Whitney Eulich

A member of the nongovernmental organization Otros Dreams en Acción's "pocha house" community strategizes how to best support potential deportees under Donald Trump's second administration.

Tucked on a quiet street in central Mexico City is a gathering space for pochos.

Historically speaking, the slang word for a Mexican who has lived a significant part of their life in the United States isn’t kind. It translates directly to “rotten fruit” and implies both poor Spanish skills and a perceived superiority complex.

But in a small conference room at the “pocha house,” a nongovernmental organization is accelerating the work it has done over the past decade to help deportees – and reframe the term pocho into something that means pride, resistance, and resilience. The work of Otros Dreams en Acción (ODA) couldn’t come soon enough. U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has promised to expel mass numbers of unauthorized immigrants his first day in office.

ODA joins other civil society groups across Mexico preparing a massive reintegration effort, by publishing information on how to access schools and jobs, or by working to shape attitudes towards deportees and toward the act of rebuilding lives more broadly. Experts say those efforts are critical at this time of transition since the Mexican government’s response to the uptick in deportations over the past 15 years has been reactionary – and this wave could set records.

Whitney Eulich

The NGO Otros Dreams en Acción's "pocha house" community holds a recent strategy meeting about how to best support potential deportees under Donald Trump's second administration. The walls of this Mexico City space are covered in poetry and artwork about migration and deportation.

“Truly those who take charge of the reintegration of deportees are civil society organizations and family networks, for those who have them,” says Nuty Cárdenas Alaminos, an associate professor at Mexico’s Center for Research and Teaching in Economics whose research focuses on deportation and the reintegration of returnees.

Filling the void

An estimated 12 million unauthorized immigrants reside in the U.S., and that’s likely an undercount. If Mr. Trump follows through on his promises, the vast majority of those deported are expected to be Mexican, the nationality of almost 40% of unauthorized immigrants in 2022.

Mexico has experience with mass deportations, as recently as the administration of Barack Obama, whom some referred to as “the deporter in chief” for the estimated 5 million people deported between 2009 and 2017. Mr. Trump in his first term and President Joe Biden also racked up significant deportation numbers at roughly 1.5 million deportees in each four-year term (through fiscal year 2024), according to the Migration Policy Institute. Mr. Biden’s tally is closer to 4.4 million if including Title 42 expulsions during the pandemic.

Jae C. Hong/AP/File

A group of Hispanic people watches a television broadcast of President Barack Obama's speech on immigration at a Mexican restaurant, Nov. 20, 2014, in Los Angeles.

One lesson learned for researchers – and the Mexican government – over the past 15 years has been that preparing for deportations needs to begin long before people start arriving back.

The more than 50 Mexican consulates in the U.S. have reinforced programs over the past several years offering legal assistance to their citizens. And in recent weeks they’ve created links between schools and legal firms, and contracted more than 2,500 legal professionals to support consular services for Mexicans in the U.S. without authorization or in legal limbo.

But inside Mexico, state and federal governments have provided little training or policy proposals. That’s why ODA has called a meeting on a chilly evening in late December, with butcher paper and markers to brainstorm ideas in English and Spanish. The attendees include those previously deported or forced to return to Mexico, academics and professionals, and a slew of volunteers. They discuss publishing information packets outlining basic first steps for reintegration into Mexico or creating a registry of returnees willing to help new arrivals with schools and jobs in cities across Mexico.

The group, formed 10 years ago, last year successfully advocated for lifting the Mexican government requirement for school transcripts to be officially stamped before giving children from abroad the right to enter Mexican public schools – a barrier that had vexed returning families, says Leni Álvarez, the ODA co-director.

Julio Cortez/AP/File

A bus carrying migrants goes through a checkpoint before deporting them into Mexico at the McAllen-Hidalgo International Bridge, March 20, 2021, in Hidalgo, Texas.

She was brought to the U.S. at age 2 and grew up saying the U.S. Pledge of Allegiance every morning at school. When her family had to return to Mexico amid pressure on unauthorized immigrants and the financial crisis, she recalls a bureaucratic nightmare trying to get admitted to the Mexican school system, and a general sense of not belonging in the country of her birth.

So tonight her focus is on action. “How can we attend to this population this time around?” she asks the group gathered. “And in a sustainable way, so that we don’t burn out?”

Beauty in rebuilding

This question echoes across Mexican society. Deportation has turned one couple in Mexico into social media influencers poised to help those now at risk of being kicked out of the U.S.

In May 2020, Candice and Fidel, who only use their first names for privacy, started sharing on social media details of their family’s experience rebuilding their lives in Mexico following Fidel’s 2016 deportation from the U.S. Candice, an American, fields many logistical questions – about 50 to 100 daily. But she also shares across her platforms under the name _laguerita70 stories of the family building its “forever” home in the central state of Puebla where Fidel left for the U.S. when he was 17. She runs errands with their three children (two of whom were born in Mexico) and learns to bake traditional Mexican treats.

“My goal is just to be there” for families experiencing deportation and putting down new roots, she says.

That psychological support – for returnees and Mexican society – can be just as important as the logistical. ODA has experimented with free mental health services for deportees who often face depression from the displacement. Humanitarian groups are also holding events to educate local communities that deportees need a helping hand – not stigmatization as criminals.

The pochos at this ODA strategy meeting are prepared to help in the work of shifting attitudes because they have the lived experience, they say. “The biggest tool of this new [Trump] administration is to terrorize and create uncertainty,” says one young returnee in a room with a sign on the door that reads “Resistance.” “We have to stand up to these challenges with creativity.”

Her fiery words are met by a sea of nodding heads. This is a group of individuals who say they are ready to stand up to the challenges coming their way like true pochos leaning into pride, resistance, and resilience – and a deep understanding of what it’s like to live both here, and there.

Brandon Fellows still insists he did nothing wrong on Jan. 6, 2021.

In his telling, he entered the U.S. Capitol “with permission from Capitol Police, and had a blast.” He acknowledges that he sat at a senator’s desk and smoked marijuana. But, he says, “Somebody just passed it to me, and heavily coerced me to take those two hits.”

“I hosted a really good party,” Mr. Fellows says of his Jan. 6 actions, adding, “Unfortunately, the FBI felt differently about it.”

According to the Justice Department, Mr. Fellows entered the Capitol building through a broken window, then “paraded” through a door holding a Trump 2020 flag. He was sentenced to 42 months – including five months for contempt over repeated outbursts during his trial – and was released from prison in May. Now, the former chimney repairman from Schenectady, New York, has become a regular presence at nightly vigils taking place outside the D.C. Central Detention Facility, where he was once held.

Linda Feldmann/The Christian Science Monitor

Brandon Fellows, a participant in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol who was released from prison last May, takes part in the nightly vigil for prisoners at the Central Detention Facility in Washington, Jan. 8, 2025.

On a frigid January night, Mr. Fellows was one of 10 people gathered outside the jail to support those still inside – about 20 prisoners, they say – for their participation in the Capitol riot. Prisoners can look out the window and see the vigil, flashing the indoor lights to signal their appreciation. Every night, a few are able to call a participant’s cellphone, which is amplified to the crowd via loudspeaker.

It’s a tight-knit, eclectic group that includes Micki Witthoeft, the mother of Ashli Babbitt, a Jan. 6 rioter who was shot dead by a Capitol Police officer; a military veteran known as 1791 Storm Trooper, who livestreams the nightly vigil; a retired Army medic who also runs a livestream; and several congregants from a local Chinese Christian church, including a retired federal employee named Dwight Yen.

Ms. Witthoeft started the nightly vigils on Aug. 1, 2022, after she says her daughter spoke to her in a dream.

Nearly 900 days later, she and other participants remain united in their belief that the 2020 election was stolen and that U.S. government oppression continues. Just two miles from the Capitol, these nightly gatherings reflect the intense devotion to Donald Trump shown by his most ardent supporters, which helped fuel the former president’s successful bid in November to take back the White House.

To law enforcement officers injured in the Jan. 6 mayhem, as well as members of Congress and others present in the Capitol that day who feared for their lives, such adulation for convicted rioters is not only misguided but also anathema to a civilized society.

“If January 6th was a day of love,” as President-elect Trump has said, “then MAGA extremists nearly loved me to death,” said retired Capitol Police Sgt. Aquilino Gonell at a web event last week marking the fourth anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack.

Jacquelyn Martin/AP

Retired Capitol Police officer Aquilino Gonell, who defended the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, is interviewed outside the Supreme Court, July 1, 2024, in Washington.

Sergeant Gonell has spoken out and written a book about the abuse he endured that day, including being hit with a flagpole and beaten by his own baton. More than 140 police officers were injured in the riot, and one died the next day of “natural causes,” according to the D.C. medical examiner. Four others died by suicide in the days and months after the riot.

But vigil participants are counting the days until Jan. 20, when Mr. Trump becomes president again. He has promised to pardon most, if not all, of the so-called J6ers.

Incoming Vice President JD Vance said Sunday on Fox News that those who committed violence “obviously” should not be pardoned. But expectations are high. Nearly 1,600 people were charged federally in connection with the riot.

What if Mr. Trump doesn’t pardon everybody?

“There’s a good chance the vigils will continue,” says Sherri Hafner, the retired Army medic who livestreams the nightly gatherings.

Ms. Hafner says she wasn’t at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and doesn’t know anyone who was. She was protesting with a different “freedom movement,” she says, for 34 days on the National Mall to “address our grievances to the government.” Then she heard about the nightly vigils, right as they started, and joined up.

She says she heard that many of those held here were decorated combat veterans. “I took an oath never to leave a man behind. I consider these guys my brothers,” says Ms. Hafner, a combat veteran herself.

Ms. Hafner also participated in a commemorative Jan. 6 march around the fence surrounding the Capitol last week. She handed out flowers to be laid at the fence in honor of Ms. Babbitt. Counterprotesters shouted epithets as they walked by, but the opposing groups kept it nonviolent.

Linda Feldmann/The Christian Science Monitor

Nicole Reffitt, wife of Jan. 6, 2021, riot participant Guy Reffitt, stands outside the D.C. Central Detention Facility on Dec. 24, 2024, and broadcasts a conversation she's having with a Jan. 6 prisoner inside the jail.

A leader of that march, Nicole Reffitt, is another organizer of the jailhouse vigils and the wife of J6er Guy Reffitt, a member of the antigovernment Three Percenter militia from Texas, who’s now incarcerated in Missouri, according to his wife. He carried a gun to the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, and was reported to the authorities by his son – a family drama that has been widely publicized. Mr. Reffitt did not enter the Capitol that day, but helped incite the crowd “into an unstoppable force,” a prosecutor said at his 2022 trial.

In an interview on Christmas Eve, when this reporter first visited the scene outside the D.C. jail, Ms. Reffitt paused as she sought to explain the message participants were trying to send by being out there, day after day.

“You know, really, I hope that it gives other people some courage. The J6 communities have gone through a lot. [It’s been] very polarizing,” Ms. Reffitt said. She hopes it “gives some community, some fellowship, encouragement.”

On that particular holiday eve, when about 20 people were gathered, the atmosphere was almost festive. A table was laden with food, a potluck organized by the Chinese church group.

The nightly rituals are structured in some ways like a religious service. The Pledge of Allegiance is recited. Prayers are offered. Over a sound system, the names of still-incarcerated J6ers are read aloud, and prisoners call vigil organizers from inside the D.C. jail to convey messages to their supporters. A recording of the chart-topping “Jan. 6 Prison Chorus” singing the National Anthem, with an overlay of Mr. Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance, is played.

Mr. Fellows, the former J6 prisoner, wasn’t there on Christmas Eve, but was happy to talk during the vigil on Jan. 8.

Is he expecting a pardon? Actually, he’d prefer a commutation, saying he wants to appeal his convictions. Looking ahead, Mr. Fellows is hoping to move to New Jersey and rebuild his chimney repair business. He says he’s thinking about joining a militia, both for the sense of community and for protection, in an increasingly unstable world.

“Being in a militia can be beneficial,” Mr. Fellows says, his red MAGA cap backward on his head. “You can join together, make a little neighborhood to protect yourselves, work on little projects together.”

“If it all crumbles – which some people say could happen...,” he continues, his voice trailing off. “Rome fell. Every empire’s fallen. We’ll eventually fall, too.”

When President-elect Donald Trump said last week that the United States needs Greenland “for national security” and refused to rule out military measures to get it, it raised eyebrows all over the world.

Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans quickly defended his comments. “The United States is not going to invade another country,” said Sen. James Lankford on “Meet the Press” Sunday. “The president speaks very boldly on a lot of things. We’ve seen this [is] how he’s done negotiations.”

But officials in Denmark – and Europe more broadly – don’t have the luxury of thinking that way.

For while the idea of the U.S. forcibly seizing control of Greenland may appear capricious, the possibility – however remote – raises challenges to international law, security alliances, and U.S.-European relations. France and Germany have responded with a seriousness typically reserved for Russia and China, emphasizing the importance of maintaining Europe’s borders as inviolable.

And even if Mr. Trump intends his Greenland gambit as a ploy to negotiate greater defense contributions from NATO allies, to Europeans his aggressive approach is not how allies should engage.

“The Europeans are taking it seriously,” says Célia Belin, head of the European Council on Foreign Relations’ office in Paris. “It is not just about Greenland. It is about the type of relationship that this president is trying to establish with Europe, which is not just transactional, but extortionist.”

A valuable but independent land

Mr. Trump already expressed interest in buying Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, during his first term.

The island’s appeal to the U.S. is its strategic location and resources. Positioned on the shortest route from North America to Europe, it is pivotal for U.S. military operations, especially in monitoring Russian naval activities and potential missile launches.

Greenland also boasts vast mineral deposits like lithium and rare earth elements, essential for advanced technologies and strategically valued by both the European Commission and Washington. The U.S. Geological Survey estimates 17.5 billion barrels of untapped oil and 148 trillion cubic feet of natural gas off its shores.

Greenland Prime Minister Múte Egede indicated Monday that his government is willing to bolster defense and mining ties with the U.S., but on its own terms. “Greenland’s independence is Greenland’s business, also in relation to the use of its land, so it is also Greenland that will decide what agreement we should come to,” he said at a press conference in Nuuk, Greenland’s capital.

Ritzau Scanpix/Thomas Traasdahl/Reuters/File

The United States already has a military presence in Greenland at Pituffik Space Base, formerly Thule Air Base, shown here Oct. 4, 2023.

The U.S. has a long-standing military presence in Greenland, notably the Pituffik Space Base. “What is even more unsettling is that this was a very cooperative relationship [between the U.S. and Greenland],” notes Dr. Belin. “There is no need to take over that region and put the stamp of the U.S. on it.”

Mr. Trump’s expansionist rhetoric is forcing Europeans to have conversations that were not even on the agenda. If backed with action, it potentially puts the U.S. on par with revanchist powers China and Russia. Dr. Belin says she is troubled by the focus on allies’ territories, as Mr. Trump has made similar remarks about Canada and Panama.

Stretching Europe’s resources

For now, Europe is in wait-and-see mode.

Denmark, which signed a defense cooperation agreement with the U.S. in 2023, has led the response and urged European nations not to overreact. It has stressed that it is for Greenland, governed as an autonomous territory, to decide its own fate.

French and German top officials warned against any attempt to change the “sovereign borders” of Europe by force. Italian Prime Minister Georgia Meloni, the sole European leader to have visited Mr. Trump at Mar-a-Lago, says she interpreted his remarks as primarily a message to Beijing. China has declared itself a “near-Arctic state” and is building new icebreaker ships with an eye on increasing its presence in the region, according to a NATO report.

Still, the bloc is struggling to present a unified front. “There is a disagreement at the top leadership in Europe,” says Dr. Belin. “Either you make this a moment to establish a balance of power, or you want to avoid the obstacle and talk about everything else the EU needs to talk about with the U.S., including trade, tariffs, Russia, and Ukraine.”

Karen Norris/Staff

Beatrice Gorawantschy, director of the Brussels office of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, a conservative think tank, says the European Union is more concerned about sustained U.S. military support to Ukraine than it is about questions on the sovereignty of Greenland, which is not formally part of the EU.

Many EU countries depleted large parts of their already-limited peacetime arms stockpiles to support Ukraine, arguing that they are not facing imminent threats themselves, she notes. The EU would stand no chance in any scenario where the EU needs to confront both Russia and the U.S.

“Supporting Greenland requires naval and air warfare capabilities over long distances and in an Arctic environment,” Dr. Gorawantschy says. “Only a few European countries with strong navies and air forces, including aircraft carriers, would be able to militarily intervene. ... Nuuk is over 3,500 kilometers away from Paris, Brussels, and Berlin.”

NATO keeping cool

But an attack on Greenland would compel other NATO allies to come to its defense. In a hypothetical military dustup between the two members of NATO, Denmark could invoke the alliance’s sacred mutual-defense clause against the U.S. Article 5 states that an attack on one is an attack on all.

Ritzau Scanpix/Ida Marie Odgaard/Reuters/File

The Royal Danish Navy frigate Triton sits off the shore of the Attu settlement in Greenland's Qeqertalik municipality, July 1, 2024.

So far, NATO officials dismiss the rhetoric as a bluff. “We’ve got enough other things that we’re focused on,” says one senior NATO official.

When it comes to Denmark, Mr. Trump’s refusal to rule out the use of military force regarding Greenland may be another example of his tendency to speak in abrasive ways to Europe about its need to do more, such as increasing defense spending, says Ian Lesser, a close NATO watcher who leads the Brussels office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The chances of “an actual military confrontation over Greenland are essentially nil,” he adds.

During his first term in office, Mr. Trump pushed NATO members to increase their spending to 2% of gross domestic product on defense, a goal that NATO estimates 23 of its 32 members should meet by 2025. How much of these increases are thanks to Mr. Trump’s threats versus Russian aggression and Chinese competition is hotly debated. Now the president-elect is pressing NATO members to contribute 5% of their GDP to the alliance.

Samuel Comé

Estância Nhaca (standing) and her mother, Joana Nhaca, pose outside their house in Maputo, Mozambique. Neither voted for the ruling Frelimo party's presidential candidate.

Estância Nhaca was born with rebellion in her blood.

In the 1970s, her grandfather fought for a guerrilla movement called Frelimo in Mozambique’s struggle for independence from Portugal. During the civil war that followed, her mother, Joana Nhaca, ran a Frelimo training center for female soldiers.

Estância knew her family members had put their lives on the line for her to live in a free Mozambique. Now, she felt, it was her turn.

Late last year, she joined the masses of demonstrators filling the streets in the capital, Maputo, in protest of the country’s heavily disputed presidential election.

“Povo no poder,” they chanted, loosely translating to “power to the people,” echoing the words of Mozambique’s first president, a Frelimo guerrilla commander named Samora Machel.

But now the fight was against Frelimo, the Frente de Libertação de Moçambique, which has transformed into a political party.

This past October, Frelimo leader Daniel Chapo won an election in which European Union observers noted the “unjust alteration” of votes. Since then, Mozambique has been roiled by once-in-a-generation protests in which more than 300 people have died, according to local civil society groups. Demonstrations, and police violence, continued during Mr. Chapo’s inauguration today.

“We can’t be held hostage by a single regime,” explains Estância. “There needs to be change.”

Carlos Uqueio/AP/File

A building displays ruling party posters in support of presidential candidate Daniel Chapo ahead of elections in Maputo, Mozambique, Oct. 6, 2024.

A similarly forceful generational political rupture is underway across the region. Young southern Africans like Estância grew up not with the injustice of colonialism, but with the poisons of poverty and corruption that followed it. Now, from South Africa to Botswana, they are increasingly turning their backs on the parties that led their liberation movements.

“People are simply tired,” says Borges Nhamirre, a Mozambique expert at the Institute for Security Studies, a think tank based in South Africa. “The young generation knows their history,” he says. And it tells them something simple: “They should be able to make change.”

The cost of liberation

Like all Mozambicans, the Nhacas know well what freedom costs.

Joana, Estância’s mother, grew up in the final years of Portuguese rule in Mozambique. Her family was among the 99% of Mozambicans deemed by the colonial government “non-civilizado” – uncivilized – subject to brutal forced labor and a humiliating racial hierarchy.

When she was a child, her father joined Frelimo. The group won its war against the Portuguese, leading the country to independence in 1975.

“It was the birth of a new world,” recalls Joana, who was 17 years old at the time.

But even at the moment of its birth, that new world was cracking apart. Less than a year after independence, civil war broke out between the socialist Frelimo and an anti-communist group called Renamo, bankrolled and trained by the white governments of neighboring Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and South Africa. Still a teenager, Joana enlisted with Frelimo’s military.

After the war ended in 1992, Joana remained fiercely loyal to Frelimo, which became the ruling party in Mozambique’s fledgling democracy.

But as she watched her children grow up in the country she had risked her life to create, her faith in Frelimo corroded. Instead of enjoying the equality and prosperity she had been promised, she says, she saw public services decay as political leaders flaunted their wealth. Poverty soared, and unemployment remained stubbornly high. A violent Islamist insurgency erupted in the north of the country.

Reuters

Supporters of opposition presidential candidate Venâncio Mondlane, defeated in recent elections, protest during the inauguration of Daniel Chapo.

“The party still has the name Frelimo, but there’s very little left of the socialist ideals of the liberation movement,” Mr. Nhamirre says.

The final straw for Joana, like many Mozambicans, came in 2019, when Frelimo’s Filipe Nyusi muscled his way into a second term as president by stuffing ballot boxes, giving votes to dead people, and intimidating the opposition.

It was at that moment, Joana says, that she gave up on Frelimo once and for all.

A country “without hope”

Mozambicans’ disenchantment with their liberation party mirrors a broader trend across southern Africa. Last year, voters in Botswana ousted the party that had ruled the country since 1966. And in South Africa’s election in May, the long-vaunted African National Congress saw its support slide below 50% for the first time since the end of apartheid in 1994.

This past October, many Mozambicans went to the polls in a similar mood. On the ballot beside Mr. Chapo of Frelimo was a fiery former banker and TV commentator named Venâncio Mondlane. His maverick style and promises of future prosperity captured the attention of young Mozambicans like Estância. At 23, she has not worked, except on her family’s farm, since she finished high school several years ago.

Regulo Cuna/Reuters

Mozambique opposition leader Venâncio Mondlane returns home in January 2025, after fleeing the country in the wake of hotly contested elections in October 2024.

“We’re living in a country without hope,” she says. After Mr. Chapo was declared the winner, she was among the millions who filled the streets, choking on tear gas as they marched on police firing live bullets into the crowds.

To date, at least 300 people have died in those protests. Three more were killed in demonstrations against the inauguration Wednesday morning, according to the Center for Democracy and Development, a local pro-democracy advocacy organization.

Standing beneath a massive bronze statue of the first president, Mr. Machel, Mr. Chapo appeared unmoved by the chaos unfolding nearby. Addressing a heavily guarded crowd, he explained that his presidency “marks the beginning of a new phase in ... the construction of ... a prosperous nation,” a story that began with “the best sons who dared to fight for freedom” in the liberation war.

At home on their farm just outside the city, Joana and Estância watched the speech on television, disenchanted. But if there was one thing Estância had learned from her mother, it was not to give up.

“It’s not over yet,” she says.

A building within walking distance of the Mississippi River may represent the future of the school choice movement.

The Dubuque Dream Center’s Dream Academy debuted this fall in Iowa, opening its doors to 88 students in kindergarten through seventh grade. All are from low-income households and receive $7,826 through the state’s education savings account program. 

With funding available for private school tuition, parents quickly signed up their children for Dream Academy’s smaller class sizes and faith-based curriculum. Demand outpaced leadership’s initial plan to start with only 30 students.

“For them, it’s a slam dunk. It’s like, ‘Praise the Lord!’” says Robert Kimble, executive director and head of school. 

It’s too soon to say whether the growing school choice shift toward private options has improved academic outcomes, especially for the nation’s most vulnerable students. The coming months, however, could set the tone for the movement’s future, as well as its effect on public schools in the United States.

State legislative sessions are ramping up, and President-elect Donald Trump is returning to the White House. He hasn’t shied away from supporting private school choice – even hinting at a federal effort to expand it. Meanwhile, Mr. Trump and his allies have embarked on a mission to lessen federal involvement in other areas of education, such as dismantling the Department of Education.

Public perception is more difficult to pin down. In November, voters in three states – Kentucky, Colorado, and Nebraska – rejected school choice-related ballot measures. But parents are increasingly signaling that they want more flexibility.

A poll released last week by the National Parents Union found that 71% of parents support using state public funding to send their children to whatever education setting they deem the best fit – a public school, private school, homeschool, or religious school. A majority of parents also think schools receiving any form of government funding should not be allowed to discriminate on the basis of age, race, gender, sexuality, and abilities.

Nearly three dozen states already have passed some form of private school choice, such as voucher programs, education savings accounts, or tax credit scholarships. And a dozen states offer a universal program, meaning families, regardless of income, can access public funds for private options. That expansion is likely to continue.

“Texas is still a bit of a wild card, but I think you’ll see continued efforts, especially in Republican-leading states,” says Douglas N. Harris, professor of economics and director of the National Center for Research on Education Access and Choice at Tulane University.

Why did the ballot measures fail?

Nebraska voters repealed a program, passed by state lawmakers earlier that year, that allocated $10 million toward scholarships for students to attend a private school. In neighboring Colorado, voters rejected an amendment that would have enshrined school choice in the state constitution. And further east, Kentucky voters shot down a measure that would have allowed public tax dollars to flow toward private or charter schools.

Liz Cohen, policy director of FutureEd at Georgetown University, cautions against viewing the ballot outcomes as a bellwether for the school choice movement. Policymaking in state legislatures might just be easier to accomplish than direct votes at the ballot box.

“Most families send their kids to their neighborhood public schools, and most of them are more or less satisfied with that,” she says. “So they don’t have a lot of incentive to vote for something that they likely have been told is going to threaten the thing that they’re already satisfied with.”

Justin Wan/Lincoln Journal Star/AP/File

Paul Schulte, a sponsor of the Support Our Schools Nebraska petition drive, delivers a box of signatures to the Nebraska secretary of state, Aug. 30, 2023, in Lincoln. Nebraska voters in fall 2024 partially repealed funding for private school tuition using taxpayer dollars.

In Nebraska, families that received money through the state’s private school scholarship program are on the hunt for a new source. That includes Katie and John Zach, whose four oldest children attend a Catholic elementary school in Lincoln.

Ms. Zach says the money has been a lifeline. She’s a stay-at-home mother, and her husband teaches at a Catholic high school. Given the family’s modest budget, she says the state scholarship funding made it less financially perilous to give their children a private Catholic education.

“We didn’t have to choose between repairing our fridge last month or continuing to be able to let our kids go to this school, sign up for basketball – whatever it may be,” she says.

The program’s repeal could catalyze a new approach to bring back private school choice, says Jeremy Ekeler, executive director of Opportunity Scholarships of Nebraska.

“It has been very much a policy and legislative battle,” he says. “I think we’re going to see a lot more grassroots parent advocacy.”

What to watch in the coming year

The policy battle, however, could also make its way to Washington.

During President-elect Trump’s first term in office, his education secretary, Betsy DeVos, championed the so-called Education Freedom Scholarship. The $5 billion proposal would have awarded tax credits to businesses or individuals who donated a portion of their taxable income to organizations providing scholarships. It never gained enough traction in Congress. Now Republicans have full control of the U.S. House and Senate.

Mr. Trump referenced reviving a federal attempt while announcing Linda McMahon, co-founder and former president of World Wrestling Entertainment, as his next education secretary. In a Truth Social post, he wrote that “Linda will fight tirelessly to expand ‘Choice’ to every State in America.”

If successful, the simultaneous expansion of the federal government’s role related to private schools and contraction of the Education Department would dramatically alter the tapestry of America’s  public education system as it exists today.

“Those two things are in tension with each other, so it’ll be interesting to see whether they just kind of ignore that and are so determined to expand private school choice, that they do it anyway,” Dr. Harris says.

School choice supporters and opponents will be keeping a close eye on Texas, where Gov. Greg Abbott has expressed confidence about the votes needed to pass a voucher-style program this year. The reliably red state’s Legislature has resisted launching any such program, largely because of rural Republicans’ opposition. In tiny towns across the Lone Star State, the public school is the bedrock of the community.

If North Carolina is any indication, state lawmakers hold considerable power over this issue.

In September, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper vetoed a bill that would have ramped up funding for private school vouchers, which do not have an income cap. Governor Cooper decried the expanded funding in his veto letter. He described it as a “scheme” that lacked accountability and would hurt public schools, especially in rural areas. 

But the Republican-dominated state legislature overrode his veto in November, sending $463 million toward the Opportunity Scholarship program.

In Florida, the price tag has been even higher. The Education Law Center and Florida Policy Institute estimate private school vouchers are costing the Sunshine State $3.9 billion this school year. Many of those students were already enrolled in private schools.

Demand boosting supply of private schools

The proliferation of taxpayer-funded choice programs has also put a squeeze on the private education marketplace.

The Drexel Fund, a grantmaking organization, is playing a behind-the-scenes role in the movement as “demand from families outstrips the supply of private school seats,” says Mark Gleason, managing partner. It helps aspiring education entrepreneurs launch or expand private schools that primarily enroll students from underserved communities.

Since its founding in 2015, the organization has funded more than 23,000 private school seats, including those at the Dream Academy. Mr. Gleason says they are actively working in a dozen states, mostly those that have a voucher or education savings account program. The Drexel Fund expects to grow that number to 20. 

Back in Iowa, the Dream Academy’s students and staff have returned from winter break. Mr. Kimble says the smaller class sizes – 10 to 15 students – are reducing behavioral problems and increasing learning time. He hopes that’s a recipe to erase long-standing racial achievement gaps and end poverty cycles. 

“Let’s see what we can do,” he says. “Let’s do something different.”

This morning, as darkness slowly, but surely, turned into light, I woke up my children with these reassuring words: “Butterfly in the sky, I can go twice as high.” In some ways, it’s a rite of passage transcending from generation to generation. If I had to craft an imaginary landscape out of childhood staples, I would be standing on Sesame Street in Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood with a Reading Rainbow in the distance.

That image, sadly, is fading, and not because of the sands of time. Those shows are withering in political and social winds. Each of them, created on PBS and trailblazers in children’s educational programming, is without a home. PBS itself, meanwhile, is facing a skeptical political administration and Congress, which have vowed to defund it.

These shows didn’t just pioneer ways to teach children their letters and numbers. They created a set of tenets rooted in love – the science of sharing. During the holidays, I smiled when I saw actor Michael B. Jordan’s appearance on “Sesame Street,” which highlighted Kwanzaa. I was subsequently met with sad news, that Max would not renew its deal with Sesame Workshop for new episodes. The final season will start streaming Jan. 16, with an archive of shows available through 2027. PBS also airs past episodes. According to Variety, Max is pivoting “away from children’s content and more toward adult and family programming.”

Whether this is the end of “Sesame Street” has yet to be determined. But for right now, Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, and Oscar don’t have a home for the first time in over 50 years. And one thing is for certain – the neighborhood is changing. That famous street is modeled after New York’s Harlem, and I remember being awestruck on a recent walking tour of those storied streets, full of famous brownstones and beautiful culture. For all of its majesty, it, too, was a scene under siege, worn down by gentrification and the auspices of capitalism.

I can’t escape the familiarity of such erasure, especially when it is tinged with the voices of children. I think about the collective groans of people who complain about playful youth at restaurants, or crying toddlers on airplanes. “Leave them at home” is rarely a viable option, but the more I ponder society’s views on kids, I’m left with an unfortunate reality: We are phasing out the fundamental needs of children.

It’s not only that we are raising children to grow up at warp speed – we’re also raising them to be bullies, or at best, “tough-skinned.” Emi Nietfeld, a writer and co-host of “This Alien I Grew,” a parenting podcast, recently penned a commentary about “The Parents Who ‘Don’t Teach Sharing,’” an honestly harrowing bit inquiring about whether guardians should accommodate kids’ developmental stages, or cater to their worst impulses. It is beautifully written, and just as heartbreaking, because it talks about the deterioration of our collective moral fiber.

In my estimation, this is where science should enter the fray, marrying with our sense of right and wrong. A few days earlier, I watched the 2018 documentary “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” about Fred Rogers and his iconic show. While I fought off tears and periodically pointed at the TV in agreement, a word came across my screen that was associated with him: “radical.” Folks might not see that Mister Rogers was a radical preacher, but that’s because we’ve collectively sullied the term. “Radical” is not synonymous with “extremist.” It is akin to far-reaching and impactful change. All of my favorite preachers were radical in some way – whether it be Martin Luther King Jr. and his rebukes of capitalism, or the Rev. James Cone, who had the audacity to teach Black liberation theology.

Mister Rogers, with his cardigan drip, that sweater-wearing prowess, was a fiery change-maker, as noted in Chantel Tattoli’s article about his college days in The Paris Review. “Rogers sure as hell was political – the Neighborhood messaged countercultural values like diplomacy over militancy – and he himself got vocal when the wellbeing of children was at stake,” reads one key quote from Michael Long, author of “Peaceful Neighbor: Discovering the Countercultural Mister Rogers.”

What shines through, whether via religion or science, is the golden rule. The “Reading Rainbow” documentary, “Butterfly in the Sky,” proudly discussed how the show was crafted by educators – for educators. Part of the genius of “Sesame Street,” and a large reason for its sense of diversity, is because it was largely influenced by Black psychiatrists, most notably Chester Pierce. The goal of these shows, or rather, the gold, is self-worth.

It’s why, I sense, that each of these shows has a singular opponent – the politics of fear. Fox News once called Mister Rogers an “evil, evil man” for teaching people they were special, “just the way you are.” “Reading Rainbow” was undone by the politics of the No Child Left Behind Act. The current limbo of “Sesame Street” aligns with a political climate that seeks to destroy diversity initiatives and questions whether teaching children to be generous and to share will help them.

It’s easier to destroy something than to build it. Crafting takes time, and more importantly, it takes love. The politics of empathy aren’t just essential to finding “Sesame Street” a home. They are a light out of darkness for a society that’s losing its way on childhood.

REUTERS/Erica Dischino

Wisconsin resident Cary Pallas marks his ballot in primary election Douglas County, Wisconsin, April 2, 2024.

The outcomes in two legal cases concerning Donald Trump have left many Americans wondering whether one of the country’s founding principle - that no one is above the law - still holds.

On Tuesday last week, the Department of Justice released part of a final report dismissing charges of criminal election interference despite detailing what department prosecutors saw as sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. Three days later, the judge in a New York trial that found Mr. Trump guilty of felony business fraud issued a sentence of unconditional discharge.

The decisions underscore the extraordinary legal challenges arising from Mr. Trump’s status as a former and future president. Yet the written records in the two cases also show that punishment is not the only expression of accountability. In democracies, the rule of law is often upheld in less tangible ways – through strict adherence to judicial decorum, impartiality, and restraint.

“This Court recognizes the importance of considering and balancing the seemingly competing factors before it,” wrote Judge Juan Merchan in his sentence ruling. He acknowledged the need to protect the executive branch from legal distraction and the Supreme Court’s expansion last summer of presidential immunity.

But the judge stopped short of dismissing the 34-count guilty verdict, as Mr. Trump had sought, arguing that “The sanctity of a jury verdict and the deference that must be accorded to it, is a bedrock principle in our Nation’s jurisprudence.” To set aside the judgment of ordinary citizens, he wrote, “would undermine the Rule of Law in immeasurable ways.”

In his report on the investigation into electoral interference, special counsel Jack Smith crafted a detailed account of Mr. Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election results through deception. Yet he put constitutional norms above his own evident disappointment at halting the case.

“The election results raised for the first time the question of the lawful course when a private citizen who has already been indicted is then elected President,” he wrote. “The Department [of Justice] determined that the case must be dismissed without prejudice before Mr. Trump takes office.”

Quoting John Adams, Mr. Smith observed, “Our work rested upon the fundamental value of our democracy that we exist as ‘a government of laws, and not of men.’”

In his recent annual end-of-year report on the federal judiciary, Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts included a brief observation. “It is not in the nature of judicial work to make everyone happy,” he wrote.

Although Mr. Trump’s return to the White House on Monday likely marks the end of legal attempts to hold him accountable for past actions, the documents in those cases may yet help shape new democratic guardrails through future legislative debates – as happened after Watergate. They record the value of integrity in preserving the rule of law.