The children of people rounded up in Tuesday?s raid on the Swift plant in Marshalltown were absent from school the following day. Ninety workers in all were taken from the meatpacking plant. Officials counts are not in, but Marshalltown School District Assistant Superintendent Pat Kremer is confident many of the absent students will return soon.
“I believe there’s still quite a little bit of anxiety and fear out there,” Kremer says. “…We expect some of those students to come back to school in a day or two.” The impact of Tuesday?s raid on the school district cannot be measured this early, according to Kremer.
He’ll have more sense of the overall impact in a week or two, when things “settle in” and they find out how many families may be gone from the community. Kremer says the district?s concern is primarily with students who attend, regardless of their immigration status.
“The public schools in America essentially open up their doors and educate the kids who live in that community,” Kremer says. “That’s certainly the philosophy we have here.” Ninety workers were taken from the Swift plant in Tuesday’s raid by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.