While attending the Denver edition of the 50 States, 50 Protests, 1 Day protest in February, every speaker I listened to told a variation on the exact same story:

The immeasurable fear brought about by the Trump administration’s ICE raids had spread like wildfire and forced them (or a loved one) to avoid attending school. From parents sharing the terror-based rationales that they would present to their children to keep them home, to students explaining the various physical symptoms that would appear from the fear brought about by constantly having to look over their shoulder, each tale escalated the sentiment of impending dread.

And keep in mind that many of these speakers held legal status with proper paperwork.

Around the same time these protests took place at state capitols nationwide, the Trump administration released a statement claiming that the Biden-era “Sensitive Location Policy”—a policy that kept ICE agents from being able to raid public places like schools—was to be rescinded.

Within a week of this repeal, ICE agents enacted raids on various locations in Denver. The school kids thought they were next. With the anxiety of the students reaching a fever pitch, the Denver Public School System (DPS) went into action and filed both a lawsuit and a federal injunction to prevent these roundups from taking place on DPS property.

With a federal judge recently ruling against the injunction, I reached out to Scott Pribble, Director of External Communications Denver Public Schools, to find out what this ruling means, and what the future of the lawsuit looks like.

First off, Pribble made it clear that the injunction came about because of failures of the Trump administration to disclose exactly what the new rules meant. “Back on January 21st, the Trump administration announced that they were ending the ‘sensitive location’ policy that had been enacted by President Biden.” He stated that, “the administration made it sound like that they could just come into any school and take a student that may be here illegally or may have crossed without the proper papers. What we did with our lawsuit was included a temporary restraining order temporarily preventing the new policy, again that they hadn’t shared but they talked about, until we come to a conclusion if it’s even constitutional.”

Thankfully, through discovery and other court processes, the DPS was able to find out what the actual wording of the new Trump policy meant. “The judge denied our temporary restraining order because through the practice of our lawsuit, the Department of Homeland Security actually shared their new policy, it was essentially the same as the Biden policy. They said it was different, they put a lot of fear into families, but there was really no difference. In fact, even the federal judge who heard the case and ruled against us said, ‘If I were to put it back to the Biden policy, how would things change? And the answer is, it wouldn’t.’”

Pribble acknowledged the fear the Trump administration has put into families has caused a definite impact. “Students stopped coming to school. Students and parents were living in fear every time they’d go to the bus stop. They were fearful that somebody could approach them and try to make an arrest. And then we had a day where ICE agents made multiple stops in apartment complexes, in which our students and families live in, and made some arrests there that involved DPS families. And [the arrests] just amplified that fear.”

During the interview, Pribble claimed that they have been doing their best to educate the masses that, at this time, the Denver Public School areas will not come under any kind of ICE raid. “We are doing our best to make sure our families know that. But knowing that and living that are two different things. It’s hard to know, yes they said this, it’s not any different and we can go to school. But, at the same time, there’s always that fear in the back of the family’s minds.”

Though the school district is doing its best to stem the anxieties of its students and their families, when you consider that last year the DPS welcomed 4,000 “new to our country students” to their schools, that is a lot of terror to contend with. And unfortunately, the best bedfellows for fear are loathing and violence.

Pribble stated that there has not been an increase in fighting or violence accompanying such a large number of immigrant students. “No, not at all. There have been occasional fights, but that’s not a-typical for high school and middle school. But I would say there are very few related to this influx of immigrants.”

With clarity now having been provided by the US legal system, and a clear disconnect between immigrant students and an increase of violence, I asked Pribble what is the plan for their full lawsuit against the administration? “We haven’t decided. The temporary restraining request is over. We haven’t decided yet, with our outside counsel, what we’re going to do about the actual lawsuit itself. But, the fact that we got the truth out, we’re considering that a win, even though we lost in court.”

No matter what the future holds for DPS Vs. ICE, Pribble emphasized that there has always been one thought at the center of every action taken by Denver; “School should be a place that is focused on learning and growing and should not be a place that is comprised of fear.”