Amid a rising tide of local immigration enforcement, a string of arrests near campuses — including parents of young students and one reported college student — has San Diego-area officials issuing renewed demands for agents to stand down.
In the past two weeks, there have been at least four ICE arrests of parents and students on streets that border San Diego educational institutions. It’s a pattern similar to last year’s back-to-school season, when several parents were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement or other federal agents while on their way to or from school pick-up and drop-off lines.
As with last year, local officials say no enforcement actions happened on school grounds, but were within view of students.
“We are asking federal authorities, clearly and urgently: please stop conducting immigration enforcement near our schools and during arrival and dismissal times,” leaders said in a joint statement issued by the San Diego Unified School district and a collection of local and state elected officials.
While San Diego County leaders have spearheaded various efforts to shield some undocumented residents from immigration enforcement, recently obtained federal data shows ICE arrests in the region actually increased in the past 12 months.
The newest outcry highlights that gap between local political sentiment and federal policy, but also reveals the limits of local authority: The statement makes clear that it is ICE’s choice where to conduct an arrest, as long as it is outside school property.
For the past year, the Department of Homeland Security has repeatedly said that any area near a school is fair game for immigration enforcement. “Officers would need secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a school. We expect these to be extremely rare,” then-DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin wrote in a statement in September 2025.
In the new statement this week, from the school district, State Assemblymember LaShae Sharp-Collins (D-La Mesa), State Sen. Akilah Weber Pierson (D-San Diego), and San Diego Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera argue that arrests occurring near schools, even if they are not on the campus itself, still have a profound effect on students.
“Whatever the intent or circumstances of these operations… when immigration enforcement occurs near a school, the effects do not end with the individual being detained,” they wrote. “Children see it. Families hear about it.”
On Wednesday morning, both parents of two small children, ages 2 and 5, were arrested after dropping off their kids at John Marshall Elementary School in Chollas Creek. Several ICE agents blocked the couple’s Prius with their vehicles, and then pursued the parents on foot when they attempted to run away, videos of the incident show.
A video taken of the mother’s arrest, first published by ABC News, shows her barefoot, running into a nearby house, where she is tackled by an agent wearing a camouflage head covering and a vest that says POLICE ICE.
After placing the woman in handcuffs, the video shows the ICE agent returning to the house to retrieve his gun, which had dropped on the floor.
Another arrest occurred on Tuesday at the edge of the San Diego City College campus, when ICE agents blocked a vehicle and arrested the driver, an immigrant from Haiti, while the passenger ran onto the campus, and was briefly pursued by agents on school grounds. Local media reports and community college students reported that both the man arrested and the passenger were students.
In a statement to local media on Tuesday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement said the man they arrested, Renatho Kemsley Casseus, was “NOT a student,” but on Wednesday, they revised this statement, saying only that Casseus was “NOT arrested on a campus.”
Though the street itself where Casseus was arrested outside his car is not school property, the buildings on all four corners of the intersection do belong to the college.
In both cases, John Marshall Elementary and San Diego City College noted that they made sure the students most affected by these arrests received support, by ensuring the young children whose parents were arrested had a known caregiver to step in, and providing the college student who witnessed Tuesday’s arrest with psychological care.
“We will continue to take every measure possible to strengthen the safety and protections that we have for all members of our community from law enforcement actions on or near our college campuses,” San Diego Community College District Chancellor Gregory Smith said in a statement posted to social media.
Avenues for school officials to prevent such arrests are limited, and center on undocumented people keeping their distance, rather than school officials blocking ICE’s access. Private groups like Union del Barrio frequently monitor the areas near schools in the early mornings and attempt to warn undocumented parents via social media if ICE vehicles are parked near a school. San Diego City College sends out similar alerts if ICE is spotted on campus.
Even if undocumented parents are not arrested near a school drop-off line, they are still vulnerable to arrest at workplaces, the grocery store, or at a traffic stop. According to the Migration Policy Institute, one in every six children in California is at risk of losing a parent to deportation.
Internal ICE records show at least one of the parents detained during last year’s arrests near schools in San Diego has already been deported.
