by Tiffany D

Here’s a wild fact: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is barely old enough to buy a beer. It was created in 2003. It is not woven into the founding fabric of this country. It is not constitutional bedrock. It’s not even older than my favorite pair of bootcut jeans.

Public education, on the other hand, is foundational. It is generational. It is the promise we make to every child who walks through a schoolhouse door.

And yet Congress funds ICE like it’s the crown jewel of American democracy, while public schools are told to stretch, cut, and “do more with less.”

Every dollar handed to ICE is a dollar not invested in classrooms, counselors, special education services, language access, arts programs, and safe school buildings. Congress is choosing enforcement over educators. Detention beds over textbooks. Untrained yet armed agents over after-school programs.

Let’s be honest about what communities are seeing.

Masked agents in unmarked trucks detaining people outside workplaces and on sidewalks. Families watching loved ones disappear into detention centers. Independent medical reviews documenting ignored pleas for care and falsified records in death investigations. Internal guidance reportedly allowing forced entry into homes without a judge’s warrant.

You don’t have to be left, right, or anywhere in between to feel uneasy about that.

Parents across this country want safe, fully funded public schools. They want reading specialists. They want fully staffed schools and teachers paid fairly. They want school counselors available when kids are struggling. They want children focused on math tests and science projects, not active-shooter drills and fear.

Instead, ICE operations near schools and neighborhoods push some parents to keep their children home. Communities destabilize. Trust erodes. People hesitate to seek medical care or report crimes. That doesn’t make anyone safer; it makes everything more fragile.

Meanwhile, districts are cutting staff, scaling back arts and music, and postponing critical repairs. Rural districts and urban districts alike are scrambling to fill positions and afford basic supplies. Children sit in overcrowded classrooms without enough counselors, aides, or support staff.

And we’re told there just “isn’t enough money.”

There is money. There are choices.

Congress is making them.

It is choosing to prioritize an agency barely two decades old over an institution that has defined this country for generations. It is prioritizing fear over futures.

Strong public schools are not a partisan luxury. They are a shared value across communities and across the political spectrum. Funding teachers, student supports, and infrastructure is not radical. It is responsible.

If we are serious about safety, prosperity, and stability, we invest in children.

Not in trucks and hotel rooms.
Not in detention beds.

In desks. In books.
In teachers. In our children.

That’s the choice. And it’s long past time Congress makes a different one.