Benefits reportedly include boots for lunch.
Photo by Farhad Taporevala
On September 12, Vista Logan High School, located in San Diego’s South Bay region, reported its highest record of student absences since the beginning of the school year. “It’s concerning,” Stu Pidley, Vista Logan High School’s principal, expressed. “About two-thirds of our student population had parents calling in to report them unable to come in for school; either due to illness, or doctor’s appointments. Some didn’t even give a reason! We ended up having to cancel the career fair.”
The career fair, one of Vista Logan High’s “highly anticipated yearly traditions” according to Principal Pidley, invites professionals from the community to “encourage student curiosity and foster passion in a future career.” This year, in addition to firefighters, doctors, and veterinarians from the community, Vista Logan High invited the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
With the start of the school year, ICE has shifted their engagement efforts towards student recruitment. According to Whitney Supreme, the newly hired chair of ICE’s Outreach and Recruitment Department, ICE is “still not seeing the recruitment numbers [they] would like.” Earlier recruitment efforts included posting advertisements “created by our brilliant team of AI artists” on ICE’s X (formerly known as Twitter) account, and promoting benefits such as student loan payment. “After an initial wave of recruits, we haven’t seen the numbers change the way we’d like them,” explained Supreme. “The President wants to see more dangerous criminals being taken off our good American streets, and to do that we need more agents working with us. That means more propa— I mean promotion!”
On September 5, ICE announced it would be lowering education entry qualifications from a high school diploma to “some high school experience.” “We have been invaded by criminals and predators,” ICE said in a Xeet. “We don’t need our warriors to know calculus or literature to get rid of undesirables. The time to act is now!”
“I got the idea from some of my military buddies,” Supreme explained on a podcast. “They’re always getting swathes of brave patriots to fill their ranks. I realized we need to get them while they’re still young and impressionable, but also anxious about their futures and desperate to not pay thousands for a college education.”
“They can always go back to get their GED,” Supreme continued. “Or not! It’s not like it helps in this job market.”
According to Supreme, the campaign has not yet seen the success he anticipated. “For some reason, students don’t really wanna talk to us. It’s strange,” she added. “We’ve gotten reports that students are skipping school to avoid us. I’m here to assure everyone they have nothing to fear if they are good, God-fearing red-blooded white pe— I mean, Americans.”
Since the cancellation of the career fair, Principal Pidley has faced heavy backlash for his decision to invite ICE into the high school, with students, parents, and the broader community coming together to call for his resignation.
“It’s reprehensible that Principal Pidley would allow ICE to enter our Vista Logan community. We’re here to learn, not fear for the safety and livelihoods of friends and families, or see our peers be bribed into selling us out for student loan forgiveness and financial stability,” said one student who wished to remain anonymous.
"Annelise" walked out of the sea thirty years ago and they have looked back multiple times since! When he is not writing and editing satire, she enjoys arts and crafts and taking long strolls on the MC Escher stairs.
