by Mick Rhodes | editor@claremont-courier.com

In 2011, the Department of Homeland Security issued the DHS Sensitive Locations Memo, which designated schools from pre-school to college, as well as vocational and trade schools, places of worship, and hospitals, among other sites, as “sensitive locations” where Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities were curtailed.

In 2021, DHS issued an expanded memo, this time including Customs and Border Protection and adding additional sites, including areas where children gather such as playgrounds, recreation centers, and bus stops; social service centers; disaster and emergency relief centers; religious or civil ceremonies including funerals and weddings; and public demonstrations, rallies, or parades, to the list of locations where the reach of federal immigration enforcement agents was reduced.

“These policies helped to reassure immigrants that they could seek life-saving health care, request essential social services, practice their faith, and attend or drop their children off at school without worrying about being arrested by ICE,” read a recent study by the nonprofit California Immigrant Policy Center.

In one of its first actions, on January 21, 2025 the Trump Administration rescinded the 2021 guidance.

In September 2025, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin released a  statement regarding Trump’s Justice Department’s rescindment the 2021 guidance, accusing “the media” of “sadly attempting to create a climate of fear and smear law enforcement. These smears are contributing to our ICE law enforcement officers facing 1,000% increase in assaults against them … The facts are DHS’s directive allowing ICE to go into schools gives our law enforcement the ability to do their jobs. Our agents use discretion. Officers would need secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a school. We expect these to be extremely rare.”

Since then, there have been reports of ICE and CBP encounters on school grounds at nine public and private high schools, intermediate schools, and elementary schools in Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland, and Minneapolis, according to reporting by K-12 Dive.