February 7, 2025  | Ana Holdren and Alex Terlecky

On January 20th the Protecting The American People Against Invasion Executive Order was issued. The order rescinds the immigration policy decisions established under the Biden Administration, which previously discouraged immigration enforcement carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in locations deemed sensitive.

As detailed in a 2021 memo, these now-rescinded “sensitive locations” include schools (including preschools, K-12 schools, and higher education institutions); healthcare facilities (including hospitals, doctor’s offices, and community health clinics); places of worship; places where children gather (including playgrounds and bus stops); social services establishments (such as domestic violence shelters and food pantries); disaster/emergency response sites (including evacuation routes); weddings, funerals, and religious ceremonies; and parades, demonstrations, and rallies.

This Executive Order, in theory, allow agents to enter those sensitive areas to carry out immigration enforcement actions. Although, as of the writing of this article, there have been no reported cases of government officials entering schools or daycares with the intent to question or remove students regarding their citizen status, the possibility of future incursions remains. With that in mind, the best way to mitigate a risk is to understand what could happen, learn from what other organizations are doing to prepare, and create your own procedure on how to handle the situation if it occurs.

Procedures and Best Practices

It is important when developing a procedure on this topic to understand what legal rights you have regarding the protection of individuals under your care. For example, ICE and CBP agents are not able to simply enter a public location and gain access to students’ information without consent from the student’s guardians thanks to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).

Also consider how you can educate your staff and the members of the public that use your facilities, such as understanding the rights extended by the US Constitution to both citizens and noncitizens — such as the Fourth and Fifth Amendment, which protects all individuals from unreasonable searches and seizures, and ensures the right to remain silent when confronted by law enforcement, respectively.

For example, it is important to understand how the Fourth Amendment, which is extended to all citizens and noncitizens, operates in public and private spaces. According to the National Immigration Law Center: “In the context of protected areas, areas open to the public such as lobbies, waiting areas and parking lots are considered public, while interior areas and those marked “private” with a sign are considered private. For immigration enforcement to search or enter a private area within a formerly protected area, the Fourth Amendment requires a valid judicial warrant signed by a federal judge unless staff at those areas consent to the search.”

Consider utilizing or printing the cards below, which details the relevant Constitutional rights and include instructions on what to do if someone has an interaction with an immigration agent. These cards can be found in a variety of different languages and available for download at: Red Cards / Tarjetas Rojas | Immigrant Legal Resource Center | ILRC

Example Policies and Procedures

If you are struggling with getting starting a procedure or policy that fits your organization, consider these examples and suggestions to prepare for this developing situation:

Recommendations for Hospitals and Health Centers

• Minimize disclosure of patient information. While immigration status or evidence of foreign birth are not, by themselves, considered personal health information (PHI) protected under the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), health care providers have no affirmative legal obligation to inquire into or report to federal immigration authorities about a patient’s immigration status.
• Reevaluate data collection policies. Avoid asking for patients’ immigration status and, if you must collect such information for a purpose such as Medicaid enrollment, avoid including that information in the patient’s medical and billing records.
• Scrutinize scope of the warrant. In the healthcare context, special scrutiny should be given to the scope of the warrants to ensure that officials do not search other areas (for example, a warrant that covers an emergency room would not authorize ICE to enter other areas of a hospital).
• Educate and reassure patients. Healthcare facilities should endeavor to provide know your rights information such as posters, brochures, and KYR cards so that patients are aware of their rights and confidentiality laws.

Denver Public Schools:

1. Ensure that no unauthorized persons enter buildings, all school visitors shall report to the school office when entering and receive authorization before visiting elsewhere in the building. No individual should be permitted to enter the building without ascertaining whether the individual has a legitimate business or educational purpose. Scott Pribble said in an interview Monday that the posture with ICE agents, however, was “really no different than what we do with anybody who shows up at a school door — we make sure they have an appointment or they have school business, and if they don’t, we keep them outside.”
2. Per DPS Administrative Policy JIH (Student Interviews, Interrogations, Searches and Arrest), federal immigration law enforcement activities would not be permitted at our schools, on transportation routes, on DPS property or during school activities without a valid search warrant or exigent circumstances.
3. Under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), we are required to limit who has access to student documents. In addition, DPS does not collect the immigration status of our families in alignment with DPS Administrative Policy JRA/JRC-R.
4. Although staff are expected to operate in accordance with these policies, staff will not physically impede, interfere with or obstruct a government official in performing their duties. DPS will continue to follow the law and provide an education to all students regardless of their immigration status. We will also continue to protect the personal information of all of our students and staff and will not share it unless required by law. Additionally, the district will cooperate with local law enforcement to the extent required by law in regard to federal demands and policing.

Aurora Public Schools:

Aurora Public Schools has a similar policy. It says if an agent asks to speak with a student, "Politely inform the federal immigration officer that we have a process regarding requests to talk to our students and that you will need to contact the APS Office of General Counsel." The policy then instructs staff to find an author to find a school leader who should 
ask the immigration officer to give you a few minutes to call the legal office. You can ask them to wait outside the school."

However, the policy does have an exception. "There may be extremely rare situations where the federal immigration officer tells you something along the lines of: This is an emergency or these are “exigent circumstances.” Alternatively, the immigration officer might say something along the lines of “I am giving you a lawful order to let me talk to this student.” In this situation, you should comply with the officer’s order and not interfere. Immediately contact the APS legal office," it says.

New York City Schools:

1. Meet the ICE officer at the school entrance, where all visitors are screened for entry.
2. At the entrance, request the ICE officer’s name and ID, the phone number of the officer’s supervisor, and the reason for the visit during school hours.
3. Obtain any documentation from the officer (e.g., subpoena; search warrant; arrest warrant).
4. Advise the officer that you, the school official, are required by district protocols to notify and obtain guidance from the district legal counsel.
5. Advise the officer to wait outside the school building while you obtain guidance from district legal counsel.
6. Notify district legal counsel and provide them with the details and documentation obtained from the officer.
7. Wait while legal counsel reviews the materials provided. Do not take action until you obtain clear instructions from district legal counsel.
8. Contact the parents or guardians of the student(s) in question immediately after consulting with district legal counsel.
9. Ensure the school security person notifies their supervisor(s), as appropriate. (In New York City, those are the local police precinct and the New York Police Department’s School Safety Division.)
10. If the ICE officer fails to comply with instructions, do not physically attempt to interfere with any enforcement action. In these situations, obtain as much information as possible from the officer and notify the legal counsel and security supervisors.

Beyond the procedure examples listed above, other helpful advice is to have guardians refrain from placing immigration status on district documents such as emergency contact information. Also, consider requesting an additional, secondary contact for students that are outside of the student’s immediate family and whom can be contacted in the event of an emergency.

Small Steps Forward

This can be a challenging conversation to have both with members of the public and with staff and management, especially given the uncertainty surrounding the situation. But it is best to have the difficult conversations ahead of time, rather than to scramble if immigration enforcement actions are carried out in a previously protected area.

We will continue to update this article as more information becomes available and these policies and procedures evolve with time. If you would like to talk to our safety consultants about your policies or procedures or discuss your coverage with our underwriters, reach out to us at info@csdpool.org.