ICE accused of targeting parents while taking kids to school

DENVER – U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are drawing more criticism for detaining parents taking their kids to school, although officials said they primarily target undocumented adults with criminal records, not specific parents or schools.

Immigrant rights activists said there were three incidents in Colorado in the past week in which fathers were stopped before or after dropping their kids off. Officials at a district outside Portland, Oregon, said ICE agents arrested a father shortly after his kids got on the school bus. This month, agents detained a mother after she dropped her child off at a South Philadelphia school.

ICE has a "sensitive location" policy generally barring agents from detaining people at schools, hospitals, churches, funerals and weddings. The policy bars them from detaining people at school bus stops but only if children are present. Activists said the ICE detentions scare families and shatter communities.

“The Colorado Field Office’s use of this cruel tactic targeting families violates the spirit of the sensitive locations policies, which include schools,” said Jordan Garcia, a spokesman for the American Friends Service Committee of Colorado. “The point of the sensitive locations policy is to protect the safety of children and community members from the trauma of witnessing enforcement.”

ICE officials said they simply enforce U.S. law as written by Congress and anyone with concerns should take them up with their elected officials. Last year, 86% of the people arrested by ICE had either a previous criminal conviction or

“The point of the sensitive locations policy is to protect the safety of children and community members from the trauma of witnessing enforcement.” Jordan Garcia, American Friends Service Committee of Colorado

pending criminal charges, in addition to being suspected of immigration violations, the agency said.

“We will and do stop vehicles that are traveling, and we have probable cause that they are the person we have targeted,” the Denver ICE office said in a statement. “We are not targeting fathers specifically or schools generally. We do target criminal aliens, there is no shortage of them here.”

Activists said the enforcement is part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to scare undocumented residents into leaving the country voluntarily. What it actually does is drive them underground, tears apart families and ruins communities, activists said.

"The trauma that ICE creates with this intimidation and surveillance of principally neighborhoods of color is intergenerational," said Wendolyne Omana, an activist in southwestern Colorado. "Many adolescents lose their desire to live and to love life after watching their parents be detained.”

The names of the detainees were not released by activists, and it is unclear why they were targeted.