Millions of young people in the United States are children of immigrant families. All students in the U.S. have a right to public education, “regardless of a child’s or guardian’s citizenship, immigration status, or English language proficiency. These rights were upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in its landmark 1982 decision in Plyler v. Doe.”
In addition to the challenges adjusting to a new country and culture and being fully included in schools, many immigrant children feel high levels of fear and anxiety right now due to the current anti-immigrant political environment. In families without immigration documentation, the fear of family separation, arrest by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), imprisonment and deportation cause challenges and stress among young people and their families that can affect academic success, attendance and parental engagement.
Learn more about immigrant students’ rights, public schools’ obligations to immigrant students, and resources for families. We created this resource page to collect and share resources for families, educators and all community members, and we’ll continue to update this page. Many of these resources are available in multiple languages.
Help protect all our children.
[Updated April 2025]
Students’ rights and supportive schools
Protecting Immigrant Students’ Rights to a Public Education
These resources from the Southern Poverty Law Center include information for families and advocates and for educators and school administrators on immigrant students’ rights and public schools’ obligations.
This website provides information for immigrant communities about their rights, including their rights in interactions with ICE. This video series offers real-life examples of what to do when ICE is in their homes and communities and if ICE arrests them.
Protecting Our Students | American Federation of Teachers
These resources from AFT include Know Your Rights information for families and information for educators to support students and families, including helping to prepare and respond to ICE raids.
How to Support Immigrant Students and Families
This guide from Colorín Colorado offers multiple resources and strategies for families and educators in schools and early childhood programs to support immigrant students and their families at this critical time.
This website offers resources to “advance the education and well-being of immigrant-origin youth, decrease bias and hatred against young people of diverse origins, and help rising generations develop the critical understanding and empathy necessary to build and sustain welcoming and inclusive communities.”
This website offers resources for immigrant families and educators on students’ rights and how educators can support immigrant children and families.
Supporting and Affirming Immigrant Students and Families
Experts from ImmSchools and the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Immigrant Justice Project lead this 2022 webinar on supporting immigrant students and families.
This portal highlights important information on access to higher education for undocumented students, including access to state financial aid and professional and occupational licensure policies.
Special Education and Your Child: FAQs for Multilingual Families
This guide from Colorín Colorado can help immigrant and multilingual families better understand how to navigate the special education process and services.
Helping Your Child With a Disability Get a Good Education (Louisiana and Mississippi)
These state-specific SPLC guides can help parents navigate the process of securing a good education for a child with disabilities.
Civil Rights Principles for Multilingual Learner Education
This guide helps educators understand how they can protect the civil rights of immigrant and multilingual learners and create an equitable education system for them. Each principle aims to ensure that students and their families fully participate in the education ecosystem.
This list from Social Justice Books recommends anti-bias books on immigration and the immigrant experience. There are recommended books for K-12 as well as suggestions for educators.
Best Practices for Serving English Language Learners and their Families
With sections centered on instruction, classroom culture, policies, and family and community engagement, this Learning for Justice guide is packed with recommendations that can be applied across the school building. This guide also contains important information about policies around language access.
Learning for Justice: Understanding the Issues
[2024] This family-school-community partnerships model emphasizes a liberatory, whole-child approach and collective effort to nurturing all our children.
Community Organizing Uplifts Immigrant Students
[2022] Tapping into their own agency and communities, immigrant students and their families are finding ways to mitigate serious obstacles.
[2020] Immigrant and refugee students and families are under threat. Many schools have joined a movement to protect them. The accompanying toolkit from 2018 offers concrete steps to incorporate tenets of sanctuary schools into your learning space.
The School-to-Deportation Pipeline
[2018] When immigration enforcement became more aggressive, schools became increasingly risky places for undocumented students. Learn more about the school-to-deportation pipeline—including recommendations for disrupting it.
[2018] Educators across the country are taking action when ICE raids happen in their communities. Here’s how you can stand with undocumented students and families—whether or not you live in a vulnerable community.
Consider how you can support the immigrant children and families in your schools and communities.