Last month, Adam Gonzalez, a lawyer at a nonprofit in Chicago, pulled into his son’s day care and noticed something unusual. Two cars were parked directly in front of the school, blocking the entrance.
Worried about bringing his 17-month-old son into a potentially dangerous situation, he locked his car and walked toward the building. He said his “heart sank” when he saw officers with tactical gear indicating that they were with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and he started recording with his phone. A teacher at the Spanish immersion day care and preschool was in the back seat of one of the cars.
As he got closer, Mr. Gonzalez said he stopped recording and backed away. He thought about news reports about ICE agents deploying tear gas, and he worried that officers could ask for proof of his status, even though he is a citizen. He brought his son inside once the cars left, but said the incident made him question whether the school, Rayito de Sol, was still safe for his child.
“How am I supposed to sit here at work and have to worry about my toddler being a witness to a raid?” Mr. Gonzalez said. “How does anybody with a conscience think it’s a good idea that it should be normalized for children to see people be arrested?”
Since his return to office, President Trump has carried out a mass deportation campaign in an effort to crack down on illegal immigration. Officers have dispersed across U.S. cities, carried out targeted raids, arrested people outside workplaces and detained people at green card interviews in an attempt to root out what federal officials call the “worst of the worst.”
At times, the administration’s efforts have resulted in arrests near public and private schools, angering communities and heightening fears among parents, educators and students. Parents say they have grown concerned about taking their children to school, worried that they could be detained or that their children could witness violent arrests. Educators say that enforcement activities near schools have made it harder for students to focus on learning and feel safe on campus.
In Maryland and the District of Columbia, parents have witnessed people being chased and arrested by ICE close to schools in recent months. In San Diego, school leaders said immigration officers detained a father who was near an elementary school to pick up his son.
In Chicago, elementary school students were playing outside when ICE officers deployed tear gas nearby, according to teachers. And in Portland, Maine, federal officials said ICE officers arrested a parent who had previously been charged with domestic violence assault after they observed him drop off his child at school.
The incidents have prompted ire on Capitol Hill. In October, a group of eight Democratic senators led by Tammy Duckworth of Illinois sent a letter to the Trump administration urging federal officials to stop conducting civil immigration enforcement activities within 1,000 feet of school properties.
Trump administration officials have said that ICE does not target or raid schools.
“ICE is not going to schools to arrest children,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement. “If a dangerous or violent illegal criminal alien felon were to flee into a school, 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 student. But this has not happened.”
Shortly after Mr. Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Homeland Security rescinded Biden-era guidance that limited immigration enforcement activities in or near “sensitive” locations, such as schools, churches and hospitals.
Some Trump allies have defended the arrests and said those locations should be on the table.
“It is an extremely small fraction of operations that come anywhere near what used to be called sensitive locations,” said Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, an acting deputy homeland security secretary during the first Trump administration. “If ICE is going to achieve meaningful efficiencies in its deportation efforts, no reasonable options can be off the table for identifying and picking up deportees.”
But critics said ICE arrests taking place so close to schools were cultivating fear in their communities. Some school leaders said they had seen drops in attendance because of ICE activity nearby, and they had increased student wellness programs. Parents have also started signing up for shifts to patrol schools during pick up and drop off.
A video taken by a parent at the Chicago preschool showed officers pulling the teacher, Diana Santillana Galeano, out of the entrance on Nov. 5. After the incident, federal officials said that they “did not target a day care,” and that she was arrested “inside a vestibule, not in the school.” They also said they tried to conduct a targeted traffic stop before she ran inside.
Homeland security officials said she illegally crossed the southern border in 2023 and “reportedly paid for smugglers” to illegally bring her children to the United States. In a statement, her lawyers said she had been released from detention and “did not pay smugglers” to bring her children to the country unlawfully. The school did not respond to requests for comment.
Maia Reed, whose 4-year-old daughter attends the school, said she walked into the lobby that morning to drop her off when she saw a group of parents and teachers crying. She said her daughter grabbed onto her leg tightly and asked why they were upset.
The officers left shortly before they arrived, but another parent told her about the arrest and showed her a video, Ms. Reed said. She took her daughter home soon after.
Since then, Ms. Reed said her daughter has had nightmares about people being taken away. She has also asked if she should still speak Spanish and resisted going to school.
“She asks all the time whether or not her teacher is going to be there when she gets to school,” Ms. Reed said. “That’s a hard answer for me to give because I don’t know whether her teacher will be there.”
At DC Bilingual Public Charter School, educators and parents said they have witnessed several ICE arrests near the school in recent months.
On Sept. 25, two men were arrested on the street close to the school’s playground during dismissal time, said Daniela Anello, the school’s chief executive. Ms. Anello said a parent informed her that the police were outside the school, so she ran over to the area and saw about nine officers and two handcuffed men on the ground.
In a statement, homeland security officials said the U.S. Park Police, assisted by ICE, conducted a vehicle stop and encountered a man who had illegally entered the country in 2023. He was arrested by ICE, according to the statement.
Parents and children were walking by, questioning what was happening, she said. Some students were also inside the school for after-school programs and watched the incident from the window before teachers moved them to another room, she said.
In the days after, Ms. Anello said that students were “asking if they were coming to take us,” and that parents called the school to say they and their children were too afraid to show up.
Ms. Anello said the men who were arrested did not appear to be affiliated with the school. But she said the school serves a large percentage of Latino families, and they “look like any member of our community.”
She said the school has increased social counseling programs and wellness checks for students, but it has been difficult for educators to give answers that “provide them with a sense of calm and hope.”
“It’s been really hard to have kids feel that the school is still a safe and welcoming environment for them,” Ms. Anello said.
Other ICE arrests have involved parents picking up or dropping off their children. Miriam Atlas, the principal of Linda Vista Elementary in San Diego, said she was standing outside a few minutes before dismissal on Aug. 14 when a parent ran up to tell her that another parent had been detained. The parent was parked about a half block away from the school, Ms. Atlas said.
Ms. Atlas said she walked over and found a car that had “clearly been abandoned.” She said she later saw a boy sitting in the lobby who was usually one of the first students to be picked up.
She said the school received a call from a homeland security official shortly after, who told her that immigration officers had detained the parent. The school called the student’s mother, who later came to pick him up, Ms. Atlas said.
In the days after, some parents did not send their children to school because of concerns about their family’s immigration status, she said.
“There’s absolutely no reason for it to happen near a school campus,” Ms. Atlas said. “If it is targeted, then there are plenty of other places that that person can be picked up that doesn’t interrupt and instill fear in a school climate.”
Some student groups have also mobilized after ICE arrests took place near schools in their districts. At Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring, Md., parents said they saw two men arrested near the school while dropping off their children on Sept. 10.
In a statement, the Homeland Security Department said officers conducted a vehicle stop of a “criminal illegal alien from Guatemala” whose “rap sheet includes assault and D.U.I.” As they approached the vehicle, the man and another unauthorized immigrant “jumped out of the car and fled on foot directly near the school — putting the children and parents at risk,” according to the statement.
Kyara Lira, an 18-year-old senior at Montgomery Blair High School, which is about a mile away from Eastern Middle School, said a student group she is part of, called Students for Asylum and Immigration Reform, has increased training sessions in recent months to inform students about their rights.
“Sometimes I’m even scared of going to school because either me or a friend or someone close to me could be detained in a place where we’re supposed to feel safe and protected,” Ms. Lira said. “No student should fear going to school.”
Madeleine Ngo covers immigration and economic policy for The Times.
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