(Headline USA) A Rhode Island assistant principal encouraged faculty members to donate money to help a student pay off a cartel that trafficked him into the U.S., according to emails.
In an email shared to Twitter, Mount Pleasant High School Assistant Principal Stefani Harvey asked her colleagues to help an unnamed student pay off a $5,000 debt to a “coyote.” She claimed the boy was $2,000 short of the necessary payment.
“We have a student who came to America with ‘Coyote’ which is a group that helps people,” Harvey wrote in the email. “This group gives you a time frame to make a payment of $5000 dollars to those, who bring them to the states.”
Harvey said the student needed to raise the money by Feb. 1.
“Coyote” is slang for smugglers who traffic immigrants across the southern border for cash.
It looks like Mount Pleasant High School in Rhode Island is soliciting donations from teachers to pay a debt to a cartel that trafficked a student. pic.twitter.com/1LcZuR051d
— Nicole Solas Domestic Terrorist! (@Nicoletta0602) January 27, 2023
Shortly after the email went viral, Mount Pleasant High School Principal Tiffany Delaney shut down the fundraiser, calling it “not appropriate.”
“I was informed there was an email seeking financial support for one of our students,” Delaney wrote. “I appreciate the faculty and staff contributing to a cause that supports a student, but the nature of the request is not appropriate.”
The principal of Mount Pleasant High School in Rhode Island then sent an email to all faculty and staff saying "the nature of the request is not appropriate."
Does "not appropriate" mean illegal? pic.twitter.com/3zSVJv7fkv
— Nicole Solas Domestic Terrorist! (@Nicoletta0602) January 27, 2023
The school at first tried to deny that the emails were real.
“That is a fake email. We are on top of that. We are trying to figure out who generated that and why. We do not have a student that is being human trafficked,” a school official told the Daily Caller.
However, Providence Public School District spokesman Nick Domings confirmed the emails were authentic and said a probe into the issue has been launched.
“I can confirm that the email in question was sent to staff at Mount Pleasant High School,” Domings said in a statement. “The school’s principal immediately took steps to have a retraction issued when she learned of the email. The Providence Public School District is now investigating.”
