Any parent would hope their child's teacher is focused on lessons, playground safety and building a better future. What they probably would not expect is that same teacher picking up the phone to try to have the child's family deported. Yet that is exactly what one kindergarten teacher did after discovering that her student's parents were 'born in Honduras and El Salvador'. In a recorded call, she calmly told an immigration hotline that the parents should be removed from the country and that the child, a US-born citizen, should be left behind.
It is a chilling request from someone who is typically seen as warm and nurturing, given her profession. But the woman's call is just one of many that have been made to the hotline. The crucial twist is that the number she dialled is not an official ICE tip line at all. Instead, it is a fake hotline created by a Nashville comedian as part of a satirical project that accidentally lays bare how quickly your own child's kindergarten teacher can turn against you.
The Truth Behind The Fake Hotline
Nashville comic Ben Palmer created the sham immigration hotline, which is backed by an official-looking website and convincing language. The tip line is so believable that Palmer claims to receive at least 100 calls a day, each one from an average American with an immigrant to report for deportation. Although he confirms that the set-up is satire, it has not dissuaded people from attempting to report someone they view as suspicious and deserving to be deported from their own homes.
Palmer chose to share the call from the kindergarten teacher for obvious reasons, but it also revealed more about what people are willing to do when they feel entitled to report others in their community. The child did not readily admit to the teacher that their parents are immigrants. It was not because the woman heard rumours about the parents within the school either. Instead, the teacher allegedly accessed school records to confirm her own suspicions about the student's parents' status before calling the hotline to get them deported.
While it is already shocking that a teacher would snoop on a student's parents by looking into school records, the fact that she sounds so calm about reporting them and requesting their deportation exposes how cruel people can be to each other. The recording also reveals how she does not appear to care what would happen to the child if their parents were deported.
When Satire Shows How Far People Will Go
The satire is supposed to be funny, since it is at the expense of hundreds of people who believe they have reached an official ICE tip line, but end up as part of a social experiment. On the other hand, it is a sad and terrifying realisation that even the people you trust can turn against you when given the tools and means.
The Washington Post has reached out to the kindergarten teacher, but she declined to comment on the issue. In the meantime, Palmer's fake immigration hotline is reportedly still live, waiting for another phone call from unsuspecting individuals with someone in the neighbourhood to report for deportation.
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