In Miami-Dade, first day of school jitters come with ICE deportation fears

Forget lunchboxes, backpacks and new sneakers. For thousands of Miami-Dade families, the first day of school comes with a sick feeling in the pit of their stomachs — and it’s not from cafeteria mystery meat.
It’s from the fear that masked, armed ICE agents could storm into the classroom or be waiting for them just outside the school, or that mamá or papá won’t be there to pick them up when the final bell rings.
There is a growing anxiety in Miami-Dade’s immigrant communities, where the 2025-26 school year begins with the regular first day jitters and a side of real fear. In a county where at least 82,000 students are English language learners and many live in “mixed-status” households — where one or some family members may be undocumented — parents and kids are bracing for the possibility that a normal school day could end with a knock on the door from immigration enforcement.
Read related: Miami could join 250 Florida cities with 287g contract to help ICE vs immigrants
And thanks to Miami-Dade’s love affair with the feds — hello, 287(g) program — and the largest school police force in the nation, nobody’s sleeping easy. While the Miami-Dade School Board Police — the largest school police force in the nation — has said they have no formal 287g deal with ICE, plenty of cities where the schools are have signed on the dotted line.
Immigrant advocates know the threat is real. The law now allows federal agents to enter schools with a warrant or “consent,” and that’s enough to keep plenty of families on edge.
There are already missing students thanks to Donald Trump‘s zeal to detain and deport hard-working, non-criminal immigrants in both Miami-Dade and Broward. According to a Miami Herald story, a number of students have already been deported to Colombia and Mexico. One day, they were happy little students in an elementary or middle school classroom and the next, they were gone.
They weren’t snatched at their school. But immigrant families and advocates worry that that’s next. Schools, churches and hospitals — which used to be off limits — are now apparently approved hunting grounds.
Miami-Dade County Public Schools policy, like that of many school districts, is to protect the right of students to education regardless of their immigration status and to keep school environments safe. This includes limiting access to school grounds and student information for immigration officials. Generally, ICE cannot enter a school without a judicial warrant or parental consent, and schools are obligated to contact the district’s legal counsel when ICE agents present themselves.
Read related: Maria Elvira Salazar’s ‘Dignity Act’ is about zero dignity and all a big act
Teachers urge parents to trust their schools and to not rob their kids of an education. But it’s not the parents robbing them — it’s this cruel president and his administration.
“I understand the impossible decisions you face,” United Teachers of Dade President Karla Hernandez-Mats wrote in an Op-Ed in the Herald. “And I know that when families remove their children from school out of fear, it’s an act of love — a desperate attempt to protect what matters most.
“But I ask you now to please consider the powerful gift of education. When your child walks through the doors of a public school, they enter one of the last sacred spaces we still have for hope, growth and community.”
Immigration advocates warn parents to update their kids’ emergency contact cards so a trusted friend or relative — not ICE or the state — picks them up if something happens.
But let’s be clear: this isn’t just about paperwork. It’s about kids in Miami-Dade County starting the school year wondering if their family will still be together by the end of the week. It’s going to be hard to focus on grammar and algebra.
Por si las moscas, here
Here is a list of free legal service providers in Florida from the U.S. Department of Justice Executive Office for Immigration Review. Here is the National Immigration Legal Services Directory to search for immigration legal services providers by state, county or detention facility. And the American Immigration Lawyers Association can also provide a referral. You can also call them at 1-800-954-0254 for more information.
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