Los Angeles schools block Homeland Security employees from checking on migrant children

Los Angeles schools said Thursday that they turned away two teams of Homeland Security employees that tried to enter elementary schools looking to check in with some migrant students.

L.A. Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the employees sought students ranging from first graders to sixth graders. He said the principals turned the employees away, following school protocols.

“I am still mystified as to how a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th or 6th grader would pose any type of risk to the national security of our nation that would require Homeland Security to deploy its agents to two elementary schools,” Mr. Carvalho said.

He said the employees stressed that they were not part of ICE — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Homeland Security told Los Angeles-area media that the people were Homeland Security Investigations officers. That actually is a part of ICE, but not the deportation branch. HSI is the criminal investigations arm that probes smuggling and child exploitation cases, among other duties.

Homeland Security said the HSI employees were conducting “wellness checks” on children who’d shown up at the border as Unaccompanied Alien Children.

Tens of thousands of those children got “lost” in the system during the Biden years. They were turned over to sponsors and then they disappeared from the government’s view.

“This had nothing to do with immigration enforcement,” Homeland Security told local media.

Mr. Carvalho, though, saw more nefarious operations behind the visits.

He said the agents said they had permission of the students’ “caretakers” to check on them. He said school officials contacted the caretakers — in some cases parents — and determined they had not given permission.

The visits come at a time of heightened tensions around immigration enforcement, with President Trump promising “mass deportations” and immigration activists expecting him to use draconian tactics to achieve it.

The new administration earlier this year canceled a Biden-era policy that barred Homeland Security law enforcement from making immigration arrests near schools, school-bus stops, day-care facilities and other places children congregate.

Mr. Carvalho portrayed his schools’ resistance as a matter of moral righteousness. He said he himself came to the U.S. decades ago as an illegal immigrant at the age of 17.