ELL News Headlines

Some immigrant parents in South Carolina are forgoing health care services for their children, including immunizations, for fear they will be separated from their families and deported, one South Carolina public health advocate said. 

More than a million students are now affected by the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey in some way, according to the Texas Education Agency, as the remnants of the storm shifted east and its devastating effects on the education community continue.  That number is expected to grow.

California now leads all other states in refugee resettlement, according to State Department figures. But San Diego County — which took in the most refugees in the state last fiscal year — has long been a destination for people escaping war or persecution in their home countries. More than 3,000 refugees resettled in San Diego County during federal fiscal 2016, leading some in the community to question whether area schools — many already operating with limited resources — would be able to deliver on the refugee dream of a quality education for all in America.

Brandon McElveen's Ford F150 pickup is lifted up about six inches. He says that's just the style in the South, but this week, "it's come in handy" for driving through up to four feet of water. McElveen's a counselor at the KIPP Explore Academy elementary school in Houston. Within hours of the flooding this week, he began getting calls and messages asking for help. One was from a family with two girls on the middle school softball team he also coaches. With his truck and a borrowed kayak, he estimates he's helped more than 20 people to safety.

Hundreds of chief executives and business leaders in the U.S. have signed a letter urging President Donald Trump not to scrap a program known as "Dreamers" that prevents the deportation of young people brought to the country as children by undocumented immigrants.

This week was supposed to be the start of a brand-new school year for the 200,000, or so, students in the Houston Independent School District. Instead, kids, teachers and staff are dealing with the fallout from Harvey's record-breaking rainfall and devastating floods. Richard Carranza, Houston schools superintendent, is trying to figure out when school can start - and where, in cases where high waters flooded out schools and homes. Even as he recognizes this school year will be very different, he says the focus will be on teaching kids, wherever Harvey has scattered them.

As Lisseth Perez completed her education in the Chicago Public Schools, she kept her undocumented status private even when her college counselor, a trusted resource in the school community, kept pushing her to opportunities for which she did not qualify. Then, the day of her senior prom in early June 2015, Perez got a phone call from Loyola University Chicago's Arrupe College, a brand-new two-year college, saying they found money for her to attend. All she needed to do was pay a small deposit. Earlier this month, Perez graduated from Arrupe with an associate's degree and a full ride —including room and board— to Loyola University Chicago. Her family will not have to spend over $60,000 during the next two years.

This has been a harrowing year for the hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who have put down stakes in Houston. Stepped-up enforcement of immigration measures put many on edge over deportations, while Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed one of the nation’s most punitive laws against cities that do not cooperate with federal immigration authorities. President Trump has amplified his harsh line on illegal immigration and renewed his promise to build a border wall. Then came the chaos of Hurricane Harvey. Sowing confusion and fear among some people here, more than two dozen Border Patrol agents from a special operations detachment in South Texas arrived in Houston with a dozen vessels to help with the emergency relief effort. But Manuel Padilla Jr., a chief patrol agent with the agency, found it necessary to go on the local Univision news in Houston to reassure people in Spanish that the agents were here to save the lives of people endangered by the storm, not to check their documents.

Getting back into the classroom after spending the summer in Spain with a group of Iowa State University students always reinforces for Chad Gasta the benefits of a language immersion program. Gasta, a professor and chair of world languages and cultures, co-directs "ISU on the Mediterranean," Iowa State's largest study abroad program, which offers courses and research opportunities in Spanish, engineering, business and biology. To make it a truly immersive experience, classes are taught in Spanish and English, and students live with host families during their six weeks in Spain. Gasta says it makes for some interesting translations initially, but students welcome the opportunity to interact and communicate with native speakers.

On what was supposed to be the first day of school in some Texas districts, the state with the nation's second-largest K-12 student population was in educational crisis Monday, with hundreds of thousands of families reeling from the effects of Hurricane Harvey. Teachers, students and parents were unsure when classes would be in session, and who, exactly, would be reporting to which schools, when opening bells finally ring.