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Students at Emergence Academy say they would support a classmate detained by immigration officials, just as young people in Milford did for an 18-year-old classmate arrested May 31.

“If not us, then who?” asked Boyqara Kohkan, a tenth-grader from Kabul, Afghanistan, who has been in
the city since April 2024. The 421-student Springfield school is designed to teach newcomers to the United States. It has been on high alert since President Donald Trump took office and pledged to crack down and change rules on immigration.

With students from 34 countries who speak 24 different languages, staff members have done everything they can to educate themselves about immigration so they can inform and protect students and their families as much as possible, said Amanda Gauthier, the school’s executive principal.

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