Labor unions representing millions of educators and school employees are suing President Donald Trump’s administration over its immigration crackdown, saying arrests near school campuses are terrorizing children and their teachers, leading some students to drop out.
At the start of Trump’s second term, his Republican administration said it would allow immigration arrests at schools — long considered off limits. That violated the law, argues the lawsuit from the two largest U.S. teacher unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, which represent more than 4 million school employees nationwide.
Also joining the lawsuit are educators from an Oregon preschool where masked agents broke a car window and dragged a student’s father from his car shortly after the child had been dropped off. The arrival of police prompted the school to go into a lockdown, with teachers playing music so students couldn’t hear the commotion outside.
Teacher Lauren Fong, who teaches the child whose father was arrested that day, said she was troubled by the decision to confront the father in the school parking lot, which is private property.
“Why a school? Why not someplace else, any place else?» Fong said in an interview. “It was in the parking lot, where it could be witnessed by so many young children.”
The educators are joining a lawsuit filed in April by an Oregon farmworker union and a group of churches, challenging the Trump administration’s decision to open houses of worship to immigration enforcement as well. The amended lawsuit was filed Tuesday in federal court in Eugene, Oregon.
Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said immigration officers use discretion when making arrests at schools or churches.
“Officers would need secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a church or a school,” McLaughlin said. “We expect these to be extremely rare.”
A policy reversal opened the door to arrests at schools
For nearly three decades, immigration agents were instructed to steer clear of “sensitive locations” like schools, hospitals and places of worship, except under extraordinary circumstances. Homeland Security, according to a 2021 memo, could “accomplish (its) enforcement mission without denying or limiting individuals’ access to needed medical care, children access to their schools, the displaced access to food and shelter, people of faith access to their places of worship.»
A day after Trump took office, the department rescinded the memo and instead urged agents to use “common sense” when operating near schools and churches. In a statement, officials outlined their reasoning behind the move: «Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest.”
The lawsuit describes several instances of masked agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement making arrests in and around school and church grounds. In Los Angeles, masked border patrol officers descended on a car parked next to a high school and ordered a 15-year-old boy with disabilities out at gunpoint while searching for a man with gang ties. They handcuffed him and only released him when they discovered they had the wrong person.
School attendance dropped in some districts
In the months following Trump’s inauguration, some school districts reported lower attendance as immigrant families kept their children home or, in some cases, left the country. In California’s Central Valley, immigration raids in January and February coincided with a 22% spike in student absences compared with the previous two school years, according to a study from Stanford University economist Thomas Dee and Big Local News.
The lawsuit includes testimonials from unnamed teachers who report seeing increased anxiety and decreased participation and attendance from students who are either immigrants or the children of immigrants.
High school teachers in Pennsylvania and Virginia said some students stopped showing up in the spring, fearful they would be arrested on campus. A speech pathologist at a California elementary school said immigrant parents were reluctant to sign up their children for special education services because it would mean giving more information to the school. A Texas high school teacher for students learning English said enrollment in her classes has dropped precipitously.
“America’s classrooms must be safe and welcoming places of learning and discovery,” said Randi Weingarten, president of the AFT.
Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, said the Trump administration is creating fear and chaos and «our students, schools, and communities are paying the price.”
Leaders in the heavily immigrant churches that sued also described increased anxiety and a drop in Mass attendance.
Lawyers argue Trump’s decision to open up churches to immigration enforcement violates the First Amendment rights of parishioners because it makes them too fearful to attend church. Rescinding the sensitive-locations memo, the lawsuit says, violates the Administrative Procedure Act, which bars agencies from implementing policies that are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with the law.”
