A Northern California school placed a teaching intern on leave for celebrating ICE in a Facebook comment as a mob of angry locals threatened to damage her property.
Sarai Jimenez, a special education teaching intern at MacQuiddy Elementary in Watsonville, endorsed the presence of ICE officers in her town in a comment on the social network last month.
“Yay!!! We need ICE in Watsonville!! It’s been getting out of hand,” Jimenez wrote.
The backlash intensified after ICE agents arrested a Watsonville resident last month, according to Lookout Santa Cruz.
Parents in the Pajaro Valley Unified School District, where 84% of students are Latino, expressed outrage at Jimenez’s support for ICE.
“You can’t just tell the world how you feel and not expect repercussions from people because of how they feel about ICE,” local father Jorge Guerrero told the Lookout.
Jimenez she received hostile social media comments and messages after the comment, including one threatening to pop her tires.
Another person who threatened to file a complaint with the school told her, “who knows what you’ll do behind closed doors to the kids of parents that are immigrants,” calling her a “shameful disgraceful disgusting woman.”
“I’m sorry that the comment was taken out of context,” Jimenez told the Lookout. “But my actions speak so much louder than all those hateful bullies’ words.”
MacQuiddy Elementary principal Sara Pearman said Jimenez’s comment “does not reflect the values” of the school or district.
She told families that the school is looking for a long-term substitute for Jimenez.
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