ICE stop near Tucson elementary school on Friday was ‘reckless’

State Rep. Alma Hernandez sharply criticized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents for stopping a car and arresting three members of a Venezuelan family near an elementary school just south of Downtown Tucson on Friday morning. 

A woman who had been riding in the car told Hernandez that her husband had been driving her to a doctor’s appointment, when he noticed a car was tailgating them. The ICE agents activated lights on a black SUV and pulled the family over, and said they were just conducting
a “routine operation” and that they simply were “just checking,” the Democratic legislator said she was told.

“All of this happened in front of an elementary school while children were outside playing,” Hernandez said in a prepared statement. “This kind of recklessness is unacceptable.”

Hernandez represents District 20, which covers part of Midtown Tucson, and extends west of Interstate 10 toward the Pascua Yaqui.

Hernandez posted a video of the incident on Friday, showing three ICE agents standing outside the school. As one agent spoke with a woman, another argued with a small crowd, telling one man, “you love your job, I love mine.”

Another man criticized the agents for making the stop near the school, telling him the children can’t go to recess because the agents are nearby.

“This
family was not breaking any law. In fact, this family is currently in
their asylum process as they are from Venezuela, they all had proper
documentation to show they are legally here while their case is being
processed, and her husband the driver has already been granted asylum,” Hernandez said. “ICE was made aware of this and still took them.” 

“This puts families,
children, and entire neighborhoods like mine at risk, and demonstrates a
blatant disregard for public safety,” Hernandez said.

The stop was one of three reported incidents in Tucson involving ICE agents. ICE agents also detained a group of city of Tucson workers at a QuickTrip convenience store on Irvington Road on Friday. 

ICE has accelerated operations in the Tucson area in January, including multiple incidents near El Super, a grocery store near South Tucson.

For weeks, activists in Tucson have waited for a push by ICE, especially after two high-profile raids in early December. One raid devolved into chaos as agents with the Department of Homeland Security used tear gas, pepper balls and smoke grenades against protesters.

Among those hit by pepper spray were this Tucson Sentinel reporter and U.S. Rep. Adelita Grijalva. Another reporter had his camera sprayed.

This worry has only increased after immigration agents surged into Minneapolis, and an ICE agent shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good.

Last week, Tucson city officials sent out a statement on potential ICE raids in the city.

“Federal actions are spreading fear and chaos in cities across our country,” said Mayor Regina Romero. “The actions that we’ve seen ICE take are hurting innocent people and not making us any safer. The city of Tucson will prioritize community safety and protect the legal and constitutional rights of every Tucsonan regardless of status,” Romero said, adding city staff created an informational website

City officials added there have been ICE operations in the city.

“While the mayor and city cannot prevent ICE from legally operating in Tucson, the city also does not condone the behavior demonstrated by ICE agents towards members of our community and in other communities,” city officials said. “This includes the wearing of masks and other actions intended to intimidate and confuse the public. The city understands that ICE raids create fear that negatively impact families, schools, and local businesses.”

However, the Tucson City Council unanimously asked staff to draft an ordinance barring ICE agents from using city-owned property to launch operations.

While the Trump administration has framed the large-scale crackdowns by ICE as way to remove the “worst of the worst,” available data shows ICE operations largely fall on immigrants who have not committed crimes, and those following the legal immigration processes created by Congress or under the Biden administration.

Data from ICE compiled by the nonpartisan Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse shows there were nearly 66,000 people in immigration detention on Nov. 30, and of those nearly 74 percent had no criminal convictions. 

And, there are around 3.4 million immigration cases on the court docket, including around 2.3 million asylum cases.

Further, though the Trump administration has targeted immigrants throughout the U.S., the administration has a particular animus for Venezuelans.

In 2023, President Joe Biden issued TPS for Venezuelans in the U.S., deciding conditions in the country were too deleterious to deport people. As part of this decision, Biden extended TPS for Venezuelans who already had sought those protections, and he allowed those who arrived after 2021 to apply for TPS for the first time and receive a 18-month reprieve, wrote the American Immigration Council.

However, just days after January’s inauguration, the Trump administration moved to cancel TPS for around 3,500 people from Venezuela.

“TPS holders sued the administration over the bait-and-switch,” wrote AIC. However, while a federal judge postponed the cancellations and the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, the Supreme Court gave the Trump administration what it desired in May. 

Since Trump’s inauguration last year, more than 1.5 million immigrants have either lost or will lose their temporary legal status, including their work authorizations and deportation protections, the Arizona Mirror reported.

Experts said these moves created the “most rapid loss in legal status for immigrants in recent United States history” after the Trump administration slashed TPS for nearly 1 million and ended humanitarian parole for half a million more. 

Further, in March, the Trump administration rendered about 240 Venezuelans to El Salvador’s notoriously brutal CECOT prison, igniting a legal fight over their renditions without due process.

“Our community will not be complicit in systems that dehumanize our residents or erode public trust,” Hernandez said Friday. “We deserve safety rooted in dignity, accountability, and humanity, not fear.”

“These actions do not make our communities safer,” Hernandez said.
“They terrorize neighborhoods, tear families apart, and undermine public
trust—especially when carried out by masked agents operating with no
transparency or accountability. What happened today is exactly why so
many people in Tucson are living in fear: Fear of detention,
deportation, and criminalization simply for existing.”

“I
stand in full solidarity with our Tucson community, particularly our
immigrant neighbors who are being targeted, profiled, and dehumanized.
Despite repeated claims by elected officials that only ‘dangerous
criminals’ are being targeted, that is not the reality,” she said.