With the Trump administration set to take the Oval Office next week, school districts nationwide are bracing for the possibility of immigration raids targeting students at school bus stops and at school sites.
Education Week reported in December that school district officials are contemplating whether immigration agents will carry out arrests at schools and how they should respond. While reports indicate Tom Homan, named by President-elect Donald Trump to become his border czar, is focusing on undocumented immigrants posing a public safety threat, it is unclear how his response will unfold and how many students could be affected.
Thomas A. Saenz, president and general counsel for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, noted that the 1982 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Plyer v. Doe indicated “every child has the right to go to public school free of charge from kindergarten through 12th grade regardless of status.
“We interpret that as meaning unfettered access to school,” Saenz continued. “So, raids on school campuses are unconstitutional under that decision and should not occur. No enforcement action should occur on school grounds, because it interferes with the school experience of students based on their immigration status.”
The same should apply to school bus stops, he added.
“They should not be the place for any enforcement action nor should school buses themselves be the place for any enforcement action because that is an interference with the Constitutional right to attend school guaranteed by that Plyer decision,” he argued. “Despite the possibility that the new administration may eliminate the sensitive location memo, there would still be a Constitutional constraint on the ability to conduct immigration enforcement action in those settings that are directly related to school access.”
Saenz is referring to a 2021 U.S. Department of Homeland Security memo, Guidelines for Enforcement Actions in or Near Protected Areas, that lists schools and school bus stops as protected areas from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection enforcement.
“Our advice would be to any principal and superintendent that because of that Constitutional right, they are absolutely within their rights and indeed may be obligated to bar access to campuses absent a judicial warrant of some kind and a judicial warrant should be resisted because of that Constitutional right for kids to attend school regardless of their immigration status,” said Saenz.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration recently issued extensions of Temporary Protected Status to hundreds of thousands of people from Sudan, Ukraine and Venezuela. This allows immigrants to remain in the country with work permits and provides a shield from deportation for another 18 months from the expiration of their current protection in the spring.
The move was designed as a roadblock to President-elect Trump’s ability to swiftly strip the benefit upon taking office on Monday.
A New York Times article outlines other efforts now underway to address what may come. New York City school staff members have been instructed to ask immigration agents arriving at a public school to wait outside while they contact a school district lawyer. Since 2022, the school system has enrolled about 40,000 students who are immigrants.
Mount Diablo Unified School District northeast of San Francisco, California, is a case in point where parents anxious about deportation may be reticent to send their children to school, noted Superintendent Dr. Adam Clark.
The conservative think tank Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 noted that “all ICE memoranda identifying ‘sensitive zones’ where ICE personnel are prohibited from operating should be rescinded. Rely on the good judgment of officers in the field to avoid inappropriate situations.”
Project 2025 called upon states to “pass legislation that requires public schools to charge tuition for unaccompanied migrant children as well as children who are in the U.S. with their illegal-alien parents.
“Such legislation would draw a lawsuit from the Left, which would likely lead the [U.S.] Supreme Court to reconsider its ill-considered Plyler v. Doe decision that had no basis in law,” Project 2025 continued. “This reconsideration is warranted because the large number of unaccompanied alien children and mass illegal migration have significantly changed circumstances for states and localities.”
As reported on Dec. 11 by NBC News, the incoming Trump administration intends to rescind the Department of Homeland Security policy that has prevented ICE agents from arresting undocumented people at or near so-called sensitive locations as soon as the first day he is in office in what he has said he wants to be the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
Educators Seek Guidance
Education Week reported that to address uncertainties in ICE enforcement procedures, experts are suggesting schools should be proactive in educating staff about school policies on ICE interactions and in reminding families of their rights.
When contacted, some school districts expressed a reluctance to respond to questions from School Transportation News on this topic. One of those was California’s Oakland Unified School District was one of the declining contacts.
Denver Public Schools “has not been directly involved in the establishment of any sanctuary or safe zones for students” and “does not collect immigration status on any of our students,” noted Scott Pribble, the district’s director of external communications.
Pribble echoed the observation of others that the DHS’ lists marked or known school bus stops as protected areas in addition to the physical school site.
The National Association of School Resource Officers has not developed any guidance on the immigration issue, noted spokesperson Jay Farlow.
In preparing for potential ICE impacts, school district measures may include creating safe zone resolutions protecting students from immigration enforcement on school grounds and training staff including school bus drivers on how to respond if ICE appears at a school or bus stop, including understanding the students’ rights under state and federal law.
Protecting student privacy and providing resources to families — including emotional and psychological support — is another potential measure as well as collaboration with local governments for support and engaging in advocacy.
In November, Los Angeles television station KABC reported that Los Angeles schools reaffirmed their stance to protect students and their families regardless of citizenship status, with the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) school board unanimously reaffirming its commitment to being a sanctuary district.
Since 2017, LAUSD has had a policy of refusing to cooperate with federal immigration enforcement actions, including sharing information about the immigration status of students and their families, the station reported.
LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvahlo indicated one concern is splitting families apart, where a student may be a natural-born citizen, but a parent is not. He said he has been working on a plan that includes training in multiple languages for school staff.
The Migration Policy Institute indicates some 5.5 million children, representing about 7 percent of the U.S. child population, lived with an unauthorized immigrant parent in 2019. Of those children, 726,000, or 13 percent are themselves unauthorized.
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In mid-December, the California Department of Education announced State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond is sponsoring Senate Bill 48, legislation that aims to keep ICE agents off California campuses by establishing a one-mile radius safe zone around schools, as well as protect against the use of school data for deportation efforts.
The bill, introduced by Sen. Majority Leader Lena Gonzalez (D-33) on Dec. 16, would prevent schools from experiencing a drop-off in student attendance due to immigration concerns, which would directly and negatively impact critical funding.
The bill also doubles down on the commitment by the California Department of Education to safeguard students and families, maintaining schools as spaces where everyone has the right to an education.
In early December, California Attorney General Rob Bonta released guidance and model policies to assist California’s K-12 Schools in responding to immigration issues. For example, the guidance notes that schools are not compelled to provide ICE agents with access to student records if they only have an administrative warrant as opposed to a warrant signed by a judge nor should schools release private student information without parental consent as per federal law.
The guide includes model policies school districts could adopt.
In mid-December, Wendy Cervantes, director of immigration and immigrant families at the Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP), released a statement that “any plan to rescind the protected areas policy is just part of a wider effort to instill fear in immigrant communities and deter parents from taking their child to the hospital or dropping them off at childcare or school.
“We witnessed how immigration enforcement efforts under the first Trump administration impacted participation in early childhood programs and deterred parents from accessing lifesaving services, creating stress for families, care providers, and entire communities,” she said. “The principles behind the protected areas policy are rooted in the recognition that immigration enforcement does not have to come at the cost of the health and well-being of children, including U.S. citizen children in mixed-status families.”
“With or without a formal DHS policy, we stand ready to ensure that families and care providers are informed about their rights and that families are able to meet their basic needs. We will not allow fear to stand in the way of human dignity.”
CLASP offers a guide to creating safe space policy for early childhood programs.
ImmSchools, a Texas nonprofit partnering with schools throughout the U.S. in creating a welcoming environment for immigrant students and families, concurred with others that districts should establish their own policies addressing responses to immigration enforcement.
The organization also offers school districts training for educators so they can best understand immigration laws and policies, so families know their rights.
