Federal immigration agents arrested the father of a Montgomery High School student near the South San Diego school during morning drop-off on Aug. 15, according to Sweetwater Union High School District officials.
This is the fourth confirmed immigration arrest near a San Diego County school in the last three weeks.
Montgomery High Principal Sasha Scott sent a message to parents saying the school is helping the family access community resources for legal support, emergency financial assistance and child care.
“While this action occurred off-campus, we have put protocols in place to prevent unauthorized access to our schools,” Scott wrote. “This includes limiting access to law enforcement officials, who are not permitted to interact with students unless there is an immediate threat to school safety, such as an emergency, or a signed judicial warrant.”
Recent arrests
Until this year, immigration arrests near schools were virtually unheard of. But in recent months, they’ve become increasingly common in cities nationwide, including: Oregon, Texas, and South Carolina.
Apart from Montgomery High, here are the known arrests near schools in San Diego County:
- On Aug. 6, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents arrested an undocumented woman in the drop-off line in front of Camarena Elementary School in Chula Vista because she had allegedly overstayed her visa. The women’s children were in the car at the time of the arrest.
- On Aug. 15, federal agents detained a father near Linda Vista Elementary School while he waited to pick up his daughter. The undocumented man allegedly used fake Social Security documents.
- On Aug. 20, ICE agents arrested an undocumented man from Guatemala two blocks from Park Dale Lane Elementary school in Encinitas. His wife and daughter witnessed the arrest.
Elected officials in Chula Vista and Encinitas have criticized the tactic of arresting parents near schools.
After the Aug. 6 arrest, Chula Vista Councilman Michael Inzunza questioned the use of armed, masked agents to arrest people suspected of nonviolent crimes.
“If this was just an expired visa or a warrant, why make such a traumatic event?” he previously told KPBS.
Research shows these types of immigration arrests have a traumatic impact on children in immigrant and mixed-status families.
“Immigration policy in the United States is a source of chronic fear, instability, and trauma for millions of immigrants, with the expansion of enforcement mechanisms transforming daily life for families and children,” researchers out of UC Riverside wrote in a recent study.
‘Targeted enforcement,’ but not targeting schools
ICE officials have repeatedly stressed that agents are not specifically targeting schools.
Instead, officials describe these events as “targeted enforcement,” meaning they are arresting specific individuals. This is in contrast to enforcement focusing on locations where immigrants might gather. For example, in Los Angeles Border Patrol agents have arrested groups of people at Home Depot parking lots.
After the Encinitas arrest, ICE officials criticized the wife of the man agents arrested because she showed up to the scene and pleaded with agents to let her husband go. The arrest was recorded on video and shows their young daughter crying as agents force her dad into a truck.
“ICE San Diego finds it unfortunate that an individual chose to insert a child into an active law enforcement situation,” Patrick Divver, field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in San Diego wrote in a statement.
Regardless of whether ICE is intentionally targeting schools, four arrests near campuses in a three-week period has school communities on edge. People question why agents are choosing to make the arrests close to schools rather than other places.
After each arrest, leaders from the impacted district responded by attempting to assure parents that their schools remain a safe space for all students and teachers.
“As a District community, we are alarmed and disturbed by this event and its impact on children and families,” Encinitas Union School District Superintendent Andree Gray wrote in a message to parents. “EUSD stands firmly with every family in this community. Our top priority is for our school campuses to be safe, welcoming places for all children and families, regardless of immigration status.”
In response to this new thread of enforcement, immigrant advocacy groups Unión del Barrio and the Association of Raza Educators launched “community patrols,” in which volunteers drive around schools searching for undercover ICE vehicles.
If volunteers identify federal immigration agents, they are trained to report their location on social media channels so people can avoid the area.
