It was meant to be a day of proud parents snapping pictures with their phones and tiny paper graduation caps. On the morning of June 11, the preschoolers at Commodore John Rodgers Elementary/Middle School in Southeast Baltimore were getting ready for their pre-K ceremony. Days later, parents and teachers are still struggling to comprehend what actually happened in the school’s parking lot off Fait Avenue.
Around eight in the morning, a man identified as Jesus Acevedo-Sanchez drove into the school parking lot and was pursued by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, according to witnesses and authorities. The subsequent events were caught on camera. A woman staring out of a broken car window before being led away with her hands bound, a man face down on asphalt, and two agents standing over him. Adults hurried past children wearing school uniforms, some of them carrying brightly colored backpacks. Children were relocated to safety by teachers. The kids were screaming and scared as they watched the scene play out, according to Jude Castellanos, a van driver who was transporting a group of first through fifth graders to school that morning. “They’re going to arrest us,” a child declared out loud. They will take us.
According to the Department of Homeland Security, Acevedo-Sanchez violently resisted arrest, disobeyed legal orders, dragged an ICE officer with his car, and had previously collided with an ICE vehicle in April. He is currently being prosecuted by the federal government for destroying government property and resisting and obstructing federal officers. DHS withheld the identity of the second person in the car, who is accused of assaulting a federal officer. They put the two kids in the car with their aunt.
On the surface, ICE’s stance is simple: the agency claims that it doesn’t target schools, that the suspect fled into the school’s vicinity rather than ICE choosing the location, and that leadership subsequently coordinated with the governor’s office and school officials. The coordination claim was vehemently contested by Baltimore City Public Schools. The district said in a statement that “Baltimore City Public Schools did not coordinate with ICE during Thursday’s incident,” but that staff “acted quickly and courageously to move children to safety.” Although both claims can be understood separately, they don’t fully align with one another, and it’s still unclear exactly what was said to whom and when.
This situation has a larger context that is important. A long-standing federal policy that classified schools, churches, hospitals, and childcare facilities as sensitive locations where immigration enforcement was typically avoided was revoked by the Trump administration prior to taking office. Agents are instructed by the replacement guidance to apply “common sense.” In the days since, state legislative leaders, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, and Maryland Governor Wes Moore have all loudly questioned what common sense looks like in a school parking lot during a preschool graduation while kids are watching. Moore described the video as “deeply disturbing.” In May, the mayor signed a local ordinance that forbade immigration enforcement in sensitive areas. Although the ordinance may not have much practical weight against federal authority, its existence indicates Baltimore’s stance.
It’s difficult to ignore how much of this incident depends on a single location question. The suspect selected the school, according to ICE. Regardless of the order of events, critics claim that the result is always the same: children shouldn’t be bystanders to immigration enforcement. That afternoon, Marc Martin, the principal of the school, wrote a letter to families acknowledging the disturbance and promising to support the community. He said that Pre-K ceremonies went on as planned. That particular detail landed softly, halfway between resiliency and melancholy.⁖※
