Families worry about ICE in Tacoma schools. Here’s what we’ve found out
Fear of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers abounds in Pierce County schools.
Students at least three different high schools in and around Pierce County have staged walkouts in recent weeks, drawing hundreds to skip class and block traffic to protest ICE. The demonstrations come on the heels of protests against ICE in Minnesota after officers shot and killed two people in Minneapolis last month. They also come amid reports of families and children – as young as 5 years old – being picked up by ICE officers.
In a city that also houses the Northwest ICE Processing Center, concerns that something like that could happen in Tacoma are magnified. Those concerns also make for fertile ground for rumors to spread that ICE agents are showing up to schools or waiting at bus stops to pick students up.
But education leaders in Tacoma and at the state level say that, at least so far, that has not happened. If ICE agents were to show up at a school in Tacoma, school and district leaders would not necessarily welcome them.
Tanisha Jumper, the district’s chief communications officer, said ICE has not been in Tacoma Public Schools. Jumper said the district isn’t aware of students who have been deported, but federal authorities also don’t inform the district if they do so.
The Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction, or OSPI, has given districts clear guidance: If agents appear on campus, school leaders can stop them at the door. They need to confirm that they have a valid warrant or other legal document to allow them in, and they can notify local law enforcement of their presence and families of kids who might be impacted by their presence.
“ICE raids should not be happening on our campuses, and so far they have not,” State Superintendent Chris Reykdal said in a video statement. “But we’ve given school districts really clear tools on what they can do to slow it down so that it’s a legal process if it proceeds at all.”
Jumper said school and district leaders would treat federal immigration authorities who might appear on a campus the same way they would treat anyone who is not an employee at the school or a student.
“[They] have to go to the front office, they have to show their ID, and they have to state their business,” Jumper told The News Tribune. “If they have a warrant, then we have to verify that, and then we will comply with any laws after that point.”
Katy Payne, chief communications officer for OSPI, said OSPI has asked districts to report to the state if ICE officers are spotted on campus. So far, OSPI hasn’t heard of any such incidents at K-12 schools in the state – either through reports from districts or from the press. Payne said outside of K-12 schools, OSPI has heard reports of federal immigration officials who have shown up to preschools, like a Tri-Cities preschool in November that reported Homeland Security agents visiting the campus, The Tri-City Herald reported. Another incident took place in Issaquah late last year – a mother who was detained outside a preschool, The Seattle Times reported.
If a student enrolled at Tacoma Public Schools stops showing up to school – if they were deported or for other reasons – the district would follow the Becca Bill. That’s the state law that requires all students from ages 8 to 18 to attend school regularly. The district would send a letter to the address it has on file for the student after two days and again after seven days of unexcused absences.
Because the district doesn’t ask for students’ documentation status, the district doesn’t have a way of knowing where a student went if they stop showing up to school unless someone tells them, Jumper said.
The Supreme Court Case Plyler v. Doe in 1982 paved the way for access to education for undocumented people in the United States – as a result of the decision, public schools are not allowed to deny students enrollment based on their documentation status, require students or parents to disclose their immigration status or require Social Security numbers from all students, according to OSPI’s website. School staff also have no legal obligation to enforce U.S. immigration laws.
“Washington public schools must not initiate engagement with federal immigration authorities for the purpose of sharing student information,” the website states.
What fear of ICE looks like on the ground
Anecdotally, OSPI has heard about families who are choosing to take preventative measures amid concerns about ICE. That ranges from self-deporting to having kids stay from home school to avoid the possibility of being spotted by federal immigration authorities, Payne told The News Tribune.
In Tacoma, Jumper said the district offers students the option to attend school virtually through its program Tacoma Online. Families with those concerns would likely be directed to Tacoma Online, though Jumper said the program hasn’t seen notable changes to enrollment that would indicate families are choosing that option en masse.
Because the district doesn’t collect data on students’ documentation status, it’s hard to determine exactly how many students might be affected by concerns about ICE or who have been deported within the last year.
Some demographic data that the district reports to OSPI can help paint a picture. Though a student’s status as an English language learner doesn’t guarantee that they might be undocumented, it is more likely that they come from another country than the general student population. The number of English language learners in the district was steadily increasing after the 2022-2023 academic year, but as of the current academic year those numbers are starting to dip.
The same is true of the district’s Hispanic/Latino student population. Though that identity marker doesn’t necessarily mean that a student is undocumented, researchers have found that immigration authorities have targeted Latino communities at “unprecedented levels” in recent months, according to an analysis by the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs’ Center for Neighborhood Knowledge. The number of Hispanic/Latino students at Tacoma Public Schools started to dip in the 2025-2026 academic year after steadily increasing starting in the 2020-2021 academic year, according to OSPI data.
Some parents of students enrolled at the Tacoma school district are hearing that their kids’ classmates are being deported. One such parent, who wanted to remain anonymous to protect her kids’ classmates from being targeted by ICE, said she’s frustrated with how district leaders are communicating about it.
She said she hasn’t heard enough from the district about how it plans to keep kids safe – “and I think that’s dangerous,” she told The News Tribune. The parent said she’s heard from her kids that a few of their classmates have been deported, and she’s been left to explain what that means to them.
“If this is happening to kids your age, whether you’re at risk or not, this is something that you should be aware of, because I don’t think that it does my kid any favors to be like, ‘Oh yeah, sometimes kids will just randomly not be in your class anymore, and there’s no reason,’” she said. “No, you need to know why.”
The parent, who said she and her family are Latino, said she has considered taking her kids out of school to protect their safety.
“And I wouldn’t be surprised if other families did it,” she said.
This story was originally published February 9, 2026 at 5:00 AM.
