Why Should Delaware Care?
A federal agent was seen at a Delaware middle school campus Tuesday before apprehending a man in front of the school. The action followed a surge of immigration arrests nationally over the summer that highlighted the political divide between President Donald Trump and his supporters and many leaders in Delaware.
A federal immigration agent entered the campus at Stanton Middle School on Tuesday morning, then left after school security approached, according to school officials. An agent or agents then arrested a person just off the school grounds.
The incident appears to be the first time an agent with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement entered a Delaware school campus — a “sensitive place” where state officials have sought to restrict their actions.
It also comes just weeks after the Trump administration announced increased immigration enforcement efforts ahead of the November midterm election, including other public arrests around Delaware.
A video circulating on social media shows agents placing a man into a vehicle near the school, as school buses and other vehicles drove past.
A spokesperson for the Red Clay Consolidated School District said the apparent enforcement activity took place off of school grounds after the school’s administration and security personnel approached the agent on campus.
The spokesperson said no students were taken into custody and none were removed from the school.
“We recognize that situations like this can create concern and uncertainty for our school community, and we remain committed to providing a safe, supportive, and compassionate learning environment for all students,” the spokesperson said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, did not comment on the incident when reached by Spotlight Delaware. Instead, it requested the name of the detainee in question, the location the incident took place, and photos and videos from the arrest.
What happened?
Stanton Middle School parent Sade Garnica told Spotlight Delaware she received a call Tuesday morning from her sister, who said she witnessed an ICE agent detaining a father who had previously dropped off his daughter at school.
The sister had also just finished dropping off Garnica’s own daughter at the school.
Fearing ICE could return, Garnica picked up her daughter from school later that morning. She said school officials reassured her that federal agents would not enter the school. Still, she was fearful and pushed administrators to tell her the school’s protocol for suspicious cars.
“They were on school grounds,” Garnica said.
Garnica’s sister told her that the agent’s car was in the drop-off line with other parents before the arrest occurred across the street.
Images shared with Spotlight Delaware of the suspected-ICE vehicle show no visible identifiers. The license plate on the car was also tinted to obscure it from plain view.
ICE vehicles commonly have no markings, and sometimes no identifiable license plate, according to a report last year from NPR. Such unidentifiable plates sparked a dispute last spring between four states and the U.S. Department of Justice, the USA Today reported.
Garnica said Tuesday she still plans to drop her child off at school the next morning. But she remains scared, noting her husband is a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipient — the immigration program for people brought into the country as children.
“These are just parents. They are trying to just get to work,” Garnica said. “Listen, they don’t know if it’s their turn or not. Or you know, like how do I know I’m not gonna get picked up?”
Can ICE agents go onto school grounds?
Last month, Gov. Matt Meyer signed House Bill 94 into law, which prohibits state and local law enforcement from directly participating in ICE arrests at sensitive locations such as schools, medical facilities, and places of worship unless there is a valid court order.
But because ICE agents are federal police, the new law does not restrict their actions.
Still, Meyer expressed defiance when asked about the incident Tuesday. In an emailed statement he said, “ICE, leave Delaware alone. Our schools are not hunting grounds.”
“Parents of every ethnicity and any nationality must be able to drop their kids off at school without worrying that federal agents are watching, waiting, and tearing families apart,” Meyer said in the statement.
As of Tuesday evening, seven school districts told Spotlight Delaware that there have not been federal agents on their schools’ campuses before the Stanton incident.
