Brittany Crocker

USA TODAY NETWORK – Tennessee

Lonsdale Elementary School has a wall, just outside the cafeteria and behind the wash fountain, that the community has come to love.

It's papered in a disjointed mix of hand-drawn pictures and messages: a stick figure saying "I give high 5's to be kind"; a cross accompanying the words, "Thank you for dying for my sins," and "You are loved"; a message mirrored by another nearby square that reads "Ustedes son amados."

Each square is a brick in the "Kindness Wall," a school project by teachers and volunteers to show the students — over half of whom are immigrants — that walls don't have to be scary.

"This activity was really a way to encourage kids to use their own voice and to ensure that they're aware that kindness is always the best policy," said Kori Lautner, the Community School Resource Coordinator.

"It's kind of that golden rule in elementary school. We teach it every single day, and current events have just kind of heightened that it is important to be kind. It is important to respect your neighbor. It is important to lift your neighbor up when they're the ones who are really feeling upset or feeling concerned or fearful."

The students built the wall last November after staff noticed a change in the school's usually energetic atmosphere.

"I have 21 students in my class and out of 21, 15 students are immigrants," said Jennifer Borovy, a fifth-grade teacher. "You could just feel it. Breakfast was quiet. You could tell something was on their minds, but they didn't want to talk about it or didn't know if they could."

"You might hear other little conversations though, comments like, 'I guess I have to go back to Africa now,' or about being worried their parents would disappear," said Julie Lowe, the school's physical education teacher. "It was fearful."

Flags displaying students' home countries line the upstairs hallway of the community school, and school signs are written in both English and Spanish to help some students' families find their way around. Kids born and raised in Knoxville attend school at Lonsdale, too.

"I have learned so much through all these different cultures and I am so thankful," Lowe said. "One-hundred seventy-two kids were out for the Day Without Immigrants protest last week, and it just made me realize that I could not work in a school without them. A lot was missing that day."

So many backgrounds meshing together have made the school into a kind of neutral zone.

"We hear about the divides that take place in the larger communities, whether that's larger Knoxville or just larger Lonsdale, and we're incredibly fortunate that here among our kids, those divides don't really exist as much," Lautner said. "They're able to come in and feel very secure in the friendships they have here."

That makes immigration crackdowns less partisan in the neighborhood: the community was impacted by deportations during the Obama administration too. Three years ago several students' fathers were taken in the middle of the night. The kids still came to school the next day.

Even still, rhetoric surrounding President Donald Trump's 2016 campaign and the Department of Homeland Security's illegal immigration enforcement roll-out Tuesday have given rise to concerns. Students as young as 6 years old have stopped speaking Spanish in public. Some students have been held back from field trips and fewer parents are dropping by to pick their kids up in person.

State Rep. John Ragan, R-Oak Ridge, said he thinks the Immigration and Customs Enforcement roll-out's real impact on Tennessee will take a while to be felt.

"The administration has made it clear they're more intent on focusing on the criminal element of the illegal population," Ragan said. "You have people who have broken the law to be in our country to start with. If they commit another crime, they've now broken multiple laws, and I think there has to be some sanction from the government to say this is unacceptable."

The Department of Homeland Security's plan prioritizes the deportation of illegal immigrants who have been convicted of a crime, but it also instructs all Customs and Border Control and ICE agents to quickly capture any undocumented immigrants they encounter.

Fran Ansley, an attorney who works with Allies of Knoxville's Immigrant Neighbors (AKIN), said she has seen the policy generate fear, even though how it will play out is unclear.

"It's all in the executive orders signed in January," Ansley said. "It is not overblown. This is huge. They'll say they're putting priority on criminals. That's in line with the policy that Obama had of saying we want to deport felons, not moms. There are many crimes that are really, if you will, are crimes that as an undocumented immigrant you cannot help but commit, such as the crime of driving without a license."

Lawyers from AKIN joined the Centro Hispano, a nonprofit that educates immigrants and helps ease their transition to the U.S., at Lonsdale Elementary School for a panel to answer questions from immigrant families in the area.

"We really wanted to just see that everyone could come and see what are the things to worry about, what are the things not to worry about, what the law says," said school Principal Wendy Hansard. "There were a lot of rumors and misinformation in the community and we just wanted to be clear to our families about what the law says, and to let those who are here legally know what protections they've got under the law."

Claudia Caballero, Centro Hispano's executive director, said family stability is the key concern.

"It's tearing families apart," she said. "Sometimes everybody in a family but the father is documented. Ninety percent of the kids are documented. Where do the kids go? They go into foster care. If an undocumented parent is driving home from work and runs a red light, is that a reason to tear the family apart?"

Immigrant and refugee families turned to Lautner, the community school coordinator, to plan for the worst.

"We make sure that our families feel comfortable coming to us to ask for support in whatever they might need," she said. "For some of our American families, that may be clothing support, it may be medical support, it may mean that they need to have transportation to the dentist. For some of our immigrant and refugee families, it may mean they want to set up action plans for if a parent in the home is removed."

In the meantime, the school tries to be a neutral, safe space for the entire community, Lautner said.

"That pertains to our students from immigrant and refugee families and students from families who do feel vindicated and that these policies are a step in the right direction. Our doors are open to all of these kids and their families."

Students of all backgrounds perhaps bond the most on the soccer field. Since Lonsdale is a community school, students play against each other in a soccer club instead of on a school team.

"You would think it would cause a lot of arguments and fussing but it doesn't," said Lowe, the PE teacher. "The kids love it. Soccer is a common denominator through all cultures. Color and background don't matter out there. They're all working together. They've got something they all genuinely love, and it's so powerful."