Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Long Beach) and other House Democrats are demanding that Department of Homeland Security officials explain their attempts last week to talk with pupils at two Los Angeles primary schools.
Garcia and 17 other Democrats signed a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem on Friday asking a briefing on the operation.
“If you falsely claim to be conducting welfare checks while actually targeting children for deportation, you undermine willingness to cooperate with law enforcement, provoke fear, and undermine public trust,” the lawmakers wrote, requesting that the agency “desist from immigration enforcement activity” involving children who do not pose a public safety threat.
Last Monday, federal investigators arrived unexpectedly and without a judicial warrant at Russell Elementary and Lillian Street Elementary in the Florence-Graham district of South Los Angeles. They requested to talk with five students collectively, ranging from first to sixth grade. However, school principals denied entry.
According to L.A. Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, the agents said they were there to perform health checks while falsely claiming the students’ families had given consent for the interaction. The agents presented themselves as belonging to Homeland Security Investigations, a division of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but were not in uniform and refused to show official identification, according to Carvalho.
According to Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary of Homeland Security, the agents were checking on the well-being of unaccompanied children who arrived at the border.
“DHS is leading efforts to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited, abused, and sex trafficked,” she told reporters.
However, according to Garcia’s letter, L.A. Unified School District officials alerted senators that the four pupils targeted at Russell Elementary “were not, in fact, unaccompanied minors.”
“This raises serious questions about the truthfulness of your Department, and the safety of our constituents,” they stated in a letter. “The United States Supreme Court declared that all pupils, regardless of immigrant status, are entitled to a public education. If parents and children cannot attend school without fear of deportation or harassment, you are violating their right.”
President Trump and other Republicans have consistently stated that more than 300,000 migrant children are “missing, dead, sex slaves, or slaves.” The assertion appears to be based on a study from the DHS Office of Inspector General, which stated that 323,000 youngsters had either not been issued with summons to appear in immigration court as of last May or had failed to show for hearings since 2019.
In the report, kids “who do not appear for court are considered at higher risk for trafficking, exploitation, or forced labor.”
Shortly after Trump took office, his administration issued a directive allowing immigration agents to make arrests in places of worship, schools, hospitals, and other “sensitive” locations. The new policy reversed a 2011 memo that prohibited agents from making arrests in such areas.
Last week’s incidents in Los Angeles heightened concerns among instructors across the country about protecting undocumented pupils.
Garcia, who serves on the House Homeland Security Committee, said he is investigating if this was the first such operation by federal immigration officials in any K-12 school in the country. He feels it was an example of similar actions to come, and that communities should be prepared to respond in the same way that the workers of these institutions did.
Garcia stated that the schools that agents visited serve low-income families that live in areas with large immigrant and Latino populations in the country.
“They’re targeting vulnerable communities,” he told me. “They aren’t being honest about what they’re doing or the permits they have. That is really concerning and has to be made known to everyone.”