When Federal Agents Show Up at Elementary Schools

Wellness checks become intimidation tactics. Our schools must hold the line.

This week in Los Angeles, federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security showed up, unannounced and without a warrant, at two elementary schools in the LA Unified School District. They claimed to be conducting “wellness checks” on children who had arrived in the U.S. unaccompanied. But what unfolded tells a very different story, one that should send chills through every sanctuary district in the country.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho described the moment plainly: armed agents attempted to access five students across two South L.A. campuses, offering no documentation, refusing to allow staff to record badge numbers, and insisting, falsely, it turns out, that they had guardian consent.

“My very first question starts there—what interests should a Homeland Security agent have in a first-grader or a second-grader, a third-grader or a fourth-grader for that matter?” Carvalho asked.

Indeed. What possible “wellness check” involves federal agents circumventing school policy and ignoring administrators’ legal authority? These are not officials from the Department of Child Welfare or local health workers. These are agents from the very department that has been used as a political weapon to terrorize immigrant communities.

This was not about child welfare, it was about power and intimidation. About seeing who would flinch, and how far they could get without pushback.

Fortunately, the answer in this case was not far. The school principals denied entry. The district’s legal team was called. The agents left. But the message they left behind was unmistakable: no place is off limits in this administration’s campaign to normalize fear.

This is the first documented attempt by federal agents to enter LAUSD schools since the start of Trump’s second term. It comes amid escalating rhetoric around mass deportations and the use of military force to remove undocumented immigrants, much of it echoed by right-wing influencers and amplified by platforms like X. The Trump administration has made it clear it no longer sees schools, hospitals, or places of worship as sacrosanct. Everything is on the table.

LAUSD has been a sanctuary district since 2016. It requires a judicial warrant, not just a badge, for access to its students. And that policy held. But this incident highlights how fragile those protections can be when staff don’t know their rights, or don’t feel empowered to enforce them.

That’s why organizers like Ilse Escobar of United Teachers Los Angeles are calling for broader training. That’s why state Senator Sasha Renée Pérez has introduced legislation requiring all schools and college campuses to immediately notify families if immigration agents show up, much like we do with emergency alerts.

Superintendent Carvalho, who himself arrived in this country as an undocumented teen, didn’t mince words:

“I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world... if today I did not fight for those who find themselves in the same predicament I faced over 40 years ago.”

There are an estimated 72,000 undocumented children in California’s K-12 system. Their presence is not a threat. Their existence is not a loophole to be closed. They are children. And any government that sends armed agents into schools under false pretenses is not acting in the name of safety.

Let us take a moment to thank the school principals who stood firm in Los Angeles this week. In doing so, they not only protected five children, they defended the soul of public education itself.

This is not just a local story, it is a test run.