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Last year, the Los Angeles YMCA held backpack giveaways for migrant families and needy students in public parks and community centers. 

This year the giveaways were held in classrooms, afraid that crowds of Hispanic families out in public would prompt an ICE raid.

“We’ve had to modify how we do things,” said Omar Torres, senior director of civic engagement for the YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles. “We’re not just getting fear from folks that may be undocumented. Folks that are documented are also scared.”

The fear of being caught up in an ICE dragnet and separated from family and home is palpable in this city and a school district where one in three residents were born outside the U.S. and three-quarters of students identify as Hispanic.

But along with the worry and anxiety, so is the determination to stay and succeed.

It’s a drama unfolding in the schools of Los Angeles, where educators have taken unprecedented steps to shield kids from federal seizure or deportation by using every legal method at their disposal.

Working with community groups and unions, L.A. Unified has created safe zones around schools by warning families to stay away from campus when volunteer sentries spot ICE agents nearby.

Two LAUSD schools have already refused entry to agents who came asking for children without warrants. A free legal defense fund has been created for families facing enforcement.

Two weeks into the school year, LAUSD superintendent Alberto Carvalho said the new tactics, which also include free busing to schools, legal clinics for families, and remote lessons for when all else fails, are working so far.  

“We prepared for this,” said Carvalho last month. “The training that we went through with every single member of our workforce has paid off. We’ve been successful at protecting our kids.”

It’s because of those supports, Carvalho said, that L.A. Unified has been able to achieve higher attendance rates this year than last so far.   

But the situation is still frightening and perilous in the nation’s second largest public school district, the superintendent said, at least for many of its families who are, as the superintendent was once, undocumented immigrants. .

And as a result, he said, enrollment is falling, almost certainly in part because some families have chosen to self-deport.  

L.A. Unified Board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin, who represents diverse neighborhoods such as South L.A., Watts and San Pedro, said families have taken up the various services offered by LAUSD to address immigration crackdowns.

And despite the tension over immigration, the new year is rolling out easily in many ways, Ortiz Franklin said. Start-of-year academic assessments and other typical school operations have gone smoothly, she said.

“There’s a lot of joy and celebration and excitement about the start of a new school year,” she said. “It sort of gets hidden in all of the concerns about immigration enforcement — which are absolutely valid and concerning and fearful for a lot of people.”    

Many L.A. Unified families have attended the district’s weekly workshops with instructions on how to handle encounters with immigration agents, said Ortiz Franklin. 

Busing programs offered by the district that are intended to help kids get to class without encountering ICE agents have also seen some pickup, she said, with at least 300 households so far taking advantage of the special door-to-door transport service.

It’s a drop in the bucket compared to the 85,000 kids who use LAUSD busing on the district’s typical routes. But Ortiz Franklin said the district’s supports have helped create a sense of safety, enabling more kids to attend class.

Online courses offered by the district saw a bump early in the year, she said, but since then, has fallen to roughly where it was last year, she said. 

Pushing those families to leave the United States is the goal of federal immigration authorities, who have offered money and plane tickets to encourage the departure of undocumented migrants in L.A. and around the country.

In response to questions about actions at and around LAUSD schools this year, a senior Department of Homeland Security official said agents do not target students at campuses.

“ICE is not going to schools to make arrests of children,” said the senior official. “Officers would need secondary supervisor approval before any action can be taken in locations such as a church or a school. We expect these to be extremely rare.”

Online reporting has put average daily attendance in the district at around 95%. Some officials said that’s a relatively strong figure this early in the year, but the district press office ignored a request for a breakdown of specific figures.

Dean of the USC Rossier School of Education Pedro Noguera said measures taken by LAUSD to protect students from immigration enforcement have helped create a sense of confidence among families. 

“The district is doing everything they can to keep the school safe, and I think that’s the reason why attendance has stayed high,” he said.  

L.A. Unified’s tools to protect students from ICE are relatively robust, said Noguera, and other districts around the country, including Denver and New York, are considering or have already enacted similar measures. 

Despite those steps, Noguera said that the fears of many LAUSD families are well founded. Benjamin Guerrero Cruz, a rising senior at Reseda Charter High was detained by ICE in August while he was out walking his dog in this neighborhood away from school.

Lizzette Baccera, a former teacher of Guerrero Cruz, said last week that the teen was still being detained. 

In addition to pursuing his education at Reseda, Guerrero Cruz, 18, was active in soccer and helped take care of his younger family members, according to an online fundraiser created for the teen. 

DHS officials said Guerrero Cruz emigrated from Chile and overstayed his visa by more than two years. He is now facing removal proceedings, according to DHS.  

In an emailed statement, a senior official at the Department of Homeland Security said investigators would continue to search for undocumented children in Los Angeles and around the country.

The official said 450,000 unaccompanied minors entered the U.S. illegally over the past four years. ICE Homeland Security investigations have located 13,000 of those children so far, according to the DHS official. 

“In many situations, the only last known address ICE has for a child is the last school they attended,” the DHS official said. “In cases where a special agent visits a school, it would be for a wellness check on the child, not to make an arrest.” 

But when ICE agents have visited schools in Los Angeles, their actions have prompted public displays of opposition. Students pressured Carvalho to fight ICE harder at a recent board meeting. Demonstrators last month rallied at LAUSD headquarters.  

Three days before school began in August, federal agents detained a 15-year-old boy with disabilities at gunpoint at Arleta High School, in what they later said was a case of mistaken identity. The agents left live ammunition on the sidewalk outside the school, according to the superintendent.   

Evelyn Aleman, founder of Our Voice, a parents’ group which advocates for L.A. Unified’s low-income and Spanish-speaking families, said the immigrant students of Los Angeles and their families are resolved to stay in LAUSD schools regardless of ICE. 

“They’re determined to have access to that American dream,” said Aleman.