ICE Targets School Zones in Columbus, Families Detained

Students reported watching entire families pulled from their cars outside Dublin Scioto High, as ICE staged outside of other schools serving immigrant and refugee communities in Ohio.

On December 19th, school let out early in Columbus, and children did what children always do. Kids were expecting to go home with family for winter break and all the coming festivities of the holidays.

They slung backpacks over one shoulder. They checked their phones. They waited in pick-up lines and walked familiar routes home, thinking about winter break, holidays, sleeping in, the small relief that comes with the end of exams. Some were already arguing with siblings over who would sit in the front seat. Some were texting parents they could see just down the road.

A car door opening is usually nothing. That day, it was everything.

Students at Dublin Scioto — a high school located in the Dublin suburb of Columbus — watched as entire families were pulled from vehicles just outside campus. These kids learn that, in real time, whatever protections adults promise about schools being safe had evaporated the moment federal immigration enforcement decided otherwise.

What’s happening in Columbus is part of a larger escalation. More than 200 ICE agents have been deployed here in the weeks following Trump’s comment on Somali people, referring to them as “garbage” earlier this month.

For those who are unaware, Columbus holds one of the largest Somali communities in the country. Since then, enforcement has spread outward. More stops. More detentions. For ICE, looking ‘foreign’ is enough.

Compared to other high schools in the district, Dublin Scioto serves more immigrant and refugee households.

In one video, a passerby asks police on scene if the people detaining a family are ICE. The officer says they do not know and tells the passerby to keep moving. If police do not know who is detaining people in unmarked cars, figuring that out should be the priority.

Dublin City Schools Superintendent Dr. John Marschhausen — who was recently addressed by the ACLU over Dublin’s First Amendment violations tied to transgender student activism — has publicly denied the abductions occurred. The video evidence, along with the accounts of students and families at Dublin Scioto, contradict that denial.

John Marschhausen

“I am a student at Scioto,” one student said. “They took students walking home from school when exams ended. They pulled parents and students out of their cars on the way out of the student pickup line. I don’t know what happened to some of my friends, but I know I might not see them ever again.”

TARGETING THE DISMISSAL BELL

What became clear over the course of the day was that this was not a random act of cruelty, but a planned citywide operation. Immigration vehicles were positioned near multiple schools at once, spanning nearly every level of education. Children exiting a school day do not have lawyers. They do not have warning. They do not have a choice.

They weren’t just outside international schools. They were also positioned at public and private elementary, middle, and high schools, all happening at the same time. By nightfall, the perimeter expanded, and raids were witnessed in private student housing tied to the Ohio State University campus.

“They mostly targeted girls, most of them I know are freshman, aka 14 years old. Barely a teenager, their first year of high school, and they are getting kidnapped from a place that should be safe.” said a student from Scioto Dublin

Four agents waited outside of Horizon Science Academy with smiles plastered across their faces.

One student at Saint James the Less, a Catholic elementary and middle school in Columbus, described ICE attempting to enter the school during an early release day. According to the student, office staff refused to let agents inside. ICE then waited nearby and stopped parents as they tried to pick up their children.

Inside at least one school, there was no confusion about what was happening. The response was immediate:

“We were having parents pick up kids early yesterday and getting them out as fast as possible. My school is in the middle of this.”

In front of Westland High School, witnesses report watching as ICE chasing someone in broad daylight, right outside the school. Their presence was also reported at Norton Middle School, Whetstone High School, Riverside Elementary, Columbus International, Imagine Great Western Academy, Valleyview, HSA Primary, and schools in Gahanna and Westerville City Schools. This may not be a complete list.

One parent reported that ICE drove through the area around World Language Middle School and Colerain Elementary, testing the edges of the neighborhood. The community responded immediately. People surrounded the schools, made themselves visible, and refused to move. The vehicles kept driving. That’s the power of the people.

It did not undo what happened. It did not return parents to cars or erase what children saw.

But it meant this: when the state showed up to take, people showed up to protect.

COLUMBUS IS ONLY ONE CITY IN A LONG LINE OF CRUELTY

What unfolded in Columbus was clear. Families were pulled from cars outside schools. Enforcement appeared at dismissal across multiple campuses. Police said they did not know who was detaining people. School officials denied what students and parents say they witnessed. All of it happened as a surge of ICE agents moved through a city with one of the largest Somali communities in the country.

Children watched adults fail to protect the spaces they were told were safe. Parents learned how quickly routine can be interrupted. Communities learned how wide the operation really was.

But people did not disappear into thin air. Neighbors showed up. Parents surrounded schools. Students spoke. The presence of enforcement was met with the presence of community, and that mattered. We fight for one another because survival has always been a collective act.

I will keep following ICE in Columbus and beyond. I will keep documenting where they go, what people see, and what institutions deny. I refuse to look away from someone else’s pain, because they are someone’s child, someone’s parent, someone’s whole world. And this will remain a place to share information, to warn one another, and to stand together. Because none of us should have to face this alone.

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