A Freedom of Information Act request has revealed that Stefani Harvey, an assistant principal at Mount Pleasant High School in Providence, R.I., consciously solicited donations from coworkers to pay violent human traffickers who smuggled one of her students into the U.S.
"He only owes $2000 out of the $5000, but if he does not pay that by February 1, they will kill his family in his country," Harvey wrote in an email to colleagues obtained by Parents Defending Education, a nonprofit that advocates transparency in education.
“We have a student who came to America with [a] ‘Coyote[.]’ [W]hen they come illegal, they usually give them a time frame to make a payment of $5,000 dollors [sic] to those, who bring them illegal.”
The emails do not mention any effort to contact the police about the threat to the student and his family. Mount Pleasant High School did not immediately respond when asked whether any school personnel contacted the police when they became aware of the situation.
As National Review previously reported, Assistant Principal Harvey sent out a mass email to the Mount Pleasant community in January asking to raise thousands of dollars to pay the debt of an illegal migrant studying at the school. "We have a student who came to America with 'Coyote', which is a group that helps people. This group gives you a time frame to make a payment of $5000 to those, who bring them into the states."
"Our student needs our urgent support to raise another $2,000 to meet his goal of $5,000 by February 1st, 2023," she added in the letter.
While she refers to “coyotes” as “groups that help people” in her public solicitation, she acknowledged in her newly obtained internal email to colleagues that the group would kill the student’s family if he didn’t pay the outstanding balance.
So-called “Coyotes” are human traffickers who exploit vulnerable people. They smuggle illegal immigrants across the Southern Border — often at the behest of drug cartels — in exchange for a fee. People relying on coyotes experience disproportionately high rates of sexual violence and sometimes die as a result of neglect and poor conditions.
“The assistant principal’s email demonstrates a complete lack of knowledge that Coyotes are criminal human smugglers,” Nicki Neily, the founder and president of Parents Defending Education, wrote on Wednesday afternoon.
“The subsequent attempt by a Providence Public School District Board Member to minimize what happened while casting anyone asking questions as ‘right wing extremists’ is also appalling but also not surprising.”
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