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Are there documented cases of ICE arrests in K-12 schools 2020 2024 and where?
Executive Summary
There are documented cases and research indicating that ICE arrests and enforcement actions occurred in or around K–12 schools between 2020 and 2025, with reporting and studies linking specific incidents and measurable disruptions to student attendance and wellbeing. Multiple news reports and empirical studies identify arrests of students and family members in school settings, increased daily absences of up to 22% in affected districts, and heightened anxiety among students and educators during periods of enforcement [1] [2] [3] [4]. The evidence mixes individual case reporting, administrative dashboards that lack explicit school-location tagging, and academic analyses that infer school impacts from broader raid timing and attendance records [5] [6] [7].
1. Concrete incidents reported — who was arrested and where panic followed
Reporting compiled through mid-2025 documents specific instances of ICE actions that affected K–12 communities, including reported arrests of a fourth-grade student’s family member in California and a high-school junior in Maryland, which local outlets tied directly to school disruption and student fear. Journalistic accounts describe teachers and administrators reporting sudden absenteeism and a climate of anxiety after visible enforcement activity near or involving school families, emphasizing immediate community impact on children’s sense of safety and school participation [1] [7]. These pieces present named cases and local responses; they do not serve as a comprehensive national inventory, but they establish that enforcement touching K–12 communities occurred and was reported in multiple states.
2. Empirical studies link raids to sharp attendance drops — the 22% finding and its scope
Multiple research efforts quantify the downstream educational effects of immigration enforcement near schools, notably studies finding a 22% increase in daily student absences in California’s Central Valley and a two-percentage-point drop in attendance in a Texas district following raids. These studies relied on attendance records tied to known enforcement events and compared pre- and post-raid patterns to isolate effects, concluding that the youngest students often suffered the largest attendance increases and potential learning loss [2] [3]. The research provides statistically significant associations between enforcement timing and school participation, though it focuses on specific districts and regions rather than claiming uniform national impact.
3. Government data sources confirm many arrests but rarely flag school locations
Federal enforcement dashboards and deportation-data projects document hundreds of thousands of ICE arrests and encounters through mid-2025, offering filters for state, age, and citizenship but not explicit tags for “K–12 school” as a location in publicly released datasets. This gap means national administrative counts confirm widespread enforcement activity but cannot by themselves enumerate arrests that took place inside schools without case-level reporting or targeted datasets [5] [6]. The Department of Homeland Security’s updated policy in January 2025 permitting enforcement in so-called “sensitive locations” clarifies legal authority but does not create a public mechanism to identify which arrests happened at schools [4].
4. Regional reporting shows spikes and differing local dynamics across New England, California, Texas, and Maryland
Regional journalism and research point to geographically concentrated spikes in school-related impacts: New England educators reported heightened fears and attendance declines amid an uptick in arrests in Connecticut and Massachusetts; California’s Central Valley study documented large, measurable absences tied to raids; Texas districts showed smaller but meaningful attendance reductions; Maryland reporting highlighted individual teenage arrests and community concern [7] [2] [3] [1]. These accounts collectively suggest the phenomenon is not confined to a single region but manifests unevenly depending on enforcement patterns, local demographics, and school-community ties, underscoring the need to examine local case records for a full picture.
5. What the evidence does and does not prove — gaps, agendas, and next steps for verification
The combined evidence establishes that ICE enforcement actions affected K–12 communities between 2020–2025 and produced measurable educational and psychological effects, yet no single public dataset from ICE or DHS provides comprehensive, location-coded counts of school-based arrests, leaving reliance on journalistic case reports and academic inference. Reporting and advocacy groups emphasize child welfare and educational harms, while enforcement data and DHS policy changes highlight legal authority and population-wide arrest totals; both perspectives are fact-based but reflect different priorities—protecting students versus documenting enforcement reach [4] [2] [8]. To build a definitive, geographically detailed list of school-located arrests, researchers need access to case-level enforcement records or coordinated local reporting, and policymakers should consider mandating transparent location coding in enforcement databases.