Radnor school board mulls ‘Welcoming Schools’ policy amid ICE concerns

Radnor Township’s school board is considering implementing a “Welcoming Schools” policy in response to increasing concerns about Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests and searches near schools.

“Given everything that’s going on in our country right now, it really would be prudent for our district to not just reaffirm in our policies the constitutional rights of all of our students — which the Supreme Court has established, no matter their immigration background or citizenship status — but also, I think we owe it to each of our employees and our administrators to adequately train and inform them as to the proper protocols, not just for our students’ safety, but for their own safety,” said Jannie Lau, the new chair of the school board’s policy committee, during a Jan. 27 meeting.

Lau also pointed out that the Trump administration last year rescinded a policy that prevented ICE from conducting arrests and searches at “sensitive locations” such as schools, churches and hospitals.

Therefore, Lau said she is hoping to outline what school staffers and administrators should do if ICE conducts enforcement activities on school grounds. “I just think it’s too much to expect our employees and administrators to, for example, be able to, on the spot, distinguish between a judicial warrant — which is enforceable on school property — versus an administrative warrant, which is not enforceable,” she said.

Lau’s comments come in the wake of reports about the impact of “Operation Metro Surge” on schools in Minneapolis. Some districts have scrambled to offer online classes for families too afraid to leave their homes, while networks of local parents have banded together to observe school pick-ups and drop-offs and help carpool students safely home.

The issue gained additional attention when 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was photographed being detained by ICE while on his way home from school in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, in January. While he and his father were recently released from a detention facility in Texas back to Minnesota under a court order, his school was then forced to close after being targeted by a bomb threat.

“I think we all hope that the likelihood of incidents like this occurring in Radnor are low — and hopefully will remain low — but given the severity of the potential impact and the stakes involved…I just think we need to be prepared,” Lau said. She remarked that the school board’s policy committee may look to the Norristown Area School District for guidance, as that district enacted such a policy in late January 2025.

The Philadelphia school district around the same time last year noted that it provided guidance to school leaders on how to handle potential requests from immigration officials, and it directed families to its Immigrant Resources website for more information. The city’s Board of Education approved a “Welcoming Sanctuary Schools Resolution” in 2021.

Lau said she and other policy committee leaders will do their research and outline a new “Welcoming Schools” policy that they can bring to the committee — and then the full school board — early this year.