Los angels – With big smile and colorful backpacks, tens of thousands of students in Los Angeles Unified School District Went on its first day of class Thursday. But in this new educational year, some families say they are living in fear.
Melissa, an unspecified mother of three American citizens, said that her 8 -year -old man is afraid.
“When we hear that the agents are near, we run or hide, and he is afraid,” Melissa told CBS News.
She says she has been forced to take into custody and make a plan in case of being deported.
“We have talked to our greatest,” Melissa said. “He will be in charge of his brother -in -law. It is sad to talk about these plans.”
Immigration enforcement activity has arisen in the LA region in the last four months. In JulyHorse federal agent Flock McArthur Park – Joe is located near many schools in the Westlake neighborhood of La – was flooded by armored vehicles and National Guard soldiers. Officials did not explain whether there was any arrest during the operation, but La Mayor Karen Bass exploded the move at that time, called it part of “fear and political agenda”.
Some unspecified mothers told CBS News that they were not ready to take the risk of sending their children to school.
An unspecified mother Andrea said, “I am scared because I am not able to separate from them.” “Either if they take me and they live here, or if they are taken and I live here.”
A special pavement near downtown la that children use to go to school is outside a home depot, which has often been raided in this summer. Federal agents keep patrolling in this Latin-Bahul area around McArthur Park.
If they are not an officer of a signed judicial warrant, they do not have access to anyone, staff members or students or parents, “Lausd Superintendent Alberto Karwalho told CBS News.
Karwalho says that the district has taken measures to protect the families, implementing safe areas outside 100 schools in Latin-Bahul areas where volunteers and officials will look for federal immigration activity.
On Monday, Nathan Mejia, a 15 -year -old disabled student, Was detained By federal agents outside Arlet High School in San Fernando Valley.
Mejia told CBS News, “They started pointing to the guns on us, then when they opened the door, my mother asked me to just move or do nothing,” Mejia told CBS News. “I stepped, they put me in handcuffs.”
His mother told CBS Los Angeles that the agents showed him a picture of a person who was interacting with his son, but he was not. Mejia was quickly released.
One in Social media post On Tuesday, the Homeland Security Department denied that it was targeting the high school and said “the agents were performing a targeted operation” “pledges with former criminal convicts in the wide surrounding area of Arata with suspected MS -13 pledge.”
The Trump administration has insisted that schools will not be targeted as part of its ongoing immigration crack.
“This administration wants to ensure that all school children across the country can safely go to school in every city from Los Angeles to DC,” said Karoline Lewit on Tuesday, the White House press secretary Karolin Lewit said in a press briefing.
According to Karwalho, the second largest school in Lausd-the district district, which has more than half a million students-one in one of the students is part of an immigrant family, with at least one parent unspecified. He hopes that the new safe area measures of his district are sufficient.
“Why the immigration enforcement action is so close to schools where a 16 -year -old, a 15 -year -old, can actually be done incorrectly as an adult?” Karwalho asked. “Should we not have enough sympathy and compassion in our hearts so that children have that kind of trauma?”
