Back in 2014, at the height of the unaccompanied-minor crisis, some school districts on Long Island refused to admit newly arrived Central American kids, citing space concerns and a lack of paperwork. Both excuses are illegal under federal law. Brentwood School District, the largest in the state outside New York City, did not turn kids away, but it struggled to accommodate them. The district was already sore from budget cuts following the 2008 economic crisis, when teachers were laid off, extracurriculars were eliminated, and the school day was reduced from nine to eight periods. Today, Brentwood High School has only two social workers and two school psychologists for 4,533 students.Seventy-five percent of the high school's budget comes from state and federal aid, and while classroom teachers have been hired to respond to increasing enrollment, the government is "following the same formula" with little attention to the unique needs of immigrant students, Principal Richard Loeschner told me. English Language Learner classes (ELL) contain around 30 students ranging from 14 to 21 years old. While some are successful—I met one young man who wants to run for president of El Salvador—others spend years in the district without ever learning English; the graduation rate among ELL students is 56 percent. Loeschner recognizes that the school is losing the battle for these kids. "They're ripe for the picking," he said.Many migrants learn what one Honduran teenager tells the Mexican writer Valeria Luiselli in her new book, Tell Me How It Ends: "Hempstead is a shithole of pandilleros [gang members], just like Tegucigalpa."
Immigrants are responding to such moves by severing ties with the government and heading underground. Police departments in Los Angeles, Houston, and Denver have announced drops in sexual assault reporting by Latinos, while social service organizations have seen legal immigrants un-enrolling their children—including US citizens—from programs like Medicaid and food stamps. The Nassau County District Attorney's Office of Immigrant Affairs told the New York Times in April that its tip line had received no calls since December. Make the Road New York, an advocacy group with an office in Brentwood, said families whose children have been subpoenaed in gang-related cases have expressed fear that police will fail to protect them from gang members and from immigration authorities.Families whose children have been subpoenaed in gang-related cases have expressed fear that police will fail to protect them from gang members and from immigration authorities.
This is an important distinction, says Victor Rios, a sociologist and former gang member from Los Angeles. His book, Human Targets, argues that police and schools often push kids into gangs rather than pulling them away. "If we want heroin-selling, gangbanging, car-thieving, juvenile delinquents to reform and work toward developing productive lives, then institutions, especially schools and law enforcement, must find ways to improve the quality of their interactions with these youths," he writes.One of the biggest problems, Rios says, is the tendency to lump all gang members together, when, in truth, there are two things going on: a tiny nucleus committing extreme acts of violence, and a much larger periphery that's just trying to fit in—kids like Jenny. "The majority of gang members eventually outgrow the gang, but when our message is just 'eradicate, incarcerate, and deport' without a two-pronged strategy that provides support to the second group, you risk losing them and creating a situation of perpetual crime and violence," he says.Sergio Argueta sees this happening on Long Island. He has been a social worker at Uniondale High School since 2014, and last fall, two of his students were killed in gang-related shootings. He also knew the students arrested for the murders. None were gang members when he met them a few years ago. All told him they wanted to avoid that lifestyle."Their transition was so quick—it was mind-boggling," Argueta said. "So now I'm trying all these approaches, I'm trying tough love, I'm trying the sympathetic counselor, the cool friend. These are approaches that have worked for me in the past, but they're not working anymore."Argueta hopes to build a more resilient safety net in Brentwood, where STRONG's high school program is supposed to start next fall (Suffolk County has yet to finalize the contract; meanwhile, New York State has pledged an additional $300,000). Jenny strikes me as an ideal candidate. Her father worries she won't make it that far. "At this point, I'm just waiting for them to kill her," he said. "They know where she walks and where she gets off the bus. I've told her, 'Hija, if they're threatening you, give me their names and all their information.' But she doesn't want to tell me anything. She's passive in the face of everything that's happening here."A plainclothes detective sitting to my right pointed out several alleged gang members accused in the murders of Cuevas and Mickens. "After a while, they start to blend together," the detective said.