Immigrant students experience more bullying as ICE raids cause ‘culture of fear’, says survey

Students at a high school in San Mateo, California, in 2007. Photograph: ZUMA Press, Inc./Alamy

Immigrant students across the US have experienced increased bullying, with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdowns causing declines in attendance and a “culture of fear” among immigrant students in public schools, according to a new survey of high school principals.

Researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles’s Institute for Democracy, Education and Access (Idea) conducted a “nationally representative” survey of more than 600 principals about the toll of raids and deportations, and how schools were responding.