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President Donald Trump has made deporting immigrants without legal status in the U.S. a top priority. Many schools, students, and families have questions about what that means for them.
Confusion has been especially acute since Trump officials cleared the way for immigration arrests to happen at schools, child care centers, school bus stops, and playgrounds. Previously, the federal government had significant limits on immigration enforcement in these areas.
Chalkbeat spoke with half a dozen immigration and legal experts to try to answer some of the most pressing questions.
Can ICE arrest people at schools?
Yes. On Jan. 20, the Trump administration got rid of a longstanding policy that limited when immigration agents could make arrests near schools, hospitals, churches, and other “sensitive locations.” In the past, agents generally had to get permission from a supervisor and show there was some kind of imminent safety threat to enter these places. Now, they can just use their discretion.
But there are several challenges to the policy in court, including at least one from a school district.
Denver Public Schools is seeking to block the Trump administration from carrying out the new policy. In its lawsuit, the school district argued the federal policy change caused a decrease in student attendance, especially at schools that serve many new immigrant students. The district also said it had spent “significant time and resources” training staff on what to do if ICE showed up and reaching out to families worried about sending their kids to school.
In response, the Trump administration said there had been no raids at Denver schools, or any other schools, and that the policy change hadn’t caused the district much harm. On Friday, a federal judge decided not to temporarily block arrests at or near schools while the lawsuit continues.
A similar lawsuit that applies to religious institutions, not schools, led a judge to temporarily block the Trump administration from making immigration arrests at or near 1,700 places of worship across the country. A federal judge said allowing ICE to enter houses of worship without a warrant and no “meaningful limitations or safeguards” was likely illegal.
There has not been a final decision in either case, and decisions could be appealed to a higher court.
Is ICE planning on raiding schools?
This is unlikely, several immigration experts told Chalkbeat. That’s because raiding a school could be both tactically difficult and politically damaging.
It’s usually easier to make immigration arrests at a work site, courthouse, or by picking someone up as they leave a local jail.
“Unless there is an imminent threat of a child or a teacher or someone who works at the school is going to cause imminent danger to others, I see no reason to execute some sort of ICE arrest in a school, outside out the political immediacy of trying to chill communities,” said Jason Houser, who served as ICE’s chief of staff under President Joe Biden.
Ken Cuccinelli, who served as the deputy secretary for homeland security during the first Trump administration, said he believed immigration agents would “tend to avoid” enforcement activities at schools and other sensitive locations.
“They know not to kick the door in at a school,” said Cuccinelli, who wrote the immigration section of Project 2025, a conservative policy playbook that the second Trump administration has followed, and is now a senior fellow at the Center for Renewing America, a conservative think tank.
Conservatives and liberals alike say images of arrests happening at schools would likely not play well with the public. Audio of immigrant children crying in detention facilities who’d been separated from their families helped bring an end to that policy during the first Trump administration. Trump has said that images of immigrant mothers and children boarding buses would make it harder to deport them.
“I think that we are not going to see enforcement on schools precisely for this reason,” said Hector Villagra, the vice president of policy advocacy and community education at MALDEF, a civil rights group, at a January press briefing. “I think the administration knows well that images of ICE agents at schools causing havoc on a school site would be a disaster politically. It would be the child separation situation all over again — sounds and images that they do not want publicized.”
When ICE has taken action near schools, was it more likely to target children or adults?
ICE agents have typically targeted adults, not children, at or near schools.
The biggest risk for an interaction with an ICE agent comes when a parent or caregiver is leaving a school after dropping off their child, said Austin Kocher, a research assistant professor at Syracuse University who has studied anti-deportation activism.
Last week in Chicago, for example, an adult in a vehicle was detained while dropping off two students at school. These kinds of arrests sometimes happened when the sensitive locations policy was in effect, too.
“The moment when an adult drives away in a vehicle without their kid with them, all of a sudden they’re the lowest-hanging fruit,” Kocher said.
But Cuccinelli said he did not “expect ICE to target drop off and pick up time so they can round up a bunch of people in transit.”
The most common reason ICE would visit a school, Cuccinelli said, would be to pick up students whose parents were arrested in a workplace raid or elsewhere as a way to keep the family unit together.
Still, it’s possible children and teens could be stopped on their way to or from school, work, or a school event. Last month, schools in Texas were told that the U.S. Border Patrol would not target school buses or children for immigration enforcement.
But last week in New Mexico, border patrol agents boarded a bus filled with Las Cruces Public Schools students to check their legal status. The Border Patrol told local reporters it was a routine stop of a charter bus without any school markings — the students were traveling to a swim competition.
Do schools have to let ICE in?
Under certain circumstances, yes.
Typically, local and state officials can bar entry to spaces that the public can’t just wander through, said Amanda Frost, who specializes in immigration and citizenship law at the University of Virginia’s School of Law. Public schools usually restrict their entrances and check the identity of visitors before they can enter the building.
If ICE has a warrant signed by a judge or magistrate, they can enter the school, immigration and legal experts said. But often ICE presents an administrative warrant signed by ICE officials. That’s not good enough, Frost said, because it has to be signed by someone outside the executive branch of government.
“You can’t access non-public spaces if you’re a federal government officer or state officer without a judicial warrant,” Frost said. “That’s a Fourth Amendment to the Constitution limitation on searches and seizures.”
Some schools have said they will only permit ICE agents to enter the building if they have a warrant for a criminal offense. Illegally crossing the U.S. border is a civil offense, but if the person is deported and reenters, it can become a criminal one. It’s unclear that schools could deny ICE entry if they have a judicial warrant for a civil offense.
“To me, federal law is supreme,” Frost said.
Still, schools have the right to review and challenge the validity of a judicial warrant, Villagra said. And a warrant might allow an immigration agent to search a specific teen’s locker, for example, but that doesn’t mean ICE could then search the gym or school counselor’s office, Villagra said.
What should immigrant families know about their rights?
ImmSchools, a nonprofit that works with school districts to make schools welcoming for immigrant students, has “know your rights” guides for students and families in English, Spanish, Korean, Russian, Arabic, and Chinese. They include tips on seeking legal advice, how to create a family preparedness and child care plan, and what students and parents can do if they are stopped by an ICE agent.
The National Immigration Law Center also put together an FAQ for school leaders and educators about how they can protect students’ rights.
Some school districts have seen drops in attendance as families have kept their kids home for fear of encountering ICE. But immigrant rights advocates caution this decision isn’t free of risks either.
Several states have laws requiring children to attend school, and parents can be charged, fined, or punished in other ways if their children miss a lot of class. Truant children can be referred to juvenile court and lose their driving privileges in some states.
Kalyn Belsha is a senior national education reporter based in Chicago. Contact her at kbelsha@chalkbeat.org.
Kalyn Belsha 2025-03-08 01:28:00
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