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An estimated 10 people in the Berkshires were detained last month in an immigration enforcement operation that netted 370 arrests statewide. Berkshire Hills Regional School District staff are working to provide support to immigrant students and families. GREAT BARRINGTON — The shock of arrests made by immigration and law enforcement officers last month has sent ripples of fear through the community — particularly in schools, where attendance is down in at least one district.
The roughly 10 arrests in the Berkshires on March 19 hit home for at least two Monument Mountain Regional High School students, whose father and uncle were taken into custody at their job site in Monterey. “There are students who are facing challenges firsthand,” said Monument student Mirabelle Meyers. “But the impact overall has been widespread throughout the community.
” Meyers, who is the student delegate to Berkshire Hills Regional School Committee, raised her concerns during her regular update about the high school at a recent meeting of the committee. That meeting came roughly a week after a multiday operation last month when U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, along with other agencies including the FBI and DEA, rounded up 370 immigrants across the state. The Eagle has verified the arrest of five men in the Berkshires. Those include three men taken from an auto shop in Pittsfield, and the two brothers arrested by agents who followed them to their gardening job in Monterey after they dropped their children at school.
Trusted sources have also reported another five arrests in Pittsfield and possibly Lenox or Lee. Superintendent Peter Dillon, at that recent School Committee meeting, said school staff have reached out to support immigrant families and students. Nonprofits who work with immigrants are also providing help.
“We're doing a lot of ongoing work to try to support our new arrivals,” Dillon said of those students. “The climate for folks is really tough, right? And that has a potential impact on attendance and mental health and any number of other things.” Dillon later told The Eagle that the district is already seeing that impact on both "attendance and well-being.
" "We're working hard to support students and families," he added. It is unclear whether any parents of Pittsfield Public Schools students were taken into ICE custody. Superintendent Joseph Curtis did not respond to a request for comment.
An ICE spokesman has told The Eagle that the agency cannot provide names of those arrested until their information has been cleared for public release. Pittsfield-based Berkshire Immigrant Center Executive Director Melissa Canavan said that the center is "aware of the impact these events have had on local families," the center's case workers "primarily meet with adults, so we haven’t been directly involved with students or schools in response to the recent ICE arrests." The center, Canavan added, is "in close communication with other organizations and continue to support families by helping them navigate the immigration system and assisting with basic needs.
" At Lenox Public Schools, there were no families directly affected by the arrests, “as far as I know,” said Superintendent William Collins. The district does not collect citizenship information about students, Collins noted. Even so, he said, the atmosphere following the arrests last month is such that he and his colleagues are nervous that what they say might put families at risk of being targeted.
The arrests have reverberated across the school community, Collins said, just as they have countywide. “This is lighting people's worlds on fire,” he said of immigrant parents and students generally. “It's a horrendous, horrendous situation.
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