1:56Parents and students arrive for the first day of classes while staff and volunteers scout for Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel outside Ninety-Third Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, Aug. 14, 2025.Daniel Cole/Reuters
Across the country, countless districts are reopening their doors amid unease among immigrant households worried about the Trump administration’s crackdown on unauthorized residents, educators, specialists and caregivers told ABC News.
Los Angeles and Chicago’s systems—the nation’s second- and third-largest public school networks—are reopening with updated directives and safeguards for households concerned about federal efforts to curb unauthorized migration.
Chicago Public Schools declared it will bar ICE officers or federal authorities from entering its buildings unless they present a criminal warrant bearing a federal judge’s signature.
Over 500,000 Los Angeles Unified pupils are entering classrooms while the district’s security team coordinates with local police to shield its immigrant children. Superintendent Alberto Carvalho emphasized that campuses will remain havens “irrespective of immigration status.”
Parents and students arrive for the first day of classes while staff and volunteers scout for Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel outside Ninety-Third Street Elementary School in Los Angeles, Aug. 14, 2025.Daniel Cole/Reuters
The climate of fear spreads as migrants nationwide dread removals from school grounds while the administration continues to highlight its marquee campaign pledge.
During the initial months of the president’s second term, Esmeralda Alday, former director of dual language and ESL migrant programs for San Antonio Independent School District, said terror rippled through immigrant households in her district at a level she had never witnessed.
Some mixed-status households—in which one or both guardians lack authorization while the children are citizens—withdrew from the district after Trump took office, Alday noted. She added that not only the specter of ICE but actual detention notices arriving by mail drove the departures.
“It’s assaulting our families from every direction,” Alday told ABC News. “It’s pressuring our households on all fronts, nearly forcing them into self-deportation.”
ImmSchools co-founder Viridiana Carrizales told ABC News these households now dread escorting their children to class—some refuse to step outside—because they could be seized. She argued the administration is targeting not just migrants with criminal histories but immigrants broadly.
"They don’t want our children,” Carrizales asserted. “They reject immigrant students in classrooms, they don’t wish them to be educated, and that’s the reality. Parents are keeping kids home, they’re pulling them from vital programs,” she continued.
A UTLA sign expressing support for immigrant students hangs on a bungalow door at Sepulveda Middle School in North Hills during the first day of classes, August 14, 2025.Sarah Reingewirtz/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images
Carrizales—whose nonprofit collaborates with districts to craft more inclusive and secure environments for K-12 immigrant learners—warned, “Denying these children the support they require will ultimately harm everyone.”
Yet as households and district leaders prepare for possible enforcement actions this academic year, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin informed ABC News that no apprehensions have occurred on K-12 property during Trump’s second term and ICE has conducted zero campus raids. Per McLaughlin, most DHS arrests to date involve individuals with prior criminal convictions or active criminal cases.
McLaughlin also assured that no U.S.-citizen pupils should worry about deportation or ICE sweeps, even if their guardians lack papers.
"If you’re legally in the United States, immigration enforcement doesn’t apply because your presence is lawful," she said.
On Trump’s first full day back in office, DHS revoked longstanding limits that had restricted ICE from operations in sensitive locales such as schools, churches and hospitals. McLaughlin explained the move was intended to prevent agents from being handcuffed in performing their duties.
"This ought to benefit all communities," she remarked. "Why should a criminal find refuge in a hospital, place of worship or a school? Why allow someone to think, ‘They won’t touch me here, so I’ll hide there’?"
DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin speaks at a press briefing at ICE Headquarters in Washington, May 21, 2025.Jose Luis Magana/AP
Throughout the prior academic year and recent summer sessions, Carrizales and Alday noted that absenteeism surged in Texas districts because of fear of federal agents. With apprehension persisting, numerous campuses worry predicted enrollment this year may shrink, Carrizales said.
LAUSD has likewise struggled with attendance, board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin observed. Families are now weighing the remote-learning choices the district provides.
Franklin said undocumented households feel heightened anxiety about attending back-to-school nights and other parent-teacher events.
“They wrestle with whether to attend a potentially helpful function for their child or guarantee they’re present when school lets out—and for those living in true fear, the choice is obvious,” Franklin told ABC News.
“The dread is penetrating brown communities especially, alongside our Black immigrant and Asian immigrant populations, which are sizable in Los Angeles,” she added.
Sourse: abcnews.go.com
