LAUSD: No ICE Without a Judge's Signature — Students Return to Class as Volunteers Set Up ICE Watch Patrols

Educators from the Los Angeles Unified School District and members of the activist group Union del Barrio rally in front of the LAUSD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, on January 31, 2026, to demand that US Immigration and Customs Enforcement withdraw from the city and call for justice for Anthony Paredes, a deaf LAUSD student who was arrested nearby at the Metropolitan Detention Center. Donald Trump's border chief said January 29, 2026 that some federal agents could be withdrawn from Minneapolis, the northern US city that has become the flashpoint for the president's immigration crackdown. The Trump administration, facing a public backlash over the shooting deaths of two Americans by federal agents in Minneapolis, also eased immigration operations in the northeastern state of Maine. (Credit: Photo by Apu GOMES / AFP via Getty Images)

Balloons framed the entrance and cumbia music played as staff waved pom-poms for arriving students at Maya Angelou Community Senior High School in South Park on Wednesday. Hours earlier, before the first bell, teachers and neighborhood volunteers had already walked the surrounding blocks to confirm the paths kids take to campus were clear of federal immigration agents, according to LA Public Press.

The scene played out across Los Angeles this week as roughly 400,000 students in LAUSD, the nation's second-largest public school system, began the 2026-2027 year — a return shaped, once again, by an intensified federal immigration crackdown and by a volunteer network built to watch for it.