“The Trauma Will Linger”: Immigration Officers Detain Disabled Boy At Gunpoint Outside LA School

A disabled teenager was mistakenly detained and handcuffed outside a Los Angeles school by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Officers reportedly drew guns on the teenager as his grandmother was registering another relative at Arleta High School on Monday morning.

Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) officials said agents who approached the boy initially told him they weren’t from ICE and were not enforcing immigration law.

ICE agents detained and handcuffed a disabled teenager outside a high school in Los Angeles

Image credits: Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images

LAUSD Superintendent Alberto Carvalho reviewed footage that reportedly showed masked agents surrounding the car that the boy was in.

Those agents were wearing tactical vests that were branded “POLICE” and appeared to have “U.S. Border Patrol” written underneath.

“It is disturbing. It is heartbreaking. It is reprehensible,” Carvalho said at a press conference.

Agents released the teenager, who is understood to be non-communicative, after family members and the school principal intervened by calling the Los Angeles School Police Department.

Image credits: Google Maps

“This young man was placed in handcuffs, presumably based on mistaken identity. He was not an adult. He’s a 15-year-old boy with significant disabilities,” Carvalho said.

“The release will not release him from what he experienced. The trauma will linger. It will not cease. It is unacceptable,” he added.

According to LAUSD Board Member Kelly Gonez, agents drew their guns on the boy.

“Unidentified immigration agents handcuffed, detained, and drew their guns on a BD6 student outside Arleta High School in an alleged case of mistaken identity,” she wrote on X.

“Such actions — violently detaining a child just outside a public school — are absolutely reprehensible and should have no place in our country.”

Today, unidentified immigration agents handcuffed, detained, and drew their guns on a BD6 student outside Arleta High School in an alleged case of mistaken identity. Such actions – violently detaining a child just outside a public school – are absolutely reprehensible. pic.twitter.com/B7NN5ZsCjd

— Kelly Gonez, LAUSD (@Kelly4LASchools) August 11, 2025

Carvalho said that after agents left the area, school police had to collect bullets they had left scattered on the ground.

Homeland Security has denied that ICE agents targeted Arleta High School.

“Allegations that Border Patrol targeted Arleta High School are FALSE,” it wrote on X.

“Agents were conducting a targeted operation on criminal illegal alien Cristian Alexander Vasquez-Alvarenga—a Salvadoran national and suspected MS-13 pledge with prior criminal convictions in the broader vicinity of Arleta.”

Following the incident, the city is doubling down on plans to protect students by expanding “safe zones” around school campuses when the term begins on August 14.

The L.A. Times reports that nearly 100 school campuses will be patrolled by school police, as well as district police and volunteers.

The city is expanding protections for children coming to school

Image credits: David Dee Delgado/Getty Images

If ICE activity is detected, those on patrol will alert school officials, who in turn can initiate lockdown procedures and contact parents or guardians.

Bus routes will also be adjusted to better serve immigrant communities and help reduce children’s exposure to ICE agents.

There will be a specific focus on Latino neighborhoods and high schools where older Latino students walk to campus.

Carvalho recently said that the school system will oppose “any entity, at any level, that seeks to interfere with the educational process of our children.”

“We are standing on the right side of the Constitution, and years from now, I guarantee you, we will have stood on the right side of history. We know that,” he added.