Now that ICE’s budget is exploding, this advice from Mercedes Schneider is even more relevant. Reposted with permission.
Persons traveling in groups, wearing masks and often vests that say “Police” or “ICE”– no other identifiers, including refusing to identify themselves by name– and often offering no Hinton of due process to the individuals they are rounding up and taking to some mysterious “away”– are in locales all over the country, seizing people of color.
They do not necessarily come with arrest warrants. The June 04, 2025, Guardian reports that ICE agents have reportedly been told to be “creative” about arrests, to “push the envelope” and to pursue “collaterals.”
They can show up anywhere– including schools and bus stops.
On May 31, 2025, a Massachusetts junior was arrested on his way to volleyball practice and held for six days.
From the June 03, 2025, Associated Press:
Marcelo Gomes da Silva, a junior born in Brazil, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents Saturday on his way to volleyball practice. Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons said Monday that agents were looking for the teenager’s father, who owns the car Gomes da Silva was driving at the time.
“Like any local law enforcement officer, if you encounter someone that has a warrant or … he’s here illegally, we will take action on it,” he said when reporters asked about the teen.
Asked why ICE would detain an 18-year-old with no criminal record, Lyons answered, “I didn’t say he was dangerous. I said he’s in this country illegally and we’re not going to walk away from anybody.”
School leaders need to plan for this reality.
I won’t pretend to have any easy answers. However, a first step involves becoming familiar with the situation.
On May 12, 2025, Walter Olsen of the Libertarian think tank, the Cato Institute, published an informative, pointed article about the ICE “secret police.” Below are some excerpts:
ICE Agents Routinely Mask Up When Seizing People—That’s Wrong
Walter Olsen
I had missed the story from two weeks ago about what happened after (apparent) agents of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), one wearing a balaclava to hide his face, seized two men at the Charlottesville, VA, courthouse. The sequel, as reported by the local paper, the Daily Progress, was that an unnamed (!) ICE spokesperson threatened to prosecute two persons at the scene who challenged the action and asked the agents to identify themselves or show a warrant. The headline read: “ICE promises bystanders who challenged Charlottesville raid will be prosecuted.”
Leave aside the question of when, if at all, it is proper to prosecute bystanders under these circumstances. Why is it considered acceptable for ICE enforcers to wear masks to hide their identity in the first place? They did so last week, a video shows, when they arrested Newark, NJ Mayor Ras Baraka as he protested at a detention facility. A casual search reveals that ICE agents have worn face coverings, ski masks, and the like in raids and stops reported from around the country (Westminster, MD; Douglas County, CO; Great Barrington, MA; Bellingham, WA). Federal agents wore masks when they abducted Turkish grad student Rümeysa Öztürk off a street near her Boston-area home. (She was freed by a judge last week.) The Trump Department of Homeland Security appears to have made it standard practice.
At what point will we as a nation find ourselves with a secret police?
People who mask themselves before street confrontations ordinarily do so to avoid legal and public accountability, especially when they are up to no good.
…
So can ICE agents—or at least whoever is conducting these raids and stops in ICE’s name. Aside from the masking, agents in videos are often seen wearing outfits so random and ill-assorted that they have sparked speculation that they are persons borrowed from local or state law enforcement work or even private security. It’s hard to know when dodging identification is part of the plan.
…
Hypotheticals about whether police masking might have proper uses under very extreme circumstances—say, in arresting members of a major criminal gang known for retaliating against law enforcement—are less than relevant to the federal detentions in recent weeks, which have often targeted persons with no police record at all, let alone a record of violence. But masking—as with overkill in the quantity of agents, vehicles, and weaponry sent in to a scene—does convey a message of intimidation.
Certainly, if a group of masked individuals (mostly men) in sketchy law enforcement or military garb hinting immigration enforcement show up at a school office, or are hanging out in a school parking lot, or ball field, of bus loading area, administration needs to have a plan to deal with the situation.
ICE does use warrants. That’s what schools seem to assume. But not always. It appears that 2025 ICE prefers presenting no warrants as its agents appear to be arresting indiscriminately in order to meet quotas.
On June 19, 2025, ICE agents tried hanging out in the parking lot at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles.
The Dodgers posted that ICE was “denied entry to the grounds”:
As for raids at farms, hotels, and restaurants, Trump said they would cease, then changed course.
Schools being off limits was not even on the pre-reversal list.
If ICE detains a school bus driver and leaves student riders stranded or otherwise unattended, administration needs to have a plan.
If ICE raids neighborhoods and takes parents and leaves children, or if parents, or students, or faculty are afraid to travel to and from school for fear of being detained by ICE, administration needs to have a plan.
In formulating that plan, here are some additional resources:
- Mass.gov: Guidance regarding K-12 Schools’ obligations to protect students and their information
- NYC Schools: Immigrant Families FAQs
- Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates: Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Schools
- The Conversation: ICE can now enter K-12 schools − here’s what educators should know about student rights and privacy
This off-balance version of America is where we are.
