A southern California school district is openly defying Sacramento's mandate that public schools limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement, and one of its elected trustees says the state's directive is a political stunt that has nothing to do with protecting children.
Lakeside Union School District, located in southern California, told Fox News Digital on Thursday that it is not following the state's updated guidance on handling immigration enforcement at schools. The announcement came after State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond mandated that districts across California update their policies by March 1 to ensure students are "shielded" from immigration enforcement.
Lakeside trustee Andrew Hayes did not hold back about why the district is refusing to comply.
"In Lakeside, we believe in the rule of law. I refuse to put my district's federal funding and the students it serves at risk by opposing federal law enforcement. It's not our teachers or school secretaries' job to oppose law enforcement. That's wrong."
Hayes's defiance puts him squarely at odds with California's top education and law enforcement officials, and squarely in step with a growing number of local leaders who see the state's sanctuary posture as reckless, politically motivated, and disconnected from what is actually happening on the ground.
The mandate Hayes is rejecting flows from updated guidance issued by Thurmond's office and backed by California Attorney General Rob Bonta. The directive focuses on "limiting assistance with immigration enforcement at public schools, to the fullest extent possible consistent with federal and state law, and ensuring that public schools remain safe and accessible to all California residents, regardless of immigration status."
Bonta's office announced in December 2025 that "approximately 133,000 undocumented children attend California's public K-12 schools, and many more have parents or relatives who do not have legal status." That figure became the justification for the updated guidance and the March 1 deadline for districts to fall in line.
The practical effect of the state's model policy is to position school employees as a buffer between federal law enforcement and illegal immigrants, a role Hayes says teachers and staff should never be asked to play.
Hayes went further than simply declining the mandate. He accused Sacramento of manufacturing a crisis to serve Governor Gavin Newsom's political ambitions and to cover for the state education bureaucracy's own failures.
"This 'model' policy is purely political and not about kids. It's all fanfare to advance Gavin Newsom's political agenda. The fact is ICE isn't coming to schools."
That claim, that Immigration and Customs Enforcement is not actually targeting schools, is backed by the Department of Homeland Security itself. A DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital on Thursday that "ICE is not going to schools to arrest children. We are protecting children. Criminals are no longer able to hide in America's schools to avoid arrest."
The resistance Hayes describes is not happening in a vacuum. Across the country, teachers unions and blue-state institutions have organized to resist or refuse cooperation with ICE, often framing enforcement as a direct threat to children's safety.
Hayes pushed back on that framing with a sharper accusation.
"That's a narrative created by left-wing activists to instill fear and decrease enrollment so that the Sacramento education bureaucracy can go beg Newsom for more money to cover up their failure to educate our kids properly."
It is a pointed charge: that the fear campaign around immigration enforcement in schools is not organic but manufactured, and that it serves institutional interests, not students.
The DHS spokesperson elaborated on the federal government's position, making clear that while schools are not enforcement targets, they are not automatic safe havens for criminals either.
"The Trump administration will not tie the hands of our brave law enforcement and instead trusts them to use common sense. If a dangerous illegal alien felon were to flee into a school or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect public safety."
That distinction matters. The state's guidance treats any cooperation with immigration enforcement as a threat to students. DHS draws a line between routine school operations and extreme scenarios involving dangerous criminals, a distinction Sacramento's model policy appears unwilling to make.
The broader political fight over immigration enforcement continues to escalate in statehouses and Congress alike. Democrats at the federal level have resisted enforcement demands even at the risk of a government shutdown, while state-level leaders in blue jurisdictions keep finding new ways to obstruct.
The consequences of the fear campaign Hayes describes are already visible in California's largest school district. Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent Alberto Carvalho reported earlier this year that students were not showing up to class in the second semester of the 2025-2026 school year due to concerns over immigration enforcement.
Whether those absences are driven by genuine fear or by a climate of alarm stoked by activists and officials is exactly the question Hayes is raising. If parents are keeping children home based on a false premise, that ICE agents are raiding classrooms, then the officials who amplified that premise bear responsibility for the educational harm.
California is not the only state where the costs of sanctuary-style policies are becoming harder to ignore. Colorado's health care program for illegal immigrants now costs seven times its original estimate, a reminder that policies built on political symbolism tend to produce real fiscal wreckage.
Not every southern California district is following Hayes's lead. The Oceanside Unified School District, located in San Diego County, told Fox News Digital in January that it was complying with the state's updated laws. An Oceanside spokesperson said, "OUSD is following updated state laws on this topic, though practices on law enforcement on campus have been part of our board policy since before 2020." Fox News Digital also reported that Oceanside had beefed up security and provided scripts for staff to "keep ICE out of schools."
The contrast is instructive. One district arms its staff with scripts to obstruct federal officers. Another says its job is to educate children, not to serve as a political shield for Sacramento.
Hayes told Fox News Digital that his statement "reflects the opinion" of his colleagues on the Lakeside board. The district itself, however, later said it "doesn't have any comments regarding Board member Hayes' statements", a carefully worded non-denial that leaves the door open without formally endorsing his position.
Meanwhile, other blue-state governors continue to spend taxpayer money cushioning the impact of federal enforcement rather than cooperating with it. The pattern is the same from Sacramento to St. Paul: resist first, spend later, and let voters sort out the bill.
In February, Hayes joined other California school board members in accusing state education officials and teachers unions of "fearmongering" over immigration enforcement. That charge now has a concrete data point behind it: DHS says it is not entering schools to arrest children, and no evidence presented in the state's guidance suggests otherwise.
Newsom's office did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment. Neither Thurmond's office nor Bonta's office was quoted responding to Lakeside's refusal.
The silence is telling. When a small southern California school district calls Sacramento's bluff and the governor's office has nothing to say, it suggests the state's position is easier to mandate than to defend.
Hayes framed the choice simply: follow the law, protect federal funding, and keep the focus on educating children, or turn schools into outposts of political resistance at the expense of the families who depend on them. For Lakeside, the answer was obvious.
When local officials have to choose between Sacramento's political theater and the rule of law, it says everything about Sacramento that the choice is even necessary.
