At least 23 states considered new legislation this year governing how federal immigration officers interact with K-12 public schools, an NPR analysis found.
Of 40 proposals NPR reviewed, 35 sought to limit federal officers' access to campuses and students. Only one, in Mississippi, sought to ensure that schools cooperate with ICE, and that measure passed. The rest did not explicitly limit or increase access. Only 11 of the 40 became law by the beginning of this school year. The analysis comes after the Trump administration, at the start of the president's second term, rescinded a federal policy that had treated schools and other "sensitive" places as generally off-limits for immigration enforcement. "Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid arrest," the Department of Homeland Security said at the time. DHS, which houses ICE, has said that ICE does not raid or target schools. Reporting from K-12 Dive, cited by NPR, found several incidents of agents on school grounds last academic year anyway.
In Laredo, Texas, school leader Andrea Garza of the United Independent School District told NPR that seeing Border Patrol is "very normal here" in a border community that is 94% Hispanic and where the federal government is a major employer. Her rule is simple: without a warrant or subpoena, they don't get in. "We serve 'in loco parentis' for students," she said. Texas law prohibits local entities, including campus police, from obstructing federal immigration enforcement, but NPR found no Texas law that directly addresses how much access officers should have in K-12 schools.
Warrants, sensitive locations and a fight over Plyler
Minnesota, Arizona, Delaware, Georgia, Maine and Nebraska were among the states that considered restricting ICE access, NPR reported. Several proposals required a warrant; others sought to limit what school police and resource officers can do in immigration-related arrests. A few states considered requiring school boards to adopt response policies. At least eight states already had laws on immigration enforcement and K-12 schools at the start of 2026, including Connecticut, Maryland and Oregon, which considered additional bills this year.
Thomas Saenz, president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, said the end of the federal sensitive-locations policy is likely driving states to add "belts and suspenders" of their own. West Virginia, Hawaii and Kansas tried to designate school campuses as sensitive locations; none of those three proposals passed. Missouri considered limiting school cooperation even though an existing state law already restricts sanctuary policies.
Tennessee considered bills from both directions: one to track K-12 students' legal status, which opponents said would challenge the Supreme Court's Plyler v. Doe ruling that all children have a right to a free public K-12 education, and another, sponsored by Rep. Gabby Salinas, a Memphis Democrat, that would have barred schools from being used as staging or processing sites for enforcement. "It's hard to teach when you are worried that one of your students is going to be taken," Salinas told NPR. That proposal failed. A status-tracking measure favored by Rep. Jason Zachary, a Knoxville Republican, also did not reach a final vote. NPR did not include tuition-for-undocumented-students bills in its 40-proposal count; Education Week reporting cited by NPR said at least two states were considering such challenges to Plyler as of July, and similar efforts failed in at least five others.
In Minnesota, after an immigration crackdown in Minneapolis earlier this year, lawmakers considered at least five proposals, from stricter warrant rules to mandatory school procedures. None of the five made it to a final vote, NPR reported. The patchwork remains: educators still often decide, district by district, what to do when agents appear at the door.