Of the roughly migrants who have arrived in New York City since March 2022, about a are school aged children. Late spring tallies estimate at least have enrolled in the city’s public school system.

But experts serving them say the approach to housing and by extension school placement – which includes new families – is “haphazard” at best, threatening the safety and stability of children. 

“We deal with trauma all the time. We work in homelessness, but what we are experiencing is a whole other level,” said Henry Love, vice president of policy and strategy for Women in Need, the largest family shelter provider in New York City and the nation.

WIN is operating several migrant-specific shelters throughout the city, predominantly converted hotels. 

Love, who holds a doctorate in developmental psychology, explained migrant children are experiencing compounding traumas: violence or instability in their home countries, death and uncertainty during the journey to the U.S., and housing instability in the city. They are still in survival mode, and many are experiencing PTSD while attempting to find normalcy in schools. 

“We’re not putting the resources into these kids for them to be able to grow and develop in the best way possible,” said Love. “… We’ve been in this for two years, we’re going to continue to be in emergency mode. At some point, we have to think about what’s happening for these kids long term.”

In conversation with ����Ӱ��, Love discusses what migrant youth are experiencing in the city today and the failures of the systems serving them, while cautioning against the creation of a separate housing system for migrants. 

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. 

Thinking about this particular population of newcomers, what’s top of mind for you right now? 

The kids. I feel like that’s been the issue from the onset of this. I’m a former educator, I used to teach elementary school. Just knowing what these kids have gone through, and how young so many of them are, and how critical this age is in their development … the majority of the young people that we have who are asylum seekers are under the age of 6 or 7. 

My barber, who’s from Venezuela, came with his son. He’s 56, telling me the story: Seeing a baby get his head smashed in and dying. Seeing dead bodies on the way up through . All this stuff. What does that do to a six year old? 

This is what I’ve heard from every single parent that I have talked to about what they’ve gone through to get their kids and their families here. There’s base level trauma of what caused them to leave wherever in the first place. And then there’s the trauma on the journey. And then there’s a trauma at the border. And then there’s the trauma being shipped to New York. And then there’s the trauma of being homeless here. 

On top of that, now for no reason besides to harass people, [New York City] is gonna do the 60 day eviction rule? There’s no words for just how cruel that is. What does this mean, for a population that specifically needs to be stabilized more than any other population, and we’re doing one of the things that is the most destabilizing?

How have you seen eviction orders play out?

I feel like it’s purposely complicated.

Basically, for the purpose of this conversation, we’ll say there’s two systems. Agencies that fall under the jurisdiction of the city are having shelters open up underneath them, like Housing Preservation and Development, Emergency Management.

Then there’s the Health and Hospitals system – unique because it’s a quasi-gov agency. Because of that, the right to shelter doesn’t apply the same way to them as they do to the rest of the city agencies. [The 60-day rule is under effect for families with children staying in .] That’s also why we think that the Mayor is trying to get people into these places. 

Most families are in facilities that don’t have a 60 day order, but what we are experiencing is horrible. What the city has been doing is sending all of the families out of Department of Homeless Services tier two shelters, which is mostly what we run and specialize in, and into migrant facilities. They are mostly hotels. 

It’s short notice. We’ve had buses just pull up like “get on” and we’re like, what? What’s happening? 

Same day eviction sort of thing? 

It’s a same-day eviction. We were like, “we need notification. What — you want 30-40 families?” We push back on that. 

There was also another incident where we got notified within 24 hours. We communicated to the families at this particular [Brooklyn] site. When we first opened this shelter in that space a few years ago, there was so much pushback from community members against the opening of a homeless shelter. Eventually what happened was like some of the community members did a petition and they allowed us to open it. After that, there was a much better relationship with the school. 

All that to say that when we had an influx of folks coming into our sites, particularly asylum seekers, all of them went to this one elementary school. Their PTA has just loved all these families. When they heard about this [move] notification, they were like, what the hell? They organized a protest … It’s been beautiful to witness. 

There’s limited things that we can do. We can’t tell them no, we can’t stop them. We say, we can’t force you all to get on the buses, but eventually DHS police will come. And that’ll be really ugly. I don’t have words to describe sitting down with the PTA moms who were asylum seekers — they’re begging me to not transfer them. 

One of the women took her phone out and had this really heartbreaking story from her 11 year old who was at school and was texting her, “Mommy, I’m afraid to come home, the police could be there.” That is what these folks are experiencing during this. 

I’m seeing that transferring regularly — from our facilities to another which doesn’t have the 60 day rule. But forced transfers like that, that are all of a sudden, are very inhumane. I can’t even fathom what’s happening for those kids. And some of them are having to do this every 60 days. 

Thank you for sharing those stories. You mentioned this was happening pretty regularly, sometimes 30 to 40 families at once. How and when were you able to successfully push back? 

I guess [we were sometimes successful] in terms of delaying, but ultimately, the city’s argument is, ‘we’re transferring to the migrant facilities because we’re gonna provide better services.’ We know that’s just not true. It’s unequivocally untrue. 

We opened up a migrant facility, took it over from the city. They had minimal services. They didn’t have anyone that spoke Spanish on staff. Once we put our staff in who spoke Spanish – we only hired people that did – there was a line out the door. 

They’re like, oh, ‘we’re providing legal services.’ No, they’re not. ‘Oh, we’re providing food.’ I’ve never seen more disgusting food in my life, and I have seen prison foods and all kinds of stuff. 

Again, this is in the migrant facilities specifically? 

This is in the DHS migrant hotels where most of the families are, but there are still some families in the Health and Hospitals sites. Those are the big ones like Floyd Bennet Field [in southern Brooklyn]. Floyd Bennett is not a place where a child should ever be. It’s semi-congregate, it’s unsafe. 

We saw what happened when there was that bad storm a few months ago. Everybody at the last minute was forced to down the street. 

Are there loopholes you’ve been seeing used to move families in other shelters? 

No, because of the court mandate [of the right to shelter]. But my concern based on how the city is moving is that they’re trying to create two separate and unequal systems. 

Every time they’re separate, they’re always unequal because they’re not resourced the same way. This is our history in this country. Their justification is that they’re providing specialized X Y and Z [in migrant shelters], which is the same thing they said for segregated schools in the South. 

I think that they will eventually try to ask the courts and the powers that be to apply the 60 day rule to DHS migrant facilities. They haven’t done that yet. 

It’s murky. This has always been my question to them, OK, so when does somebody become a New Yorker? Is it two years? A lot of these folks have timed out and are undocumented. Do all of our undocumented families have to go through this system too? Is it 10 years? When do they get to use the New Yorker system? 

What have you been hearing and seeing about their needs that you feel like is being ignored right now? 

The kids and the trauma — I feel like no one’s talking about the kids at a very basic level in all of this. This is arguably one of the biggest issues of the presidential election, and no one is talking about the fact that the majority of these folks are families with kids.

We deal with trauma all the time. We work in homelessness, but what we are experiencing is a whole other level. We’re not putting the resources into these kids for them to be able to grow and develop in the best way possible. 

Like I said, they’ve seen violence where they came from, which is often what made them leave … then they come here and it’s complete destabilization and chaos. The only rationale for the 60 day rule is to harass people, make them not want to come to New York.

Some I’m imagining are experiencing PTSD in your care as well. How are they finding support?

The moms to me was a highlight – how they’re helping families navigate all this, advocating. Yes, I feel some kind of way that I’m getting screamed at by this group of angry Park Slope moms. But at the same time, it’s a beautiful thing that these women are out here all day fighting for each other. 

We had a group of kids that went to Central Park and a couple of them freaked out. I’m like, why? 

‘Because it reminded them of the .’

So for us as an organization, we’ve been thinking about trauma informed care. What does that look like for kids that have arguably been through some of the most intense trauma on earth?

How we think about our colors, how we’re interacting with folks, language access. Particularly in our migrant facility in the Bronx, we tried to be able to connect folks into the community. Part of the reason we took the shelter was because of where it was located — we knew we were gonna get lots of people who were gonna be Spanish speaking and this is a Spanish-speaking neighborhood. Just being intentional, because I think so much of what has happened in the past two years has been completely unintentional. 

It’s in emergency mode. But we’ve been in this for two years, we’re going to continue to be in emergency mode. At some point, we have to think about what’s happening for these kids long term. 

Most places haven’t really opened Pandora’s Box because they haven’t had the language access, particularly for mental health services. And if they did it all this stuff would come up. What’s happening is that it’s not, and honestly, in the first six months to year, people are still in shock. But now it’s coming out. It manifests in these really weird and interesting ways. 

We’re talking tens and tens of thousands of the kids that need very specialized support. They may not be able to express it in our language, they may not be getting the services that they need and, or their parents may not know or be familiar with how to navigate our systems. 

I get my haircut, and [my barber] is speaking to me in English the whole time. I was like, how long have you been here? Five months. I’m like, you’re fluent. How did you do that? ‘I want to learn English, I want to be here, I want to work.’ We have not given folks the resources they need to be able to do that. 

The wait time for work permits is also exorbitantly long. Can you share about the work that families have been able to find? 

Honestly, I haven’t heard very many people who are recent arrivals, who came after March 2022, who have work authorization and can legally work. 

People mostly are working out the books. Everybody’s working. And they have to, to survive. 

More so for the men is delivery, which has been interesting. There might be someone who has a Doordash account and he might rent his out to like two or three other people. It may look like he’s doing 12 or 20 hour shifts, but he’s actually doing like, maybe a five hour shift. If you go to any of the migrant facilities, there’s just tons and tons of scooters and motorbikes because that’s what they do. 

For the women, I’ve heard a whole host of different things like cleaning. The folks who are vending on the streets and so forth — we’ve seen that skyrocket, because folks have very limited options. 

People find a way, working manual or dangerous jobs that are often . 

We’ve seen that. We do legal clinics and help them with asylum applications and there was one woman who didn’t show up because she was like, I will lose my job. My boss said I would lose my job. We’re like, well, you need to come here so you can legally work. They feel, but if I do, I might not have a job at all. They dangle [employment] over their heads. 

Often, they’ll say, oh, I’m gonna pay you next week. And then they don’t pay the next week. 

Everywhere you turn in New York, you see and feel this population. Recently a ; . 

It’s a cultural thing. People are here and they’re used to doing certain things maybe in Honduras or Sudan and they can’t do that here with their kids. 

Specifically in shelters, like not being able to leave your 17 year old child at home. You can’t leave anyone in the shelter alone under the age of 18. There’s a lot of these situations where it’s like, if I’m a mom and I’m struggling and I have my four year old that has to be with me and I can’t afford daycare, he’s gonna come with me and we’re gonna sell candy. [That cultural difference] is putting them in really precarious situations. 

And then Mayor Adams’s administration … were passing out flyers about, don’t have your kids street vending. As if that was going to make people stop. 

That’s a piece to this conversation, too, that I think people have not thought a lot about. [Families] may have been in a situation where they’ve never been under surveillance now they’re under hyper surveillance. Their movement restricted. 

For a lot of them, schools become the most stable place in their new lives. Our prior reporting showed some of the relationships jeopardized by the 60 day eviction rule and forced transfers. Can you talk a bit about whether you’ve seen families successfully enroll and stay in a given school?

My barber was just showing pictures of his son at school, how he was so excited to go learn and have friends, be social and play. It allows them to escape. The one thing that [the city] could not do is to mess up the kids’ schooling. At least let the kids go to school. 

In your experience working with these various city agencies, what has concerned you the most?

They are still thinking the way they did about this in August of 2022. Advocates and everyone had warned them about all this years prior. People knew this was coming.

It’s not Governor Abbott – I mean he exacerbated it – but it wasn’t just him. This has been happening for a decade, but people have chosen not to pay attention to it. 

The thing that keeps me up at night is the election and Trump’s immigration plan. Now we have created these systems where basically we’re going to have tens of thousands of kids [like DHS migrant facilities]. Will immigration buses show up and detain people? What does a mass deportation look like? That’s the thing that worries me the most — what are they thinking, are they planning for this? 

The other thing is the way that Adams’s administration has gone about advocating for support from the federal government and the state has been deplorable. We need more resources, we need more support. But [their support] has been haphazard, and they are not thinking about this long term. People are in mass migration around the world that’s not about to stop any time soon. It’s just an utter disregard for reality. 

One last question — the youth that were in Central Park and were triggered when reminded of the journey here, what happened that day? How are they?

I don’t know what the rest of the story was. I heard about it because at our migrant facility, we created a program called LEAD, which is legal empowerment and assistance for displaced families. We provide legal support but also social emotional services. The director has tons of stories.

The asylum process is horrible. It’s the least trauma-informed thing ever – basically tell me about the most messed up thing that’s ever happened to you in detail. We had many people breaking down. We were very mindful of who it was happening to, making sure that they were followed up with a clinical social worker to get some support. How do we make sure they have someone with them that they feel can support them? How do we make sure that if they’re couples that we break them up [to talk] because there might be domestic violence? Making sure they have food, making sure they have childcare so the kids aren’t hearing some of the stuff that may have caused them to leave. 

This is all a work in progress and for us, we’re trying to learn what a longer term model looks like to support families that are going through this level of trauma. 

When I was talking to one mom, I was like, look, my hands are really tight. The best thing that you can do is tell your stories. People need to hear this. People need to see the pain, they need to see what you’re going through. 

Thousands of miles from home, the group of new New Yorkers walks a few hundred steps.

Attached to a trilingual church and food bank, the campus of VOICE, a K-8 charter school, has become a refuge for newcomer families seeking asylum and new lives from mostly Spanish-speaking countries including Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, as well as Pakistan and Egypt, among others.

“Many of them are living in temporary housing and struggling to find work. The families are under a lot of pressure … It’s just a huge amount of change,” said VOICE social worker Kim Moglia.

Through the Long Island City school’s proximity to temporary housing and a growing reputation among families, the school is serving 267 migrant students this year, the most of any charter school in New York state, according to federal Title III funding. 

Today, the population comprises nearly a third of VOICE’s student body, and staff are urgently finding ways to support the students and their families living in eight neighborhood shelters and others in Manhattan and parts of Queens.

But legal experts and child advocates warn a new city policy after 60 days will jeopardize the types of connections being built at schools like VOICE, the most stable place in their lives right now.

“The idea that in the middle of the school year, they would be transitioning housing and then having to start all over again — it worries us,” principal Franklin Headley said. 

“They would have to make new friends, new relationships with the teachers … We have the momentum, even in these first two months, to continue with the children that have come to us,” he added. 

Throughout New York City, an estimated 21,000 migrant students have joined the public school system since last summer, according to the Department of Education. In the latest waves, nearly all children have been younger, in K-3 grades or not yet school aged, educators and social service staffers told ����Ӱ��.

While there is room — DOE school enrollment declined by more than 120,000 students in the last five years — the newcomers are experiencing some of the highest levels of need. 

Even with the housing concern mounting, VOICE staff has continued to look for ways to work with the new students. To learn from schools serving similar populations, staff traveled cross-country to San Diego over the summer, and are now finishing installation of large washer-dryers for families to use to encourage attendance and remove the financial burden.

School-wide, required music classes help with language acquisition. Newcomers who are struggling are paired with a buddy who speaks their native language. In hallways, it’s not uncommon to hear whispered Urdu and Portuguese. Teachers regularly use keywords, explanations and translated materials in Spanish. 

Staff have also taken to small innovations — altering seating charts so newcomers build friendships and teachers can spot if anyone is struggling; bringing in a led by retired players; using the app Language Line to translate messages to families about progress; hiring an art therapist full time.

At VOICE, some students are getting their first introduction to the classroom. 

“You hear with your eyes” 

Noticing that many are starting without prior schooling or written literacy in their native languages, ELL teacher Jasmine Calderon leads small groups to build on foundations.

Here, a group of 10 first graders practice saying and writing the letter “p,” as they work through the alphabet to begin phonics, how letters interact with each other to make sound.  

Because many newcomers aren’t yet used to school life, she gently reminds them to tune in, singing their names and instructing them to pat their heads as they watch and listen for the sound of “puh” in her sentences. 

“We’re moving our bodies in a certain way, there’s visuals there for you … You’re going to start to connect what you hear with what you see,” Calderon said, explaining how she helps students see the importance of watching her closely, especially if they don’t understand the words.

 “I tell them all the time, ‘you hear with your eyes.’” 

Building blocks for new language

Across the hall, in a second-grade classroom, a row of books greets students as they walk in, including Dear Primo: A Letter to My Cousin, about two boys growing up in the U.S. and Mexico.

Settling into desks for a career planning activity, students dream of being rock stars and astronauts. When language feels out of reach, they draw.

Posters and tools to support reading and writing acquisition deck the walls: sentence starters, strategies that can help make sense of vowel sounds.  

In third grade, students break down plots into beginning, middle and end in graphic organizers, a tool teachers have utilized more frequently to help build fluency.

“Even if they’re not at the point where they’re reading the words,” Calderon said, “at least they’re engaged in some type of work. We found that having them draw something was more engaging than just giving them the book and taking observational notes.” 

The power of music 

The new population has pushed VOICE, founded in 2008, to emphasize music, singing and social-emotional learning, to find a renewed purpose in its mission. 

In required music classes, which supports language acquisition, students shed the nerves that can accompany things like reading aloud.

“You don’t have to be thinking about producing language, you’re just singing along, and then work on pronunciation and things like that there. You’re not taking the same kind of risk as constructing a sentence,” Headley said. 

In a room brimming with guitars and laughter, students sing a good morning song featuring at least six languages. Alongside a refrain from their teacher’s guitar, they collectively sing out a common greeting:
“Valentina, Valentina, Valentina, how are you?” 

In a rhyming solo, Valentina responds: “I’m tired, I’m happy, and I hope that you are, too.” 

Soccer: A language of its own 

From choir to soccer practice, the school’s newcomer students are building social connections that transcend language barriers and help their ability to show up in the classroom.

For Jah, a seventh grader who speaks seven languages originally from Burkina Faso in West Africa, playing soccer brings him back to some of his favorite memories. VOICE helped him with the largest barrier: buying turf shoes.

Migrant student athletes perform better in-season than out, according to Matt Coleman, middle school and athletic director. Eighth-grade leaders help translate plays for their teammates. The 15-minute walk back from the park is never silent. 

“They’re talking and that’s what I’m trying to get them to do, just communicate with each other,” he said. “If it’s in Spanish or English, it doesn’t really matter.”

To support alum that go on to play soccer in high school, athletic staff juggle calendars to make good on a promise to attend one of each of their games. 

The soccer program, open to students of any gender, and its connection to local parks and people is one way students find “opportunity within the community, which can get overlooked,” in brainstorming ways to support migrant students, said soccer coach Dominic Van Bussell.

Keeping culture in the room 

To Genesis Bolanos, who teaches at least 10 newcomers across two periods of seventh-grade math, using students’ home languages in the classroom is what makes all the difference, especially for kids who are sometimes only weeks into living in a new country. 

In her classes, students work with translated materials provided by the school, allowing them to focus on math without being penalized for their budding English literacy. 

Bolanos said the approach is too-often resisted. Her last Queens charter school wouldn’t allow students and staff to speak Spanish, which contributes to a “loss of shared culture.” 

Because VOICE encouraged teachers to try out ideas to support the newcomer population, like hosting a Hall of Nations to get to know foods and traditions from students’ home countries, Bolanos switched up the seating arrangements to lessen isolation. 

“In seating them together, they build their own friendships and have their own communities apart from adults, which is obviously what we want,” said Bolanos, a first-generation Ecuadorian-American.

Some newcomers, just a few weeks in, have started to ask to follow along with English materials, keeping their Spanish sheets as a reference point as they learn integers and foundational arithmetic. 

“This is just what newcomers deserve,” Bolanos said. 

“Something we couldn’t predict” 

Some newly enrolled VOICE charter families, after beginning a relationship with the school over the summer, were moved without warning cross-city to shelters in Jamaica, Queens just days before classes started, forced to find other schools.

“That’s something we couldn’t predict, that the city made a decision to start moving people,” principal Headley said. “… I didn’t understand why families would [be ordered to] leave this housing, which is close to the subway and close to facilities.” 

The practice of moving families with little notice has continued into the school year, according to . 

Mayor Eric Adams’s administration has limited migrant family stays in Manhattan hotel shelters run by Humanitarian Resource and Relief centers, home to about 15,000 students, to 60 days. The majority of families, staying in shelters run by the city’s Department of Homelessness Services, .

City officials did not return requests for comment.

, threatening to uproot them from their one place of stability.

That stability was so important to one VOICE family with four children, that they commuted to the school two hours each way after being moved to a Coney Island shelter, the southernmost tip of Brooklyn. 

“Those kids, including a kindergartner, wouldn’t give up,” Headley said tearfully. He and other staff ultimately traveled to Coney Island to help the family find a nearby school. 

The city’s 60-day policy stance, he added, will require schools to take on that kind of “placement work” after moves.

“If that’s what it takes, that’s the reality,” Headley said. “… We have to make sure that they’re OK — that they’re going to be some place where they feel comfortable and safe.”

All photos by Marianna McMurdock

But, a year after Russia invaded its neighbor, upending the lives of millions, the Puzhalina family has stabilized: Anastasiia and her husband were elated to find an affordable rental and were relieved to receive their work authorizations in January. 

Central to their happiness, their children, ages 11, 10 and 7, are thriving: They felt welcomed by their new school and have made many friends. All have a penchant for mathematics and the eldest is no longer classified as an English language learner.  

“They are doing well at school and making really good progress in English,” Puzhalina said. “Virsaviia, my youngest, reads in English better than in Ukrainian already.”

And there was another development that will make life in America much easier for the family.

“I am learning to drive,” Puzhalina said. “It was hard for me to overcome my fear: It was something that paralyzed me. But now I feel more comfortable. I just have to practice backing up, parallel parking and get that license.”

The family’s progress comes amid ongoing tumult in their home country. The invasion has left , according to U.S. estimates. Some 5.9 million people are meaning they are running for safety inside its borders, and millions more have fled to neighboring countries and across Europe. 

There is no foreseeable end to the conflict. President Joe Feb. 20 came just a day before announced his plan to withdraw from the last major remaining nuclear arms control treaty with the United States. This latest move, , is among many policy changes that have left some Russians uneasy: Putin’s effort has prompted thousands here.

Other Ukrainians, including Puzhalina’s parents, remain under siege. Puzhalina would love for them to join her family in Washington, but at 57 years old, her father is not permitted to leave the country. 

Yana Annette Lysenko, working toward a Ph.D. in comparative literature and Slavic studies at New York University, is well aware of the war-time restrictions. 

Lysenko, whose boyfriend lives in Ukraine and also cannot leave, visited the city of Odesa from mid-August until the end of November 2022. Reuniting with family and friends, she worked on her dissertation and volunteered. She plans to head back for a week in April and again in May, perhaps for a month. 

“The last few weeks were probably the toughest,” she said. “That’s when the citywide electric outages started. Other than that, it’s surprising how in some ways things felt so normal, in others completely unlike anything before.”

Lysenko was moved by the solidarity of the Ukrainian people, and how they could find joy in the darkest of times. 

“There’s a lot of concern about this potential spring offensive, but more than anything Ukrainians aren’t losing faith,” she said. “They trust their armed forces and believe in victory. I think most people understand this war will continue for a long time so there’s a certain despair in that regard, but there’s a refusal to give up. There is an amazing sense of community no matter how hard things get: Almost every evening there were musicians singing on the streets of the city center and people would join in and dance and sing.”

But there is one fear she can’t shake, that her boyfriend will be called to serve. 

“That is a very real worry for me,” she said. “Every day they are mobilizing men, and one of the scariest things for me while I was there — even more so now — was seeing all of the soldiers walking around and going to people’s houses to give them military summonses. I’m terrified my boyfriend will encounter this soon.”

Marta Hulievska, a sophomore at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, has worried about her family ever since war broke out midway through her freshman year. 

Hulievska, a history and English major, saw her mother, Hanna, for the first time since she left for college when the two reunited in Berlin in December. They spent four days traversing the city and exchanging gifts: Her mother brought Hulievska’s favorite loose leaf tea, Ukrainian chocolates and a hair dye she couldn’t find in the States. The sophomore sent her mother home with candies, a backpack for one of her sisters and a stuffed animal for the other. 

“She was crying when she left,” Hulievska said of her mother. 

Her family’s life is not easy. Her father and one of her sisters are staying in Zaporizhzhia, minding the family home while her mother and another sister are across the country in Lviv. Separated by a 24-hour train ride, the family does their best to endure. 

Hulievska, who battles anxiety and depression, is often triggered by news from home. It’s hard for her to plan: She’ll occasionally miss class when she feels overwhelmed. 

“Recently, the anniversary brought back a lot of memories,” she said. “We thought this was going to end a lot sooner.  A couple of days ago, I saw a video of Mariupol two days before the invasion with people singing the national anthem. I was emotionally numb for the rest of the day. I have a lot of problems organizing and scheduling.”

Hulievska, who studied the Holocaust in Berlin, came to a disturbing realization while abroad, that the Russian invasion will one day be memorialized in a similar way. 

“I guess in 50 years, they are going to be talking about the Ukraine-Russian war, creating museums for the victims, commemorating what happened,” she said. “I’m going to be a part of history. But not necessarily the part of history I want to be a part of.” 

Despite their heartache about conflict at home, she and the others persevere. 

Puzhalina’s husband, Oleh, will soon become a maintenance technician, pending last-minute paperwork. But his wife has not yet found a job.  

“It is not easy to find something that will allow me to stay on the school schedule with my kids in the morning at least,” Puzhalina said. “But I’m not discouraged.”

Through all of the resettlement tumult, her children have latched on to their studies. At least two had a unique advantage: Illia, age 11, studied English in Ukraine, making his coursework easier to understand. Her youngest, Virsaviia, 7, became close friends with their landlord’s granddaughter, a native English speaker, so she had a partner with whom to practice upon arrival. 

Middle child, Yeva, 10, is taking a little longer to learn the language. 

“Her ELL teachers said she is doing really well, but her English is more academic,” her mother said. “What she needs is more like social English.” 

Illia, now a sixth grader, loves basketball, volleyball and his English literature class. Yeva, a fifth grader, adores mathematics, particularly fractions. 

Both children miss their family and friends in Ukraine. 

“We call them in the morning,” Yeva said of her maternal grandparents. “I want them to come here.”

Virsaviia, who is in the second grade, has adjusted well: She cherishes her teacher. “She’s so nice,” the little girl said. “She’s very kind.”

Despite all they’ve gained here, Puzhalina doesn’t know if her family will stay in America. 

“I am trying not to hope for anything — like living in the States forever,” she said. “The world is unpredictable. We have, at the moment, the right to legally stay here through October 2023 and then I don’t know.”

A child who does not speak English is made to enroll in school online — in a language they don’t understand.

A young Ukrainian refugee is told district staff won’t translate records from home, delaying their start date.

A newcomer student sits idle for weeks because they were not assessed for placement.

Kristina Moon, senior attorney with the Education Law Center of Pennsylvania, has fielded such reports from across the state — all tied to a recent wave of new arrivals. She and other immigrant advocates say it’s the type of discrimination that grows when these children come to the United States in numbers as they are now, with many speaking uncommon languages.

“It’s not fair that an English-speaking student can walk up to the local school and register in 30 minutes and someone who speaks another language is told to go across town or to another building or is given a web address to do something alone online,” Moon said. “These barriers are the first contact they have with the school and make them feel unwelcome, like it will be an insurmountable challenge to even get into the school — let alone learn all of their classes in English.”

U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported nearly 2.4 million “encounters” at the southern border from October 2021 through September 2022, up from roughly 1.7 million in that same time period a year earlier. The more recent figure includes , all of whom are legally entitled to enroll in the nation’s public schools.

Their arrival has sparked controversy around the United States’ responsibility toward new immigrants, prompting some Republican lawmakers to use undocumented people as political pawns, flying and busing families, including those with small children, to other, more “liberal” parts of the country. 

Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, who has implemented some of the strictest anti-immigration policies in America, delivered hundreds of bewildered newcomers to in recent weeks. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis flew exhausted and confused new immigrants to tony in a stunt that has and landed him . Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey to Washington, D.C. Together, they’ve directed well more than 10,000 newcomers to northern states and face for the practice. 

President Joe Biden earlier this month implemented a new strategy to address at least some asylum seekers’ needs. It allows for to enter the country under humanitarian parole, apply in advance, have a U.S. sponsor, undergo screening and vetting and secure the proper vaccinations: A few have already arrived and , according to the Department of Homeland Security. 

But Venezuelans who cross the border seeking asylum outside this process are being entry under the same that served as a de facto immigration policy for years, angering immigrant advocates who seek a more permanent and humane solution. Biden’s new plan is similar to, but smaller and more restrictive, than earlier this year. Some say it’s not generous enough, with one advocacy group representing the immigrants shuttled to calling it “punitive to the point of cruelty.” 

A state of emergency

Local and state leaders of both major parties say the federal government needs a far better, more comprehensive short- and long-term immigration plan. New York City Mayor Eric Adams earlier this month because of the influx: More than — including — have arrived in the five boroughs since April. 

The mayor is asking for federal help to defray the costs, which he estimates to be $1 billion this fiscal year alone. 

After noting the city’s shelter system, , was near capacity, he said late last week that the numbers of new arrivals since the Venezuelan plan was put in place. 

“We were seeing anywhere from nine to 10 buses in the city,” filled with newcomers, . “We saw two in the last few days.”

But the recent slowdown does not diminish the challenges some newcomer children face. Many they endured prior to and during their journey to America and are far behind their peers academically. They and their families, many of them living in transitional housing, also need help with food and clothing. 

New York City schools, home to roughly 1 million children, employ some 1,600 certified bilingual Spanish-speaking teachers. The district served roughly school year, nearly 62% of whom spoke Spanish. More than half lived in Brooklyn and the Bronx. 

The school system has made some . Chancellor David Banks the city would expand transitional bilingual programs in schools that are seeing an uptick. The city is also creating new “borough response teams” to organize food and clothing drives to help these students and their families, whose needs echo those of the more than already in the system.

Tim Boals, founder and director of , an organization that provides resources to those who teach multilingual learners, said no matter their challenges, it is incumbent upon all schools to educate these children using translation services, pictures, graphics, simplified language and hand gestures, among many other tools. 

“While knowing a student’s language is ideal, there are other methods that work,” Boals said.

Adams, who’s for the way he’s managed the influx, including his decision to house some newcomers in , said the federal government must allow asylum seekers to legally work upon arrival, help spread them across different regions of the country and “deliver long-awaited immigration reform, so we can offer people a safe and legal path to the American Dream.”

DACA battle drags on

But this nation of immigrants has never come to clear, comprehensive terms with its latest newcomers. The prolonged fight over the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides deportation relief and work permits to undocumented residents brought here as children, continues to illustrate that uncertainty. 

On Oct. 14, a federal judge in Texas, who already ruled the program illegal, said he would for existing registrants only while he decides whether President Biden’s efforts to into federal regulation addresses its legality. If he rules against the administration, the case will likely head back to a conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, which also issued an earlier ruling agreeing that DACA was not implemented lawfully. Ultimately, the issue could end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, where a 5-4 majority on technical grounds in 2017 no longer exists.

Biden has pushed for for the roughly 600,000 so-called Dreamers, . But that measure would have to go through Congress where Republicans oppose him on immigration reform and continue to use the latest wave at the southern border as in the upcoming midterm elections. 

José Muñoz, spokesman for United We Dream, an immigrant advocacy group founded in 2008, said those enrolled in DACA are “in a game of ping pong” between the federal courts deciding their fate.

“We are living our lives in two-year increments, not knowing when the court will strip us of our work permits and subject us to deportation,” said Muñoz, 32 and a DACA recipient who arrived from Mexico when he was 3 months old. 

DACA has boosted high school attendance and graduation rates for young immigrants: More than 49,000 additional Hispanic students earned their diploma because of it. DACA also likely prompted a jump in college attendance within this group, researchers said. 

Yet the latest wave of newcomers continues to struggle with one of the most basic elements of their educational careers: enrollment. 

Even when students are able to register electronically, as some schools have required newcomers to do, their requests go unanswered for weeks, said Moon of the Education Law Center. And many fail to acknowledge a state law that allows children relocating from outside the country an additional 30 days to provide immunization records. 

“When we hear that immigrant families continuously have these challenges — which are predictable, preventable and solvable — it’s really very frustrating,” Moon said, adding that the schools and state departments of education should be better prepared. 

Young immigrants have been flocking to the United States for years, Moon said, and must be provided the language support to which they are legally entitled: Bilingual education programs must be based on sound educational theory, be implemented effectively with all of the necessary resources and evaluated regularly, according to federal guidelines established through . Moon was part of a legal team that won a landmark case against the partly on this premise. 

While the percentage of immigrants in the U.S. has never exceeded 14.8, a high reached in 1890, the numbers have exploded since then: living in the United States in 2019 were born outside the country, a figure that has doubled since 1990. 

Adam Strom, executive director for Re-Imagining Migration, a Boston-based organization which aims to help schools rethink the way they teach immigrants and other children, said newcomer students’ talents are too often ignored. 

Concerned about their educational experience, his group recently partnered with the Immigrant Initiative at Harvard University and Youth Truth to craft a national school climate survey around these issues. They are searching for participating districts now. 

“They go through school untapped, bored,” Strom said of many multilingual learners. “The kids don’t feel challenged academically — or, on the other end of the spectrum, they don’t get the help they need to do the assignments.”

Teachers know far too little about the children they serve, he said. He was shocked, upon visiting a school in March, that one student’s teacher hadn’t yet discovered that the child, who hailed from Brazil, spoke Portuguese — not Spanish — as was presumed. So much of what had been said to that student was lost, Strom said. 

Under supported in school, educational outcomes are often worse for these students. Graduation rates for English learners lag in a vast majority of states: It was just for the 2017-18 school year compared to , according to the most recently available data from the U.S. Department of Education that captures both groups.

The rate was stunningly low in New York state at just 31% that year.

Detained

Of all the children who cross the nation’s southern border, unaccompanied minors, who come to the country without a guardian, are uniquely vulnerable. Most captured by Border Patrol must be transferred from one of its holding sites — its has been well documented — to the Department of Health and Human Services within 72 hours. But they’re often held longer and their numbers have been rising for years. 

The Office of Refugee Resettlement received 13,625 unaccompanied minor referrals from DHS in the year ending Sept. 30, 2012 and . 

Once the children are in HHS care, the Office of Refugee Resettlement places them inside one of several shelters — they vary in quality — while staffers work to find a more permanent solution. All are expected to meet ORR standards — and include an educational component — and most must be licensed by the state as facilities housing children, though Texas and Florida no longer vet these sites, removing a critical layer of protection. 

There were 9,620 unaccompanied minors in government care on Oct. 25, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. They spent an average of 28 days in federal care as of April, often in highly restrictive and punitive shelters where , according to immigrant advocates. 

It’s after this experience that these children enroll in school — and they’re not always welcomed. 

Laura Gardner, founder of Immigrant Connections, a consulting group that works with educators to understand the backgrounds, strengths, and needs of newcomer students, said the national battle around immigration often plays out in schools’ front offices when these children attempt to enroll. 

It’s there, she said, that district employees with little to no experience in education policy or knowledge of the law — and who may bring their own biases to the counter — can decide their fate. 

“Principals need to recognize the importance of the climate of the front office and provide staff with training,” Gardner said. “A staff member who resists enrolling a child in school is ruining its climate.”

From February until just this week, Mexico has been their second-to-last stop in a weeks-long journey; Tijuana a two or three-day respite on the way to something better, something safer, where their children can slowly work toward normalcy after their lives were upended by war. 

These displaced families — a flight away from Washington state or Illinois or South Carolina — are fanning out across the country, staying with friends and relatives, applying for food stamps and Social Security cards and enrolling their children in school. While they are far further in their relocation than the Mexican, Central American and Haitian asylum seekers waiting years for that same opportunity, these newcomers still face many hurdles.

“Everything is so different here in the U.S.,” said Anastasiia Puzhalina, a Ukrainian refugee who arrived in the States in early April alongside her family. “We must learn so much. I hope we’ll get through this.”

More than people have fled Ukraine since the start of the invasion: another have left their homes but remain inside the country. More than 1,000 education facilities have been attacked — the figure likely includes — according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

The Russian invasion has been chaotic, surprisingly inept and unbearably brutal, often targeting civilians. — the exact number is a subject of debate and might not be — with hundreds discovered in . Women and girls have been to sexual assault. All of which has forced families with means to make their way out.

The refugees who arrive in Tijuana enter the encampment with pained expressions, scrambling to corral both their children and their belongings, their anxiety evidenced in their sharp tones and lack of patience with the worn-out youngsters they tote. Once inside, their mood shifts. Handed a water bottle and ice cream by dozens of Ukrainian and Russian-speaking volunteers, many of whom flew down from the U.S. to assist, they are directed to a check-in desk where a smiling blonde woman assigns each individual, couple or family a number that will be called when it’s time to leave. Other aid workers will drive them to their next stop: often San Diego International Airport. 

That’s exactly what Puzhalina was waiting for when she spoke to ����Ӱ�� inside the site. She listened carefully to each number, eager for hers: 2567. Sitting under the partial shade of a palm tree, she said the family felt safe in the encampment, though they were told not to venture out into the city. Tijuana, population 1.3 million, saw in 2021. By comparison, there were , more than six times its size.

The warns Americans to avoid the city, an essential corridor for narco-trafficking and human smuggling, because of crime and kidnapping. Puzhalina didn’t know this, but could see the poverty on her way to the site: When her family was riding through town in a taxi, they came upon a building covered in barbed wire.

“I thought it was a prison,” Puzhalina said. “They told me it was a school.”

The family didn’t stay in Mexico for long: Within days, they flew to Tacoma, Washington.

Anatoli Bassarskii, 37, of Chernivtsi in western Ukraine, hadn’t decided where he and his family would move: They planned on New York City but a volunteer inside the camp, a Russian transplant who lives in Washington state, suggested they move near him: He had a friend whose home was in need of repair. The family could rent the place cheap if they helped fix it, he said.

No matter where they settle, they intend to enroll their 10-year-old son Artur in school right away so he can learn English and have only a minimal disruption to his education. Bassarskii is concerned about the fifth-grader fitting in.

“With the language barrier and different cliques of kids, I’m worried about him being bullied,” he said through a translator.

Artur, handsome with bright blue eyes, had already found playmates upon his arrival to the camp in early April and hoped for the same in the States. 

He believed his American school would be an improvement over what he had in Ukraine, with better and more up-to-date facilities. An athlete with aspirations of becoming a dentist, he wasn’t worried about assimilation. “I’m sure everyone will say hi to me,” he said, a Nike backpack slung across his shoulders. “Everyone will be my friend.”

His father hopes his son is right, because the family plans to stay in the country permanently.

“We want to live in America forever,” Bassarskii said.

Unite for Ukraine

Other asylum seekers have not been given the same priority. Fleeing the twin atrocities of gang violence and poverty in their own countries, Mexican, Central American and Haitian refugees have not been offered the expedited pathway laid out for the Ukrainians despite waiting at the border for years. 

They have been held in place by a COVID-era policy called Title 42 which, enacted in March 2020, allowed the United States to refuse their entry because of health concerns. And their living conditions are atrocious: Their flimsy tents, flooded by heavy rains and blown away by high winds, sit unguarded and vulnerable in crime-infested places like Reynosa, across the border from McAllen, Texas, and far different from the clean and orderly Tijuana encampment. 

Here, volunteer nurses check children and adults for signs of heat stroke and aid workers from local churches come through nearly every 15 minutes with donations of toys and food, including fresh fruit and vegetables and Eastern European staples. 

Kids in clean clothes — either their own or taken from dozens of boxes of nearly new goods — play with Legos or visit a craft station where they make bracelets and necklaces with donated beads while the older children head for the basketball court or work out on the exercise equipment scattered throughout the park. 

Immigrant advocates recognize the disparity and wish for similar treatment for all. 

“I believe that everybody who has a legitimate claim and has a fear for their lives should be given the right to enter the U.S.,” Sister Norma Pimentel, executive director of Catholic Charities of the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, told ����Ӱ��. Her organization has served hundreds of thousands of people crossing over in recent years.

“Someone coming to the border asking for protection should get it,” said the revered 68-year-old Mexican-American nun, who has frequently . “It shouldn’t matter what country you are coming from.”

But that has not been the case. Last week, President Biden, who has already pledged to welcome 100,000 Ukrainian refugees, announced , a streamlined immigration program that will allow those fleeing the country to arrive in the United States directly from Europe, bypassing Mexico. They must have been in Ukraine ; have a sponsor who can financially support them — this can be in individual or organization — complete vaccinations and other public health requirements and pass background checks. The new policy went into effect Monday.

Most will receive two years of residence and authorization to work in the United States. Those who continue trying to enter the U.S. through Tijuana are subject to Title 42, but that might not last long. The restriction is set to be lifted May 23 although lawmakers from both parties worry the southern border isn’t : Tens of thousands of people are waiting for entry, including 9,000 in Reynosa alone, Pimentel said.

Adding to these concerns, the Supreme Court on the Biden administration’s attempts to end the 2018 Migrant Protection Protocols, which require some asylum seekers to remain in Mexico for the duration of their U.S. immigration proceedings.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has reported nearly 15,000 encounters with Ukrainian and Russian refugees since the start of the year. It logged more than 349,008 such incidents with asylum seekers from Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras in that same time period. 

One request: Peace

The children of these Ukrainian families are just starting to trickle into the nation’s schools: South Carolina, for example, has 101 more Ukrainian and 29 more Russian students today than it did around this same time last year with many enrolling in Spartanburg, Lancaster and Greenville counties.

South Carolina school districts that have called the state for assistance in admitting newcomers without transcripts have been reminded of their legal obligation to enroll these students quickly. They’re also advised to find proper translation services so they can communicate with their families. State officials say, too, newcomers are invited to participate in summer programs to help with language acquisition.

They know at least some of these students have experienced trauma on the way out of their home countries and believe schools, flush with cash because of the pandemic, are likely more equipped to help them than in years past.

And qualifying South Carolina school districts will see an increase in funding for all new immigrants, no matter their country of origin.

“We want them to feel valued … and welcomed for all of the expertise they bring to our communities,” said Susan Murphy, who serves multilingual learners at the state level.

Oksana Bevzenko, who arrived in Mexico from Kyiv with three of her children, ages 17, 14 and 4, planned to relocate to Spartanburg, South Carolina.

She spent an afternoon in early April trying to feed her daughter an orange as the child walked along the landing of a large red, blue and yellow piece of playground equipment near the center of the Tijuana encampment. 

Asked what she wanted for her children in America, she had only one request: Peace.

She’s glad to have the youngest at her side. It’s her oldest she’s worried about. At 19, he was unable to leave the country, she said, and stayed behind to deliver food and other aid in Kyiv.

“We talk every day,” she said. “He tells me he’s OK.”

Diana Zhernovnikova, mother of four children, ages 7, 5, 3 and 1, held her baby in her arms as she sat in the shade of a large white tent, her next youngest sitting across from her in a small blue stroller. She and her husband, Alexandr, were on vacation in Spain when the war broke out. They’ve not returned to their hometown of Kyiv — and they’re not sure they ever will.

Too painful to look back, she’s only looking ahead. “We’re going to join relatives in Philadelphia,” she said. “We’ll enroll the kids in school right away.”

The family, as of April 22, had not yet reached their final destination. They’re currently staying with relatives in San Antonio but still plan to head to Pennsylvania. They have not enrolled the children in school because they are still in transition.

Hamburgers and chocolate milk

Anastasiia Puzhalina, who now lives in Tacoma, has already registered her children in school. Her 10-year-old son, Illia, had expressed worry about that transition, fearing he would be misunderstood because he does not speak English.

“I’m afraid someone will be unfriendly to me because I’m a refugee,” he said when interviewed back at the encampment. “I wish I could have at least one Ukrainian- or Russian-speaking kid in my class so I could feel comfortable. I want to make friends.”

His 6-year-old sister, Virsaviia, picking up her brother’s trepidation, said she wished her cousin could be in her class, but the child is a full year younger, her mother said.

The children started school April 21. 

“They loved the first day,” their mother reported. “They remembered the names of their teachers, but didn’t remember some names of their new friends because they sound so different from our Ukrainian. They liked the lunch: burgers and chocolate milk. It sounds like a dream lunch for them. They take English classes most of the time. Everything is like in an American movie for them.”

It’s difficult to align those images with the terror the family experienced just weeks ago. 

Food was running low and the local markets were empty in Puzhalina’s hometown of Slavutych, near the border of Belarus. She had stocked up on supplies at the start of the invasion — volunteers from nearby towns brought milk, potatoes, corn and wheat for bread making — but, eventually, her community lost both gas and electricity. The family was forced to cook all of its food at once, outdoors, on an open flame fueled by wood they gathered from a nearby forest — lest it rot.

They had no internet, no working cell phones, no way to see or hear the news of what was happening in Slavutych. Puzhalina’s village wasn’t under direct fire, but there was no safe way out: The surrounding region had already been bombarded, key bridges destroyed.

Puzhalina said she asked God to show her “silence in her heart” so she and her husband would know the exact moment to escape with their three children. So, she waited for that clarity, when she could no longer hear bombs dropping in the distance, when all she heard was silence. Just then, a neighbor knocked on her door to tell her some of the families in her community were preparing to leave. She believes God answered her prayers.

“In that moment, I packed our bags, and we left,” she said, pressing a closed fist against her chest.

The family made its way to Poland along dirt roads, praying as they passed several checkpoints in a caravan of between eight and 12 cars, each packed with people. The Puzhalinas’ tiny Chevrolet Aveo, crammed with two adults and three children, was ill-suited for the off-road journey. But they somehow made it out. 

After two days of travel, they crossed into Poland on March 15. Puzhalina’s sister hosted them for a week before they moved on to Germany, where they stayed with another relative for nearly 14 days. 

Eventually, Puzhalina’s brother-in-law helped the family buy tickets from Frankfurt to Amsterdam to Mexico City and, finally, Tijuana, where they arrived April 7. 

There is only one way to describe their safe passage, she said: “It was a miracle.”

Lead Image: The Puzhalina family waits inside a Tijuana encampment for their chance to cross into America. From left to right: Illia, 10, Oleh, 32, Yeva, 9, Anastasiia, 33, Virsaviia, 6. (Jo Napolitano)

The , derived from numerous sources that track immigration, details these students’ challenges and their impact on districts. Their number, difficult to ascertain on a national basis, represents a fraction of the 491,000 children under age 18 who arrived at the southern border in that same time period and remained in the country with unresolved immigration status in early 2020, according to RAND. The youngest among them were ineligible for school while some of the oldest never enrolled.

Roughly 75 percent of the children in the RAND study landed in just 10 states, including California, Texas, Florida, New York and Louisiana. Their arrival prompted the need for additional hires: RAND calculated that seven states would need at least 2,000 more teachers and other personnel to maintain student-staff ratios.

The need was even more acute in Los Angeles County and Harris County, Texas, which includes Houston: Each would need 1,000 additional educators, the organization concluded.

RAND researchers said they decided to study this population in part because their numbers have grown in recent years—and because their challenges are unique.

“Their needs are fundamentally different from those of many other immigrant children, and they are part of the future of the United States,” said senior policy researcher Shelly Culbertson. “They also have resilience and hopes and dreams—and by federal law they have a right to a public education.”

Despite a in 1982 that prohibited discrimination against students based on their immigration status, many young newcomers have been unlawfully turned away or shunted into inferior programs by school administrators who fear they will not graduate.

Oliver Torres, senior outreach paralegal at the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that has fought for the educational rights of newcomer children, said anti-immigration laws proposed and enacted across the country in recent years have had a chilling effect on many families, discouraging their participation in all elements of public life, including school.

Torres, a former English as a second language teacher, said new immigrants are so focused on simply reuniting with their loved ones — especially in the case of children separated from their parents at the border — that education has become less of a priority, a phenomenon he called “heartbreaking.”

Looking back to the years covered in the RAND study, he recalled the case of a 17-year-old boy from Guatemala held for more than six months at the controversial in Florida. The teen, who was only allowed outside for one hour a day, said he was pressured by staff to take medication to quell the emotional outbursts he suffered after being repeatedly told he would be reunited with his father only to see that promise broken. By the time of his release, the boy was too distressed to tend to his education.

“The idea of going to a two-hour night school class for English a couple of times a week seemed overwhelming,” Torres said. “It was such a level of trauma, that it was clearly going to take a significant amount of time to heal. All he wanted was just not to cry every day.”

Two districts serving new arrivals well

The teen’s experience echoed that of many undocumented children who have fanned out across the country in recent years. RAND, in addition to its nationwide view, also homes in on Jefferson Parish Schools in Louisiana and Oakland Unified School District in California, both of which have served these children for years. It lauded each for their admissions processes and for the academic support their immigrant students receive, including referrals for outside assistance.

RAND also praised the districts’ efforts to address students’ social-emotional needs, but administrators from both point to numerous ongoing challenges even prior to the pandemic, which caused a massive drop in enrollment among newly arrived students.

Veronica Garcia-Montejano, principal at Oakland International High School, a campus designed for newcomers, said her concerns for her students expand well beyond academic goals to their fundamental needs, including food and housing. Many are transient, moving between family, friends or the foster care system.

“They have a huge hurdle to overcome in developing that relationship with the person who is caring for them,” she said. “And if you are not an unaccompanied minor but haven’t seen your parent in years, you are in the same situation.”

Many newcomers are pulled into the workforce to manage financial obligations: Some have to pay back the smugglers who brought them to America, send remittances home, support themselves and contribute to their household, Garcia-Montejano said.

Her current students include two brothers, ages 16 and 18, living on their own. They have to balance their studies with earning enough money to pay rent.

“They are all they have,” she said.

During COVID-19, some students have qualified for rent relief but others have less formal agreements and are unable to seek official help, Garcia-Montejano said.

“We all have to assume the students are coming to the classroom with complex trauma, which presents itself in many ways, from overstimulation to withdrawal,” she said. “The most important thing for the adults in the building to do is to begin developing positive relationships with these students.”

Deborah Dantin, principal of Alice Birney Elementary School in Metairie, Louisiana, part of Jefferson Parish Schools, said one of her biggest struggles is in communicating with parents who do not speak English. Roughly 90 percent of her newcomer students and their families speak Spanish.

“We have lots of people on campus who speak Spanish, but it’s not the same as a direct call with a teacher or principal,” Dantin said. “We have someone translating, but it’s complicated, confusing and long.”

The communication barrier extends to the students themselves. Dantin would love to have a Spanish-speaking educator inside every classroom but until then, her school must employ other means to serve these children: Teachers sometimes use supplemental materials in Spanish to give students the support they need to make the leap to English.

And her school also offers dual-language classes for native English speakers and newcomers in younger grades. The offering helps Spanish-speakers read and write in their native tongue, a skill that will help them learn English because literacy is a transferable skill.

‘Don’t think of us as aliens’

Sua Ramos, a 17-year-old senior at Oakland International High School, remembers those early days trying to adapt to a new culture. Ramos, who identifies as non-binary, fled Honduras with their family after sixth grade rather than risk injury or death because of gang-related shootouts, common in their community. It was a difficult transition: they left friends and family behind and could barely utter a word in English.

“It was like I was on a different planet,” Sua said. “I didn’t know what the teacher was teaching. I was so confused. But as I got to know people, they helped me. I learned English little by little.”

RAND, in an extensive, expensive wish list, recommends the federal government improve the tracking of these students and create a records-sharing agreement with the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras similar to the one already in place with Mexico.

It says schools should work closely with local resettlement groups, federal and state agencies to help families access social, medical and legal services — and that the federal government should provide schools with additional funding for these students on a rolling basis as the money often lags their arrival.

RAND’s estimate includes those children who immigrated to the United States between Oct. 1, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2019 and was derived using data from spring 2020, just prior to the pandemic-related school closures that began in mid-March.

It combined three sources of data to formulate an “informed estimate” of where these children live. The first came from the , which had already examined where earlier groups of immigrants settled throughout the country. The second was the , which kept records on where unaccompanied children were placed with sponsors at the state and county level and the third was which gathers data on immigration proceedings throughout the country, collecting records from the departments of Justice and Homeland Security.

RAND found more than three-quarters of children who arrived with their families were under the age of 12 while 74 percent who came without a parent were between 15 and 17 years old.

Excluded from their study are the thousands of new immigrants who have crossed the border in the years since. Though the flow slowed during the pandemic, it skyrocketed upon news of Biden’s election. Persistent crime, political chaos and ongoing economic catastrophe, sometimes made worse by natural disasters, also played a role.

Some who were part of a massive encampment in Del Rio, Texas, have been admitted to the United States in recent weeks. Their arrival came around the same time that America welcomed thousands of newcomers from the Middle East, a trend that is expected to continue: Biden seeks to bring to the country through 2022.

The president just introduced new rules to for undocumented people brought to the United States as children and plans to admit next year, a figure that will no doubt include a sizable number of school-aged newcomers.

Ramos, the 17-year-old student from Oakland, hopes native-born Americans will reconsider old prejudices about the new arrivals.

“I’d ask them to be patient with us,” they said. “It’s not like we are dumb or something. It’s just there’s a language barrier. Give us a chance. Don’t think of us as aliens. We are people just like them who want a better life.”