LA schools block Homeland Security agents from visiting classes — but DHS says they’re just doing welfare checks on Biden’s lost migrant kids
Principals at two Los Angeles elementary schools blocked Homeland Security agents from their campuses over fears that they were doing immigration enforcement â€?but the Department of Homeland Security says agents were just making “welfare checks” on migrants kids who crossed the border alone.
Several Homeland Security agents showed up to Lillian Street Elementary and Russell Elementary in South LA on April 7 to speak with two students and , according to ABC7.
“What interest should a Homeland Security agent have in a first-grader?” LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho fumed at a subsequent news conference.
“They wanted access to the students to determine their well-being based on, according to the agents, the fact that when they entered this country, they entered as unnacompanied minors. It is well known that these students are under the care of relatives,” said Carvalho.
But Department of Homeland Security assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin said on X Sunday that the agents were there only “conducting wellness checks” on the kids “to ensure that they are safe and not being exploited, abused and sex trafficked” and were not there to carry out “immigration enforcement.”
“Unlike the previous administration, President Trump and Secretary Noem take the responsibility to protect children seriously and will continue to work with federal law enforcement to reunite children with their families,” said McLaughlin.
The Trump administration has so far reunited roughly 5,000 unaccompanied migrant children with family members or “safe guardians” after tens of thousands went missing under the Biden admin, according to McLaughlin.
Carvalho said the feds “conveyed to both principals that the parents, or the legal guardians in charge of these children have provided them authorization for access to these kids in school,” but argued their claims were “blatantly untrue.”
“When the principals attempted to write down details about their IDs, they quickly hid their IDs,” said Carvalho.
The Biden-Harris administration lost track of more than 320,000 migrant children who crossed the border alone, a shocking inspector general report released in August revealed.
Migrant children who cross the border without parents are sent to the Department of Health and Human Services, which is tasked with screening their sponsors in the US.
Some of the missing children were found because of the lax vetting policies the Biden administration adopted to screen their adult sponsors.
The Trump administration has sought to address the issue and recently found that approved migrant sponsors were providing fake or doctored photos in their applications to HHS.
