ICE arrest stirs campus anxiety
State Education chief asks feds to clarify policy after a father is detained near school.
State Education chief wants policy clarified after father detained near school.
California’s top education official announced last week that he has asked federal authorities to clarify whether they are changing a policy that in the past has discouraged immigration actions near schools.
“I have consistently told students and their families that they must feel safe and protected at our schools, especially families who are refugees, Muslims, or undocumented immigrants,” state Supt. of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson said in a letter to U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly. “Recent actions by federal law enforcement agents around schools have raised serious concerns.”
The California Department of Education said clarification was needed because of an incident in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents took Romulo Avelica-Gonzalez, a 48-year-old father of four, into custody after he dropped off his daughter at a charter school in the Lincoln Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles.
Another daughter, 13, was in the car with her father when he was arrested, and she recorded the event as she cried.
ICE has a long-standing policy of directing agents to generally avoid conducting enforcement activities at socalled sensitive locations such as churches, hospitals and schools. But AvelicaGonzalez’s arrest has sparked new concerns that the agency is loosening that policy — an accusation that federal officials have denied.
The arrest happened about six blocks from the charter school, Academia Avance, in the 3200 block of Pasadena Avenue. Another school, Hillside Elementary, is less than three blocks from where the arrest occurred.
“If the sensitive locations guidance is changing and will affect public schools, the California Department of Education (CDE) needs that information to communicate accurately with the state’s 6.2 million public school students and their families and more than 10,000 public schools,” Torlakson said in a statement.
An ICE official said agents had surveilled Avelica-Gonzalez, followed him to the school and determined where to safely stop the vehicle. Agents didn’t realize that another daughter was still in the car. Because the arrest was not carried out on school grounds, the official said, it does not represent a shift in policy.
Avelica-Gonzalez, a citizen of Mexico, has lived in the U.S. for 25 years. His four daughters were born in this country.