Why is ICE making arrests so close to schools? San Diego grapples with enforcement surge
Top Takeaways
- Immigration arrests of parents and students have been reported feet away from schools and a community college.
- Teachers and school leaders say the arrests are increasing fear among parents and students, and in some cases affecting attendance.
- School staff have scrambled to contact other adults to pick up children and connect families to legal aid and mental health support.
On Sept. 8, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents detained a second-year student at San Diego City College as he drove next to campus and chased another student onto the school grounds as he fled on foot.
The following day, ICE agents arrested the mother and father of a 2-year-old and a 5-year-old about a block away from their children’s San Diego school, just after they had dropped the children off. School staff had to move their car and contact a family friend to pick the children up after both parents were taken into ICE custody.
And last Thursday, ICE agents detained a father outside a San Diego Head Start daycare after he dropped off his 2-year-old daughter. He reportedly threw his car keys and ID to school staff during the arrest.
A flurry of immigration enforcement activity in California’s second-largest city has sparked outrage among educators and local officials who have questioned the presence of federal agents several feet from school doorsteps. The ICE surge, they say, has sown fear and panic among families, and kept some students home from school.
“This level of anxiety and fear for basic safety and security, from a child’s perspective, is creating chaos,” said Allison Ohle, executive director of DEEP San Diego, an organization that partners with schools to increase literacy proficiency. “It’s an impossible environment to effectively teach children when they are afraid, rightly, that their families will be torn apart on the way to school.”
The Trump administration said over the summer that it expected to increase the number of ICE arrests, with some reports of a goal of 2,000 arrests per day. Immigration detentions surged in San Diego in July, according to federal data obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by the San Diego Union-Tribune. Some of that enforcement activity has happened near schools, according to recent reports.
A kindergarten teacher who teaches at a school in San Diego’s City Heights neighborhood said one of her 5-year-old students had been fearful of ICE since school began in August. Then one of the child’s family members was detained.
The teacher said the child gets nervous during pickup time while they wait for her parents outside the school.
“‘Are we safe here? Should we go back inside?’” she said the child asks her.
The teacher, who asked to only use her first name, Allison, to protect her student, said she does her best to reassure the child.
“I always tell my students my job is to teach them to read and write and learn to do math, but my No. 1 job is to keep them safe,” Allison said. “I’m not going to lie, though. When I say goodbye to her at the end of the day, it hits my heart, because I hope that I see her again.”
A teacher at Hamilton Elementary, also in the City Heights neighborhood, who also spoke on condition of anonymity, said immigration agents detained a neighbor no more than 100 feet from the school’s entrance about an hour before the first bell. Several students were present at the school for before-school care.
“Kids were incredibly alarmed and scared,” the teacher said. “We had very low attendance that day, and we had parents texting us, ‘Is ICE still there? Am I safe to go?’ ”
Another San Diego Unified teacher said her preschool class has about half the number of students compared to last year, which school staff suspect is due to families’ fear of immigration enforcement. Earlier this month, one family kept their child home for three days after witnessing law enforcement officers they believed to be ICE agents knock on doors of homes near the school. The teacher spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid ICE targeting families at her school.
Several of those detained were Haitian immigrants, according to local news reports. Many Haitians had permission to live and work in the U.S. under Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, a status offered to people from countries that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) determines would be unsafe to return to due to conditions such as ongoing armed conflict or the aftermath of a hurricane or earthquake. The Trump administration has ended TPS for citizens of several countries, including Haiti, a decision the Supreme Court upheld last month.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said in an email that there have been no targeted operations at or nearby elementary schools.
“ICE does not target schools. This is just another false narrative to try and demonize our brave ICE law enforcement, who are facing a 1,300% increase in assaults against them and an 8,000% increase in death threats,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson also said the couple detained on Sept. 9 near a school entered the country lawfully in 2022, but “overstayed their welcome.” DHS did not say if that meant their visa expired.
Earlier this month, San Diego Unified Superintendent Fabi Bagula, school board trustees and several elected officials asked federal immigration authorities to cease immigration enforcement activity near schools and during school arrival and dismissal times.
“When immigration enforcement occurs near a school, the effects do not end with the individual being detained. Children see it. Families hear about it,” reads the statement. “Fear travels quickly through classrooms, playgrounds, and neighborhoods. Students arrive at school carrying questions and anxiety that no child, especially our youngest learners, should have to carry.”
Bagula said in an interview Thursday that she had not received a response from DHS to the letter, but hopes the federal government changes its approach to immigration enforcement.
“We don’t have to do it in such a way that actually hurts children. That’s actually the part that is devastating to me,” Bagula said. “It’s not necessary. You could wait for another hour, do it five blocks away. We actually can mitigate this and protect children at the same time.”
Bagula said staff acted quickly to connect a family with legal aid organizations after federal agents arrested two parents after dropping off their young children at school. The parents’ first call from detention was to the school to check on their children.
“I’m really concerned about what our plan is for healing,” Bagula said. “I wouldn’t be able to concentrate if I saw my neighbor be taken. I would be worried about my own parents. And that’s literally what’s happening.”
Not all schools have seen attendance drops during the city’s ICE surge, Bagula said. A principal at a high school serving a large immigrant community told her that kids were coming to campus because they “actually feel safer here, so they actually want to come to school.”
The teachers union and the classified staff union also put out a statement, demanding “strict no-access policies” for ICE on campus, know-your-rights education and legal support for families and students and “trauma-informed” support or counseling for teachers and school staff.
Hundreds of people marched and rallied on Sept. 16 in the City Heights neighborhood, where at least three schools have experienced nearby ICE activity. Some demonstrators carried a big banner that read “ICE Out of SD” and others had signs saying “ICE Out of Our Schools” and “End Raids Now.”
Dozens of San Diego City College students also protested the detention of student Renatho Casseus. The college has raised about $11,000 for legal aid for Casseus, who entered the U.S. while in 10th grade and had no criminal record, according to San Diego City College President Ricky Shabazz.
Hundreds of students saw the arrest happen near a campus entrance during a passing period, Shabazz said.
“This has wreaked havoc and terror on our fall semester,” he said.
He said some students are still weighing whether it is safe for them to come to campus.
“There are more humane ways to address these matters than chasing college students who don’t have records onto campus in masks with guns out,” Shabazz said. “The effects of this administration’s approach to immigration is going to have lasting effects on generations because people are scarred by observing their colleagues, their friends, their fellow students being snatched out of cars and chased.”
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This story was originally published by EdSource.