‘So Many Threats to Kids’: ICE Fear Grips Los Angeles At Start of New School Year

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The night before school, Adriana Abich always gets nervous. Nervous there won’t be enough school supplies for new students, or that classrooms won’t be quite ready. 

But this year is different. 

This year, the CEO of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy is worried immigration agents with guns are coming for her kids.

“There are so many threats to kids getting to school due to ICE raids,” said Abich. “The fear of going to school or being out on the street is definitely real.”

But in charter schools like Camino Nuevo, and the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the nation; and where three quarters of kids are Latino or Hispanic, one thing is on the mind of nearly every educator and ahead of the first day of classes Thursday.

“We consistently get families calling us when they see ICE in the neighborhood,” said Abich. “They call the school and say ‘Can you please warn people. There’s ice in the neighborhood, they need to stay home.’ ”

Federal immigration raids in Los Angeles that ramped up in the spring and accelerated again toward the end of June scared families away from school, depressing attendance in summer programs, school leaders and district officials said.

The immigration raids, and the fear they sow, are just another huge challenge for a district already struggling to recover from historic wildfires in January that burned entire neighborhoods and two LAUSD schools.

That’s all on top of other challenges facing the district, such as cratering enrollment, shrinking budgets, districtwide mental health problems and an uneven academic recovery from the pandemic.  

LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho offered a hopeful take on the challenging school year ahead in his opening address last week, where he highlighted the resilience of the district in the face of adversity.

But at a press conference near district headquarters with Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass on Monday, Carvalho said federal agents with guns detained a student near a school in a case of mistaken identity – and pleaded with immigration authorities to halt enforcement around L.A. Unified schools.   

“We are appealing to the better senses of those who have the power to eliminate trauma from the streets of our community,” he said.

From district headquarters to classrooms and school offices, L.A. Unified parents, teachers and kids have said they’re afraid for their safety amid the increasing immigration raids taking place across the city.

Leaders from city hall to the LAUSD school board have responded with pledges to keep schools safe.

Last week plainclothes immigration agents outside of Arlita High School drew their guns and detained the 15 year-old student with disabilities who was visiting the campus with his family. 

The boy, who attends another LAUSD school, was quickly released by the agents after they determined he was not who they sought, he said. 

The school’s principal said the agents left behind some bullets on the sidewalk, which school police recovered, according to LAUSD officials. 

In a statement, a spokesperson for the federal Customs and Border Protection said that the agents were conducting a “targeted operation” in search of a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 pledge with prior criminal convictions in the broader vicinity of Arleta.

“Allegations that Border Patrol targeted Arleta High School are FALSE,” the CBP statement said.  

Carvalho said the district would respond to the incident by creating more “safe zones” around campuses before and after school.

Carvalho will send central and regional office staff across the school system on the first day of school to patrol the streets around schools. The local teachers union and other groups are also participating.

With the effort, the district’s so-called “safe passage zones” will be expanded from about 40 schools to more than 100. The district has more than 1,500 schools and education centers scattered around L.A.

For Abich, the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy network of schools, has operated in L.A. ‘s heavily immigrant MacArthur Park neighborhood for more than two decades, the raids dominate the horizon.

The ICE raids are unprecedented, she said, and terrifying for families who are deathly afraid of tactics, such as the use of a decoy moving van as a work vehicle, which happened in a Home Depot parking lot less than a half-mile from one of her schools.   

“What’s top of mind for me now is daily attendance for students,” said Abich. “All of us were sort of working towards getting students in their seeds ready to learn.”

But now, she said, immigration raids are threatening that goal in the new year. Attendance in Camino Nuevo’s summer school programs was down by half this summer, Abich said, due to families fear of ICE.

LAUSD officials also said district-run summer programs saw drops in attendance.

Carvalho said the new school safe passage zones and school police patrols will occur at campuses in neighborhoods targeted by immigration enforcement.

The district also has created a fund to provide general help for families, including legal assistance, said Carvalho.

Mayor Bass said the Los Angeles Police Department will help in the effort to protect schools and will not assist with immigration enforcement.

“The school police and the Los Angeles Police Department have a strong working relationship and will continue to share information as appropriate as needed,” she said.

In interviews, school board members said that the district was doing everything it can to protect kids and families from immigration raids, but that they worry attendance could suffer in the new year.

“With all the terrible things happening with ICE and parents fearing sending your kids to school, I think we are really preparing ourselves and our kids and their parents for this new school year,” said LAUSD School Board President Scott Schmerelson.

Schmerelson said the district’s shrinking enrollment and attendance are chief concerns, and fear among families could worsen those problems.

But, he said, the fact that two L.A. Unified schools turned away immigration agents in April, shows that schools are in fact safe havens for students. “We’re standing strong and standing tough, and protecting our kids,” Schmerelson said.

Board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin, who represents LAUSD’s District Seven, which includes neighborhoods such as South L.A., Watts and San Pedro, said the district created  a new family preparedness care package on its web site with valuable information for families.

Ortiz Franklin said the district has made strong academic progress in recent years, as evidenced by recent test scores showing the students have exceeded some pre-pandemic benchmarks in literacy and math.

Now those gains are threatened by headwinds including the ICE raids, trauma from the fires of January and shrinking budgets, said Ortiz Franklin. But she hopes that L.A. Unified will get kids to school by providing free bus transportation to any student who requests it.

“We have every confidence that our schools are the safest place for kids to be and the best place for them to be to be prepared for their future, and we recognize that there’s real fear around getting to and from campus,” she said. “We are doing as much as we possibly can.”

Evelyn Aleman, founder of Our Voice, a parents’ group which advocates for L.A. Unified’s low-income and Spanish-speaking families, said families are scared of possible immigration raids but appreciate the steps taken by the district to protect students.

“Families are afraid of two things. They continue to have fear and anxiety over the raids,” said Aleman. “And the other concern is the children not wanting to go to school for not being able to find their parents when they come home.”

But, Aleman said, L.A. Unified has helped to address those fears with transportation to school, safe zones in schools, and the offer of remote lessons for children who do not want to leave their homes.

“LAUSD has really taken this on to provide a robust package of resources, information and support for the families,” she said.

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