless of citizenship and national origin, and that includes unaccompanied and refugee children. As educators, we have worked hard to provide safe, welcoming places of learning free from harassment and discrimination, where all our children feel safe, welcomed, valued and empowered to dream boldly.

Central America is facing a humanitarian crisis. Specifically, the countries that make up the region’s Northern Triangle—El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala—are three of the world’s most violent countries, where rape, torture, murder, extortion, organized crime, human trafficking and aggressive gang recruitment have become commonplace. Because of this violence, thousands of unaccompanied children have fled the region. Their extraordinary journeys are rooted in a desire to seek asylum and reunite with family members in hopes of a better future in the United States.

And we can’t forget about the impact deportations are having on U.S.-born children. There are 4.1 million U.S.-born children of immigrants who live in mixed-status households with at least one parent who is undocumented. Raids and deportations are terrifying and marginalizing, and they take an emotional and psychological toll on innocent children. This is a generation of children that is growing up living with chronic fear and other post-traumatic stress disorders.

We must end the detention and deportation of our students who are being denied their right to a public education as affirmed by the Supreme Court in Plyler v. Doe. We must call for an immediate investigation into the access to education being provided to students in detention centers. We must recognize that detention centers are not, and will never be, replacements for public schools.

Students picked up by recent immigration raids should be allowed, through prosecutorial discretion, the opportunity to reopen their asylum claims.

I implore you to work together, as well as with other federal agencies, to put the safety and well-being of children first and ensure that their health, educational, safety and legal needs are being met.