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The Denver Public Schools district has filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration, challenging a new policy that it says gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents “virtually unchecked authority” to enforce immigration laws in “formerly protected areas,” including schools.
The suit marks the first time a district has sued over ICE’s feared enforcement of students, with DPS officials fighting to uphold a “bedrock principle” that it says schools have to educate kids “regardless of their immigration status.”
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“Since the announcement of the 2025 Policy, school attendance has decreased noticeably across all DPS schools, particularly those schools in areas with new-to-country families and where ICE raids have already occurred,” the district’s complaint says. “DPS is hindered in fulfilling its mission of providing education and life services to the students who are refraining from attending DPS schools for fear of immigration enforcement actions occurring on DPS school grounds.”
Colorado’s largest public school district filed the suit in federal court Wednesday against the Department of Homeland Security and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, claiming the department wrongly rescinded the government’s “longstanding” Protected Areas Policy last month after Trump took office, which defined schools as being excluded from on-site ICE enforcement activities. DPS is requesting that a temporary restraining order be put in place to stop DHS from not recognizing schools as “sensitive locations.”
“Even though versions of the Protected Areas Policy had been in place for over 30 years, mere days after President Donald Trump’s new administration took office, DHS purportedly issued a directive rescinding the Protected Areas Policy,” the DPS complaint says.
Under the new 2025 policy, immigration agents are allowed to enter “sensitive locations” — including schools, hospitals and churches — to carry out enforcement. The policy change came last month as Trump began carrying out mass deportations across the U.S. after months of promising it on the campaign trail.
“By all accounts, the new DHS policy gives federal agents virtually unchecked authority to enforce immigration laws in formerly protected areas, including schools,” the DPS complaint says. “As reported to the public, the sole restraint on agents is that they use their own subjective ‘common sense’ to determine whether to carry out enforcement activities at formally safeguarded locations such as schools.”
DPS officials say the Trump administration has failed to provide “good reason” for rescinding the Protected Areas Policy rules, which made it clear that “many factors should be considered” when weighing enforcement action, including “the location in which we are conducting the action and its impact on other people and broader societal interests.”
According to the complaint, DPS serves more than 90,000 students and about 4,000 of them are immigrants. “As of the 2023-2024 school year, over 200 languages are spoken by DPS students and families,” the complaint says. “Over 40% of students speak another language at home, and 51.8% of DPS students were Hispanic/Latinx.”
Denver is a sanctuary city that has seen a “significant influx of migrant arrivals” in recent years, according to DPS officials, with more than 40,000 arriving from the U.S. southern border since January 2023. It’s estimated that roughly 4,000 immigrant students attended DPS schools during the 2023-2024 school year.
“DPS is legally obligated to enroll students regardless of their immigration status, and DPS affirmatively welcomes all students,” the complaint says. “Under immigration enforcement guidance in place since 1993, these students would have attended DPS schools without fear or concern of immigration enforcement actions being taken against them or their family members while on DPS school grounds.”
The 2025 policy, according to DPS officials, is “arbitrary and capricious” for various reasons, including the fact that there’s been no “satisfactory explanation” offered up by the Trump administration. DHS also fails to “account for, much less adequately consider and address, the wide variety of costs and harms the rescission of the Protected Areas Policy will impose on DPS personnel, the DPS student population, and their families,” according to the DPS complaint, “or the likelihood that rescinding the Protected Areas Policy will negatively impact the community by chilling school attendance and the use of school resources.”
DHS did not immediately respond to Law&Crime’s request for comment.