New York, NY – On October 8, in Midtown Manhattan the MORE Caucus (Movement for Rank and File Educators) of the United Federation of Teachers held its first general assembly of the school year at The People’s Forum. The assembly gathered with a focus on immigrant rights, specifically, protecting immigrant students from ICE raids in and around schools.

Teachers from the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens all came together. The crowd was so large for the gathering that outside of the 45-person main room a spillover room had to be established down the street to hold a second set of participants connected via Zoom.

During the assembly, teachers shared how they were building immigrant rights committees, what they were working on developing within those committees, and shared resources with one another. Video messages from members of the United Teachers Los Angeles were shown to highlight how teachers on the West Coast have been organizing to protect their students and communities.

Over the course of the meeting, many people highlighted the need to make deeper connections with parents, students and community members in and around the school system to build trust and develop community circles to protect against ICE raids. Some of the tactics discussed were creating patrols of teachers on ICE watch to protect students at dismissal, holding different types of community events like Know Your Rights trainings, and providing different resources for students and their families.

The assembly comes at a time when tensions around immigration are very high in the city of New York and nationally, especially after a federal shock-and-awe campaign called “Freaky Friday” on October 3 which had rumors spreading quickly about ICE targeting schools.

Teachers left the assembly with strategies and skills to bring back to their schools and union chapters to continue fighting against Trump’s anti-immigrant attacks.

#NewYorkNY #NY #Labor #ImmigrantRights #UFT #MORE #Teachers

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