In the wake of an apparent ICE arrest of an elementary school parent, San Diego Unified officials on Friday decried recent immigration enforcement efforts and sought to assure the community that families would be safe at schools.
“This did not just happen to one household,” Superintendent Fabiola Bagula said at a news conference Friday. “It happened to an entire school community. It left children, families and staff with questions and fears that no one, especially our youngest learners, should have to carry.”
School officials said a parent was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement while waiting to pick up a child from Linda Vista Elementary School just after 3 p.m. Thursday.
ICE did not immediately respond Friday to a request to confirm the incident.
San Diego Unified has been preparing for, and trying to fend off, immigration enforcement impacting students and their families. In December 2024, SDUSD passed a resolution meant to protect students from immigration enforcement on campus.
While the district cannot override federal law, it does require ICE officers to identify themselves and register when entering school grounds. That registration would alert school police, legal services and the superintendent. SDUSD requires a warrant for any immigration enforcement on school property.
Without a subpoena, the district says, it will not share student and parent information. California law also prohibits schools from gathering information on citizenship or immigration status of its students and families, beyond what is required by federal law.
School efforts to resist federal enforcement, though, generally don’t extend to off-campus settings. When parents are deported, families may face a choice of having children follow a parent to a foreign country or remain in the United States with relatives — or in the child welfare system.
Bagula, the superintendent, said Thursday’s apparent ICE arrest “didn’t happen on school grounds, but it happened close enough to our community to feel its impact.”
Bagula noted on Friday that Linda Vista teaches students ages 3-11. She blasted federal agents, who often have detained people while wearing face masks to obscure who they are and what agency they serve. “This is traumatic,” Bagula said. “There is a reason why those people are wearing masks: Because they know it’s wrong to do.”
District’s immigration response
SDUSD staff were educated earlier this year on how to respond to any immigration officials on campus. However, they were told not to physically intervene.
The district created a web page to educate students’ families on resources, how to prepare for immigration raids and their rights at sdusdequity.com/protecting-students.
Linda Vista Elementary School principal Miriam Atlas sent a letter to parents overnight, assuring them the school was making sure the student and their family had access to necessary resources. Atlas said she had been coordinating with San Diego Unified police and Office of the Superintendent and Youth Services.
Her message said the arrest “was witnessed by multiple families but not by our students.”
“School communities should be sacred spaces where all students deserve to obtain a high quality education, and all families feel welcomed,” the principal wrote.
Chula Vista Elementary School District has a similar policy limiting immigration access to schools. But a mother was arrested outside Enrique S. Camarena Elementary School last week.
Shift in immigration arrests in San Diego, nationwide
A ramp-up in immigration enforcement during President Donald Trump’s second term has upended traditional expectations for immigrants in the U.S.
Agents are targeting immigrants for deportation even when they have no criminal backgrounds, arresting migrants during regularly scheduled check-ins at immigration offices or taking them out of immigration court hearings and placing them into detention instead. ICE arrests are also occurring in public spaces like sidewalks and parking lots.
Under President Trump, ICE has arrested four times the number of people in San Diego and Imperial counties, compared to arrests during the Biden administration. Since January, more than half of the people detained had no criminal history.
Schools have traditionally been off-limits for such enforcement efforts, with past directives to keep immigration officers from disrupting essential services and places where children gather. But Trump in January issued an executive order rescinding those protections, allowing agents to pursue immigrants in schools, churches and hospitals. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” a Homeland Security announcement at the time read.
Since then, school districts have braced for what they see as possible disruption of families of immigrant or U.S.-citizen students alike.
Experts say they fear students with undocumented parents will not feel safe attending school, harming their education as well as adding to high rates of chronic absenteeism within public schools in California.
Enrollment of “newcomer” students, defined by the state as students who have been enrolled in a U.S. school for less than three years, has kept SDUSD’s enrollment rates from plummeting. According to inewsource, 6%, or 5,700 students, of SDUSD’s student population in the 2024-2025 school year were newcomers.
The inewsource report found that rather than being concentrated in a few schools, newcomer students were spread out across all schools, not just in neighborhoods with high immigrant populations.
The Linda Vista neighborhood, home of the University of San Diego, has been the target of previous immigration actions.
On July 2, ICE detained a U.S. citizen activist observing a raid in the area, alleging she assaulted ICE agents. She appeared in court last month and pleaded not guilty. Two other citizens were arrested with her.
