Grand Rapids — Not long ago, Noemí Tobar Arellano heard a sound she couldn’t ignore: a wail of grief from a third-grade student whose father had been detained and deported by immigration officials.
“I heard a cry — like a pained cry, saying, ‘My dad! They took my dad!’” said Tobar Arellano, a K-5 bilingual interventionist at Burton Elementary. “They had detained her dad the night before. And she was just destroyed.”
Tobar Arellano and other Burton staff members rushed to console the student, who was with her mother and four siblings.
‘We’ve had several families affected by detainment and deportations, and something has to be done.’
— K-5 bilingual interventionist Noemí Tobar Arellano
That whole family is now gone; they self-deported soon thereafter. The father was the breadwinner of the family, Tobar Arellano explained, and the others had no choice but to leave Grand Rapids, and the U.S., to be with him.
It’s not the first time a GRPS family has been affected by the current crackdown on undocumented immigrants by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement under President Donald Trump, and it won’t be the last. But seeing the family’s distress flipped a switch in Tobar Arellano.
“Ever since that day, I was like, these kids are suffering so much,” she said. “We’ve had several families affected by detainment and deportations, and something has to be done.”
So she resolved to do something — anything — to help. She’d seen that the Puerto Rican Culture Committee of West Michigan had purchased pajamas, blankets and other comfort items for children in families impacted by mass deportations, and she solicited some help undertaking a similar project for Grand Rapids Public Schools.
With a $5,000 donation from the Grand Rapids Education Association teachers union, and contributions from the GRPS Foundation and the Michigan Education Special Services Association, Tobar Arellano and other Burton staff members are working to assemble care kits for GRPS students whose parents or family members have been deported or detained.
In early December, Tobar Arellano and her team convened in a tucked-away room deep within the Burton building, and put together 120 comfort kits for GRPS students who might need them. The kits contained blankets, journals and writing materials, toys, stress balls, gift cards, plush toys and more.
“Anything to distract them from what’s going on,” she said.
Some student volunteers from the middle school helped out as well, but they didn’t feel comfortable speaking with the media.
“They’re too afraid,” Tobar Arellano said.
‘We’re working with what we’ve got’
Aliyah Rivera, Burton Elementary’s Kent School Services Network coordinator, will handle the distribution of the care kits with the help of other KSSN coordinators in the district.
“(We’re) trying to do something good out of the situation, and we’re working with what we’ve got,” Rivera said.
Rivera and Tobar Arellano estimate that there are at least 50 students in the Burton Elementary/Middle complex whose parents or family members have been deported or detained.
They said they don’t believe any students have been deported, but many have self-deported to be with their loved ones.
“As educators, as staff, we all need to be extra vigilant. I feel like this is doing some real damage to our students,” Tobar Arellano said. “A lot of these students are fearful to go out. They don’t go to festivals. They don’t go to different things. There’s fear — students are living in fear.
“And it’s not only the students that had to self-deport; the students that were left behind in the classrooms, they were destroyed. There were tears because their classmates had to leave in haste.”
GRPS encourages families to visit its website to learn about school- and community-based immigration resources, and to see district communications on related issues.
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