The first day of school is supposed to be about sharpened pencils, new shoes, and the small excitement of seeing friends again. In Washington D.C. on Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser used the moment to deliver a different kind of message—one aimed squarely at federal immigration authorities.
Bowser said she was deeply concerned that some immigrant families in the city were keeping their children home out of fear that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents might use schools as grounds for arrests or detentions.
“Parents who need to make adjustments are going to be making adjustments. And that’s a sad thing to say,” Bowser told reporters. “Schools should be safe places. We know that our schools are the safest places for our students. We invest a lot in their learning. And if they’re not at school, they can’t take advantage of that learning.”
The mayor’s plea was both blunt and emotional: “I would just call on everybody to leave our kids alone. Let them get a great start to their school day and school year. Any attempt to target children is heartless, is mean, it’s uncalled for, and it only hurts.”
Her comments come against the backdrop of stepped-up deportation efforts by the Trump administration, which has cast a wide net in its immigration enforcement priorities. The rhetoric has had a chilling effect in immigrant communities across the country, where parents weigh the risk of a routine school drop-off against the possibility of an encounter with ICE.
For D.C., a city that has long prided itself on being a sanctuary jurisdiction, the tension is particularly stark. Public schools serve thousands of students from immigrant households, and city leaders have consistently vowed not to cooperate with federal immigration crackdowns. Still it makes sense that children and their parents are terrified to go to school. It’s strange to live in a moment when families aren’t just avoiding school, they’re avoiding registering their children for much needed classes.
Bowser, who has made school safety a central part of her administration explained it point blank, education doesn’t work if children are afraid to walk into the classroom. She said, “We put so much into making sure our kids are ready to learn. None of that matters if they aren’t there.”
