Story was originally published at LA Public Press, written by Martín Macías, Jr.
The Los Angeles Unified School District’s new superintendent said federal agents will not be allowed on campus without a warrant and that the district will ensure students travel to and from school safely.
With students at the nation’s second largest school district set to return to class this week amid a nationwide surge in ICE arrests, LAUSD Superintendent Andrés E. Chait said in a phone interview with LA Public Press that campuses will operate under strict safety protocols designed to protect staff and school families.
“We have very strong policies around who can access our campus,” Chait said. “ Short of a judicial warrant, we do not grant access to immigration enforcement agents to our students or our staff.”
An LAUSD spokesperson said in an email to LA Public Press that ICE made no attempt to enter any school campus last year.
Chait, a Chilean immigrant and longtime LA educator, was appointed as superintendent in July. He said his focus amid ongoing ICE operations across LA is to ensure students are safe and that their families feel supported.
Each school can alert families if ICE is present in the area, and sites can lockdown if needed, Chait said, adding that families can call the district’s “We Are One hotline” at (213) 443-1300 to access legal aid, health, and housing resources.
”We continue to stand with folks that are impacted by immigration enforcement. We are here for you,” Chait said.
Despite the superintendent’s assurances, educators want more volunteers to be trained to participate in community ICE patrols around schools and are demanding LAUSD provide more robust resources for families such as free legal aid.
LAUSD serves nearly 400,000 students. Half of all children in California have at least one immigrant parent, and about 112,000 children enrolled in California schools are undocumented themselves.
Educators call on LAUSD to spend more money on immigrant families
At a press conference outside LAUSD’s headquarters on Thursday, Jessica Rodarte, vice president of United Teachers LA, the union representing 38,000 public school educators, said district leaders overly rely on teachers to keep campuses safe from ICE.
“We are here because the terror, the state sanctioned violence hasn’t stopped,” Rodarte said. “Families are still being separated. It’s not fair to put the burden of the safety of our schools on teachers.”
Other educators at the press conference called on LAUSD to fund more resources for families and to help develop community patrols for ICE around schools.
K, a senior at Eagle Rock High School who declined to share their full name due to safety concerns, said at the press conference that students have protested and staged walkouts against ICE raids but that more volunteers are needed to help patrol school areas for ICE activity.
“Schools are a place where we were promised the right to receive an education, but instead, I’ve seen my peers being too scared to be outside and walk or take the bus to school,” K said. “My peers live worried that their families and loved ones might be kidnapped.”
Ron Gochez, an organizer with grassroots immigrant defense organization Unión del Barrio, said in a text message to LA Public Press that patrols are vital because residents may feel safer leaving home knowing that volunteers are monitoring for ICE activity in their area.
“People who call us with information trust that we are actually going out there to verify suspicious activity and when it is an actual ICE raid, that we will organize resistance against it to protect our community members,” Gochez said.
A year ago, immigration enforcement in the LA region spurred declining enrollment and student absences in the country’s second-largest school district.
Asked to comment on Thursday’s press conference speakers’ characterization of ICE’s operations as a form of “terror,” a Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said that language is contributing to attacks against federal agents.
“This type of rhetoric is contributing to our officers facing coordinated campaigns of violence against them including a more than 1,300% increase in assaults against them, 3,300% increase in vehicle attacks, and an 8,000% increase in death threats,” DHS said.
The agency didn’t answer whether it has evidence of “coordinated campaigns” against agents and also didn’t provide a name for their spokesperson when requested.
A National Public Radio analysis of court records in October found no public evidence of a surge in assaults on ICE agents compared to previous years but said that incidents had increased since the previous year. The Trump administration has also lost or abandoned hundreds of court cases where it charged people with assaulting ICE agents.
Here’s how LAUSD plans to keep students and families safe from ICE
Chait told LA Public Press that the district began offering students direct transportation to their campuses last year after ICE raids spiked in LA. That service, he said, will continue this school year.
“We will have a school bus that goes directly to the child’s home, picks them up, takes them to school, brings them back at the end of the day,” he said
Chait also said each school deploys a team to monitor for ICE activity and can alert families if agents are present in the area.
“ When we receive reports of immigration enforcement activity near our campuses, we immediately send notifications to our families so they know [ICE may be] in the area,” Chait said. “If [ICE is] close enough to the campus, we may put the campus on lockdown as needed.”
Maritza Ocegueda, a Sylmar resident with two children in LAUSD schools, said in a text to LA Public Press that in her experience, alerts sent by the district about ICE activity near her children’s school weren’t effective because they arrived after dismissal.
“I believe families should be made aware as it’s happening so when dismissal time comes they can arrange for pick up if they’re at risk,” Ocegueda said.
Ocegueda, whose daughter helped organize student walkouts in the San Fernando Valley in February to protest ICE raids, said her daughter’s school administrators didn’t follow up when she requested to speak to them about the alerts.
In an email to LA Public Press, an LAUSD spokesperson said the district won’t ask about or share a student’s immigration status “unless required by law” and has protocols to keep school zones safe.
“This includes enhanced communication with various entities, visible presence in impacted communities, and rapid-response protocols should enforcement activity occur,” the email read.
The spokesperson didn’t answer specific questions about LAUSD’s safety protocols, including whether safety team members are employed by local schools, how parents can identify them, and whether there’s a standard number of people deployed by each school in the event ICE is nearby. LAUSD also didn’t respond to a request to attribute their statement to a named spokesperson.
Lourdes Quevedo, UTLA treasurer and former educator, told LA Public Press she’s observed that some schools may have staff shortages or not enough volunteers or connections with grassroots organizations to deploy ICE monitoring teams daily, while others do. She said support from volunteers from the communities across LA is critical in helping schools stay safe.
Quevedo didn’t respond by publication time whether she or UTLA observed schools lacking the staff or volunteers to deploy community patrols when needed.
LAUSD parents are concerned about their children getting to school safely
In July, ICE made roughly 51,000 arrests across the country, compared to 43,000 arrests nationwide in June. The federal agency is facing scrutiny after at least 33 deaths in immigrant detention facilities in the last year as well as widespread protests over fatal ICE shootings of people during traffic stops.
Vicky Martinez, a Highland Park parent of two LAUSD students, told LA Public Press the news about violent ICE arrests across the country heightened her concerns about her children getting to school safely.
“Anybody and everybody is at risk as far as I’m concerned,” Martinez said. “If I was a student during these times, I may be afraid of going to school myself.”
A DHS spokesperson said in an email to LA Public Press that law-abiding city residents “have nothing to fear” if they’re authorized to be in the country.
“ICE is not going to schools to make arrests,” the email said. “If a dangerous or violent illegal criminal alien felon were to flee into a daycare, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect the safety of the children.”
The agency didn’t answer questions from LA Public Press on whether it has protocols for ensuring the safety of school staff, students, and their families during any enforcement operations near a campus.
LA educators want more resources for LAUSD’s immigrant families
Quevedo with UTLA said she wants to see the district spend more on free legal services for LAUSD families and staff who may need help navigating complex immigration courts.
“I would love to see a legal department just dedicated to immigration, because we have so many families impacted,” Quevedo said. “Some of our families can’t afford the services.”
Last year, LAUSD launched a “compassion fund” to help families affected by ICE raids pay for legal services and other unforeseen costs such as food or emergency housing. To access the fund, which is run by the LAUSD Education Foundation, families must contact their school principal.
UTLA has consistently said LAUSD should be pulling from its $5 billion in reserves to better support educators and students.
Chait told LA Public Press the district’s spending on resources for families for the upcoming school year will be “about the same as last year.” He added that the reserve funds are “essentially” allocated to pay the district’s operating costs for the coming years, which include existing resources for families.
“ Those costs very much include social workers, they include attendance counselors, they include safe passage programs,” Chait said.
LAUSD has projected a $191 million budget deficit by 2027.
LA Public Press previously reported on the success that LAUSD attendance counselors and school psychologists had in grasping the toll ICE raids are having on students’ mental health and on helping families feel safe returning their children to class.
Asked whether LAUSD would increase those staff positions, Chait said that levels would remain the same in the coming year for those roles but that staffing levels for attendance counselors and school psychologists are higher than in prior years.
An LAUSD spokesperson didn’t answer LA Public Press’ questions asking how many attendance counselors and school psychologists are employed by the district and how much the district is spending to maintain higher staffing for those roles.
How to stay safe from ICE and help LAUSD families do the same
As students return to class Wednesday, UDB members will be patrolling school zones around the city, Gochez said.
Chait told LA Public Press the he “appreciates the efforts” of groups like UDB but that the district will maintain an informal relationship with them.
“ Our network is more aligned with our labor partners, the city and the county, and of course our own internal staff,” Chait said.
Ingrid Villeda, community school coordinator at 93rd Street Elementary and member of UDB, told LA Public Press that LAUSD would be better equipped to respond to ICE activity by partnering or coordinating with groups like UDB.
“If something’s happening at a school, if the district doesn’t have the manpower to respond, and [UDB has] the community power to respond, then we should know about it so that we can organize ourselves better,” Villeda said. “I think [Chait is] going to miss out if he doesn’t organize with us.”
In April 2025, ICE agents attempted to enter two LAUSD schools in South LA – Russell Elementary and Lillian Street Elementary – but were denied entry by school administrators.
Gochez told LA Public Press that UDB didn’t respond to those incidents but that the grassroots group had trained “hundreds” of educators and school administrators.
Rodarte, the UTLA vice president, said at Thursday’s press conference LA residents shouldn’t rely on elected officials to keep communities safe from ICE, but should instead join grassroots groups to patrol their own neighborhoods.
“The call is for everyone in this city and county to see themselves as the purveyors of safety,” Rodarte said. “What are you going to do to ensure that members of your community are safe?”
UBD is hosting an online training on community defense against ICE for educators, campus staff, students and community members at 4:30 p.m. Aug. 13.
Quevedo said community members should contact their local school’s educators or UTLA chapter chair to learn how to volunteer to patrol their school zones for ICE activity, or to stand along school routes to ensure families are safe.
The union also asked teachers to create detailed safety plans that identify staff on each campus that will assist students in the event ICE is present in the area.
“We’re asking community members to keep our families safe by adopting a school, patrolling the area, reporting ICE activity because it takes a village to keep us safe,” Quevedo said.
