Opinion: Public schools should advance critical thinking, not partisan protests

In an era where political activism infiltrates every corner of public life, including our children’s classrooms, it’s time to reaffirm a fundamental truth: securing our nation’s borders is not an act of cruelty but a vital safeguard for the most vulnerable among us — our children.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) plays a pivotal role in combating the scourge of human trafficking, particularly the sexual and physical abuse of children. Yet recent anti-ICE protests in North Carolina public schools undermine this life-saving work, politicizing education and distracting from the real crisis: traffickers exploiting porous borders to prey on innocent children, many of the same age as the students marching against ICE.

The horrors of child trafficking are stark and undeniable. Traffickers lure vulnerable minors with false promises, only to subject them to forced labor, sexual servitude, and brutal physical abuse. These crimes thrive when borders are weak, allowing cartels to smuggle children into exploitation networks. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations actively dismantles these operations, conducting field engagements to locate missing children, verify their safety with sponsors, and rescue those in danger. Recent efforts have located tens of thousands of unaccompanied migrant children previously unaccounted for, with many saved from sex trafficking, forced labor, and abusive conditions. These rescued children — often preteens and teenagers — are the same ages as high school students protesting ICE’s role.

This reality exposes the deep hypocrisy in school-based anti-ICE protests. Our public schools are rightly fortified against threats: doors remain locked during hours, security systems and cameras monitor main entrances, visitors show ID and sign in, and even volunteers face rigorous background checks. These layers exist to shield students from intruders, predators, drug dealers, or anyone who might harm them. We would never tolerate violators on campus dealing drugs, trafficking children, or flouting school board policies. Why apply a different standard to our national borders? Borders serve as the nation’s “locked doors” and ICE as the “security system” verifying entrants, conducting checks, and removing dangers. Weak borders invite the very chaos we vigilantly prevent in schools: cartels flooding communities with drugs and traffickers exploiting children for profit.

This double standard played out at Page High School in Guilford County, where students staged an anti-ICE walkout, with parents later reporting to me that some teachers compelled participation. Despite the protest being planned with administrative approval in advance of the event, parents told me they received no upfront notice — only after-the-fact alerts, leaving families feeling excluded and schools weaponized for politics.

Is this type of political posture going to be a regular episode in Guilford County Schools (GCS)? Is GCS going to allow students to protest any and all issues during instructional hours? Will GCS allow rallies to support conservative efforts, such as pro-life or religious liberties causes? Or will GCS pick and choose what constitutes “students’ rights?”

Consider the inconsistency in GCS schools, where at Northern Guilford High School, administrators attempted to block students from using religious symbols and Bible verses on senior parking spaces, citing concerns that they might offend someone, as Moms for Liberty Guilford has highlighted. Yet GCS schools allow protests during instructional hours, citing “right to protest.” Not only are administrators supporting anti-ICE protests, but they are also helping to organize them and hide them from parental knowledge until it’s over, according to the information provided to me from parents. This selective tolerance erodes parents’ and public trust, turning educational institutions into echo chambers that favor certain ideologies while suppressing others.

Instead of one-sided anti-law-enforcement protests, schools should focus on the Socratic method when addressing polarized social issues. The Socratic method is a disciplined way of questioning that stimulates critical thinking, exposes assumptions, reveals contradictions, clarifies concepts, and guides participants toward deeper understanding or the recognition of their own ignorance. Rather than permitting one-sided protests that disrupt learning and exclude parental input, schools should promote organized, balanced debates about ICE operations. Structured forums — during non-instructional time or as part of the civics curriculum — would allow students to engage in civil dialogue, hear multiple perspectives, examine verifiable facts about child rescues, and develop critical thinking skills. Such debates would honor free expression without turning schools into partisan stages, rebuild trust with families, and truly educate the next generation on complex issues like border security and human trafficking.

Our children deserve nothing less than secure borders that safeguard the vulnerable and protected school campuses that shield them from harm — both systems robustly fortified against those who would exploit or endanger young lives.

Parents, too, deserve transparency: They should be notified in advance of any divisive activities that interrupt instruction and given the opportunity to discuss these polarizing issues with their children beforehand, rather than learning about school-sanctioned ideological protests only after the fact.