DECEMBER 2025

Keep our beloved educators in the country and in their classrooms at Adams

Our impact has been substantial, and our four Adams educators who were facing deportation have been deeply grateful and heartened by our community’s financial support. We have disbursed over $10,000, evenly among the four of them. This has funded legal work to halt their deportations. However, their status is temporary and precarious, and subsequent legal steps still require lawyers’ attention, costing up to $500/hr. Since our initial fundraising, one educator has left Adams and been able to pursue permanent residency in the form of a Green Card. Funds raised now are being distributed evenly to the remaining three educators and to a new Adams educator whose family is facing a serious immigration crisis.

This is about more than just avoiding deportation: one of our educators has been unable to facilitate tourist visas for her children, whom she has not seen in 3 years. Another’s stepfather was recently detained by ICE when his car broke down on his way to dialysis. Each family continues to deal with the daily trauma of knowing the lives they have worked hard to build here could be stripped at any moment. This ripples into the lives of our educators, their families, students, and our entire Adams community.

We have helped our educators make incremental legal progress, and we have celebrated some big victories since our initiative began. But fear remains a part of our educators’ daily realities. They fear going to the grocery store, airport, their churches, their children’s schools, and even their jobs at Adams. Yet they continue to show up every day for our students and our Adams community. Let’s continue showing up for them.

En solidaridad,

Greg Egan

President Adams Elementary Parents & Friends Immigration Committee

Georgina Chichilla Gonzalez

Vice President Adams Elementary Parents & Friends Immigration Committee

Earl Milton

Treasurer Adams Elementary Parents & Friends Immigration Committee

APRIL 2025

Support Adams Staff in Danger of Deportation

by: Adams Elementary Parents and Friends Immigration Committee

Public schools in St. Paul are poised to lose hardworking, insightful, beloved educators to deportation. If that happens at Adams, we would have to explain to our children why one of their sources of comfort, knowledge, and community in the classroom suddenly disappeared.

The Adams Elementary Parents & Friends Immigration Committee was formed in response to this and other issues implicating the intersection of immigration and our community. It is composed of parents and staff working outside office hours. It is autonomous: independent from the school or its administration.

We come to you on behalf of these staff members. They offer something special beyond just being native speakers. Raised and educated abroad, they bring sensitivity, knowledge, and cultural competency that is uniquely theirs. The Adams community is richer for it. We embrace the life perspectives they bring, hailing from afar.

While they are at different stages of their legal proceedings, they all have immigration attorneys. Rates for experienced Twin Cities immigration attorneys range from $275-$450/hour. Demand is extremely high in the wake of recent executive orders out of Washington. Our affected staff members have depleted their personal assets on attorneys’ fees.

But they do not want to give up, and neither do we.

So we come to you asking for your financial support. The Adams Elementary Parents & Friends Immigration Committee, an independent L.L.C., has opened a bank account to efficiently and transparently collect funds on behalf of these educators.” Donations will go directly to the staff members, split evenly among them.

While we anticipate that affected staff will elect to use most of the funds to offset legal bills—all are fighters—we value their personal autonomy. If deportation becomes inevitable, they may apply the funds to resettlement costs in their home countries.

These educators, like other immigrants working noble jobs across the country, face heart wrenching scenarios. Their senses of security, home, duty, and belonging are all being tested. Their loss is our loss. But we are not resigned to the heaviest burden of that loss yet. Neither are they. Your support can impact their immigration cases, their transitions, and their senses of hope, appreciation, and belonging.

The three of us will all be making generous contributions. We hope you do too. That spirit is part of what makes Adams all that it is. We are empathetic; we broker hope, and, most importantly, we are profoundly grateful for all these educators have given to our children, to their colleagues, and to the Adams community. Thank you for your support.

En solidaridad,

Greg Egan

President, Adams Elementary Parents and Friends Immigration Committee

Georgina Chinchilla Gonzalez

Vice President, Adams Elementary Parents and Friends Immigration Committee

Earl Milton

Treasurer, Adams Elementary Parents and Friends Immigration Committee