To be clear, we do not have any indication that there has been or will be immigration actions in our schools or on our district property. Under federal policy that remains in effect, schools are "sensitive locations" where immigration enforcement should not happen. Again, we do not want to cause alarm to our students or families because we have no reason to believe that immigration enforcement actions will happen on our property. At the same time, we want our families and students to know and feel comforted by the fact that we are prepared for any possibility.
Procedures
District employees shall follow the procedures below if they are contacted by federal immigration officials who are seeking access to students or any student information.
Requests for access to students:
1. Politely inform the federal immigration officer that we have a process regarding requests to talk to our students and that those requests have to be approved by the DPS Office of General Counsel ("the legal office").
a. For non-school leaders, immediately reach out to your school leader or any other administrator who can be quickly located and the school leader can take charge of the procedures below.
2. Once the school leader is located, the school leader should tell the immigration official that the school leader needs to gather some information from the official in order to expedite the review by our legal office. Specifically, we need to know:
a. Name and badge number of the immigration agent.
b. The phone number of the agent's supervisor.
c. The purpose of their visit.
d. Whether they have a warrant, and if so, can they provide us with a copy.
e. Any other documentation that would be helpful for our legal office to review the request.
f. Take notes and scan the documents provided or take pictures with your phone if a scanner is not available.
3. Ask the immigration officer to give you a few minutes to call the legal office. You can ask them to wait outside the school. Alternatively, if it appears the officer is being cooperative, you can ask him/her to wait in an appropriate area of the front office.
4. Contact the DPS legal office at (720) 423-3393.
a. The legal office will ask you to send any documents that you received and to share any information that was provided.
b. The legal office will advise on next steps.
5. If the DPS legal office is not open or available, call the Department of Safety at (720) 423-3911. You can also reach out to the Department of Safety
first if the immigration agent is not working cooperatively with the school.
6. After you are done speaking with the legal office, call the Department of Safety and let them know about the situation.
Emergency exception to these procedures: There may be extremely rare situations where the federal immigration officer tells you something along the lines of: This is an emergency or these are "exigent circumstances." Alternatively, the immigration officer might say something like: I am giving you a lawful order to let me talk to this student. In this situation, you should comply with the officer's order and not interfere. Immediately contact the DPS legal office at (720) 423-3393 and Department of Safety at (720) 423-3911 for further guidance.
Requests for information regarding students: If you receive a request for information about a student from federal immigration officials, please immediately contact the DPS legal office at (720) 423-3393 and the DPS legal office will handle the response.
