ICE Is Now Arresting People at Schools, Churches, and Hospitals. Decades of "Sensitive Location" Protections Gone.

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The "sensitive location" policy dated to 2011 under the Obama administration, formalizing practices that had existed informally for years before. The policy was based on a straightforward principle: people should not be afraid to send their children to school, seek medical care, or practice their religion. When ICE enforces immigration law at schools, even children who are US citizens are affected — they may stop attending school, they may witness parents being arrested, they may live in fear that a parent will not be home when they return. The effect of school-based enforcement on educational attendance and outcomes in immigrant-heavy communities is documented and predictable.

Since the revocation, specific documented incidents include: a parent arrested dropping a child off at school in Texas; ICE agents present at an elementary school in Virginia leading to parents keeping children home; a church in Chicago reporting federal agents photographing attendees outside their Sunday service; a hospital in Southern California reporting ICE attempting to enter a medical ward to arrest a patient receiving treatment. The American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement documenting that pediatricians across the country were reporting children not attending well-child visits, vaccination appointments, and urgent care visits out of fear of enforcement. The damage to public health from disrupting healthcare access in immigrant communities is not confined to immigrants — it affects vaccination rates and disease surveillance in entire communities.