Los Angeles Schools Refuse Entry to Homeland Security Officers

The Homeland Security agents were attempting to check on the health and safety of children who entered the U.S. across the border alone, DHS says.

Superintendent of Los Angeles Unified School District Alberto M. Carvalho visits a campus in Los Angeles on Jan. 8, 2024. John Fredricks/The Epoch Times

Two elementary schools in Los Angeles denied entry on April 7 to Department of Homeland Security (DHS) investigators checking on the health and safety of illegal immigrant children who arrived across the border alone, according to officials.

A Los Angeles Unified School District spokeswoman declined to tell The Epoch Times why the investigators were turned away and said all visitors must sign in and be authorized before entering a school campus.

The district responded to the visit by immediately sending out emergency alerts to their school communities with information about rights and resources for illegal immigrants, and offered on-site counseling.

According to DHS, the officers were conducting welfare checks at Russell and Lillian elementary schools on unaccompanied children who were among the tens of thousands of illegal immigrant children that went missing during the Biden administration.

The agents identified themselves with school principals and notified the school officials about the purpose of the visit, but were told they needed court orders to enter the premises or to receive information about students, according to DHS.

“These [officers] were at these schools conducting wellness checks on children who arrived unaccompanied at the border,” a department spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email on April 10. “This had nothing to do with immigration enforcement.

“DHS is leading efforts to conduct welfare checks on these children to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited, abused, and sex trafficked,” the spokesperson added.

The Los Angeles schools responded to the visit by alerting staff, students, and parents about “immigration enforcement activity,” according to the district.

Superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the schools would respond to the agents’ visit “with courage.”

“Our schools are places of inspiration, protection, empathy, and knowledge,” Carvalho said in an emailed statement April 10 to The Epoch Times. “Fear and threat shall be met with courage and determination.”

Lillian Elementary School sent a message to their students and staff alerting them to the visit.

“We wanted to make you aware that two individuals who identified themselves as representatives of a federal agency came to the main office earlier today,” the school wrote in the message. “After following District protocols, school administrators denied entry to the individuals, and they left.”

A file photo of elementary school students in Pacoima, Calif., on Feb. 8, 2019. Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images

A similar message was sent to the Russell Elementary School community, according to a district spokesperson.

Other schools in the district sent out “precautionary messages” to their communities, alerting parents and guardians that the district was committed to the well-being and education of all students, according to a district spokesperson.

The messages also offered mental health support on campus for impacted students and employees.

In the alerts, the schools referred parents, staff, and students to a district web page that provides illegal immigrant families with emergency toolkits about where to find “trusted immigration services” and how to prepare to assert their “constitutional rights in the presence of an immigration officer.”

The website also provided information from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, a national nonprofit, which instructed them on how to order “red cards.” The cards list certain rights and are encouraged to be carried by illegal immigrants to “defend themselves” against Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

According to the cards, illegal immigrants can choose neither to open the door if an immigration officer visits them nor answer any questions about their immigration status.

In March, the DHS Office of Inspector General confirmed more than 31,000 of the 448,000 unaccompanied illegal immigrant children that arrived between 2019 and 2023 went missing.

In less than 70 days, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have reunited nearly 5,000 unaccompanied children with a relative or safe guardian, according to the DHS spokesperson.

A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration on April 1 to restore funding for nonprofit organizations providing legal services to illegal immigrant children who arrived alone.