What is a ‘wellness check’ and why is Homeland Security doing them at LAUSD schools?

The Department of Homeland Security said agents who attempted to speak with students at two South L.A. elementary schools last week were there to conduct “wellness checks” on unaccompanied immigrant children to ensure their safety.

Representatives from multiple immigrant children’s defense groups told LAist these efforts could be a tool for removing unaccompanied minors from the country.

“They can call them ‘wellness checks’ [or] whatever they want. ... But we see [them] for what they are,” said Lilit Melkonyan, a managing attorney at the Central American Resource Center's deportation defense unit.

In January, the Trump administration ended a longstanding policy that limited immigration enforcement actions at “sensitive locations,” including schools.

“It's not about the well-being of the kids,” said Gladis Molina Alt, executive director of the Young Center for Immigrant Children’s Rights. The “wellness checks,” she added, “are a cloak for immigration enforcement, [for] hunting down undocumented people in our communities and undoing reunifications that the government had previously approved.”

What happened at the schools

According to Los Angeles Unified Superintendent Alberto Carvalho, casually dressed individuals who identified themselves as Homeland Security agents entered Russell Elementary and Lillian Street Elementary — both in South L.A.'s Florence-Firestone area — on April 7 and asked to speak with a total of five students between the two schools.

When school staff tried to take down the agents' names and badge numbers, they “pocketed their IDs,” Carvalho said.

The principals denied those agents entry when they could not provide a warrant.

A Homeland Security spokesperson confirmed the visit, but said the purpose was to check on the health and welfare of students “who arrived unaccompanied at the border.”

Who's responsible for the welfare of unaccompanied children? And what’s a ‘wellness check’?

When children cross the border without a parent or guardian, they are often initially taken into custody by U.S. Customs and Border Protection, then transferred to the care of another federal agency called the Office of Refugee Resettlement, under the Department of Health and Human Services. The Office of Refugee Resettlement confirmed in an email to LAist that it places children in shelters until they can be connected to a “sponsor,” often a family member in the U.S. who can care for them while their immigration case is adjudicated.

Jason Boyd, vice president of U.S. federal policy at Kids In Need of Defense, said Refugee Resettlement is also responsible for administering legal and social services for children who have been released from custody and placed with sponsors.

Those legal services can include representation of unaccompanied children, he added, “so that they have an attorney to help ensure due process and fairness in their immigration cases” and protect them from trafficking and exploitation.

Federal law requires that "to the greatest extent practicable” these children have access to free legal counsel. (In March, the Trump administration ended a contract for an organization that provides these services for 26,000 unaccompanied migrant children.)

Other services are typically administered by social workers, who can help enroll children in local schools and connect them with medical providers, Boyd added.

Ongoing monitoring “consisted largely of follow-up phone calls to children and their sponsors,” he said. Children in especially vulnerable situations may get more intensive services, “including in-home engagement with children and their sponsors that serve as a useful check against potential abuse or other harm.” Central American Resource Center's Melkonyan and the Young Center’s Molina Alt echoed Boyd’s description.

In fiscal year 2024, DHS transferred 98,356 unaccompanied migrant children to the care of the Office of Refugee Resettlement, according to the agency. This child is a Honduran immigrant who was staying with her extended family when pictured here on on April 25, 2021 in Sellersburg, Indiana. She spent nearly eight weeks in shelters in U.S. Health and Human Services custody.

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The Office of Refugee Resettlement confirmed that the agency’s care providers “must conduct a Safety and Well-Being Follow Up Call with an unaccompanied alien child and their sponsor 30 days after their release. The purpose of the follow up call is to determine whether the child is still residing with the sponsor, is enrolled in or attending school, is aware of upcoming court dates, and is safe,” the email added.

Melkonyan and the other immigrant children’s advocates noted that the officials who went to the two LAUSD schools are part of Homeland Security Investigations, which typically conducts criminal probes.

“Nothing that [the Trump] administration is doing under the guise of ‘wellness checks’ of unaccompanied minors is normal,” Melkonyan stressed.

The visits carried out by the Department of Homeland Security “are operationally distinct from ORR [Refugee Resettlement] services,” Boyd said.

He said his clients and partners have shared that, in many cases, Homeland Security “wellness checks” consist of four to six plainclothes officers arriving unannounced at unaccompanied children’s homes, asking to speak with the children and their sponsors.

The Chicago-based Young Center recently received a referral about one such case, Molina Alt said. Following a “wellness check,” a child was placed in federal custody after his eldest brother was detained, and his other family members — including his aunt, a lawful permanent resident — were not allowed to take over caring for him.

LAist reached out to the Department of Homeland Security for details about the “wellness checks” its officers attempted to carry out in Los Angeles, including what triggers them and what they involve.

In an email response, Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin did not answer these questions. She said her department’s officers “made it clear” that they were not at LAUSD schools to take enforcement actions.

Who can access students at school?

Access to students by people other than their family, guardians, school staff, contractors or authorized visitors is limited by federal law and state education code. For example, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act limits access to students’ public school education records.

"Any visitor seeking to enter a school must have lawful business to be on campus. If a visitor seeks access to a student or pupil record information, they must provide legal authorization for their request,” wrote an LAUSD spokesperson in a statement. “Typically, this is in the form of a judicial warrant, subpoena, or other court orders."

Carvalho said in an interview with NPR that there is no record of federal agents attempting to conduct a “wellness check” in LAUSD schools “going back a number of years.”

The California attorney general's office, which instructs schools to contact one of its departments in the event that law enforcement agents attempt to enter a school or talk to students related to immigration, declined to comment on whether it is aware of any attempted enforcement actions at schools since the start of Donald Trump’s second term as president.

Two of the region's other largest school districts, Long Beach Unified and Santa Ana Unified, said through spokespeople that there have been no immigration enforcement incidents on their campuses. LAist also requested information from San Bernardino City Unified which has yet to respond.

LAUSD guidance acknowledges that law enforcement officers, including immigration agents, may visit campuses as part of their investigations, to subpoena student records, and serve a search warrant.

The district tells school administrators to follow a series of steps if federal immigration officers arrive on campus. They include:

• Notify district administrators and the Los Angeles School Police Department. 
• Ask the agent about the purpose of their visit, their name and badge number, and the phone number of their supervisor. 
• Obtain and copy any documentation such as a subpoena, search warrant or court orders and share a copy with district administrators. 
• Tell the officer that they cannot respond to their request without direction from the district, including legal counsel. The exception would be an “exigent circumstance,” for example those related to national security, terrorism, imminent risk of death, violence or physical harm, or pursuit of a “dangerous” felon. 

The only scenario where an administrator may grant agents access to a student without consultation with district higher-ups is when the agent presents a signed federal judicial warrant (i.e., a search-and-seizure warrant or arrest warrant).

In an email statement, a Long Beach Unified spokesperson said: “We want to emphasize that our district remains committed to protecting the rights and privacy of all students and families, regardless of immigration status.”

The spokesperson also said that training on how to respond to inquiries or visits from immigration or enforcement officials “will be extended to include teachers and school support personnel, ensuring that every school is informed, prepared, and equipped to support our students and families.”

They added that the district has previously shared immigration-related protocols and resources with staff since January, and has done trainings and provided resources for students and families around their rights.

LAUSD, Long Beach Unified and Santa Ana Unified also noted that they do not collect information about a student’s immigration status.

‘Look at the whole picture’

With regard to Homeland Security visits at schools, the Young Center’s Molina Alt said it’s crucial to look at the wider landscape.

“Just because the [Trump] administration says ‘we're doing that for the well-being of [children],’ we cannot take that at face value. We have to look at the whole picture. And what we see are increased obstacles for undocumented sponsors, and even family members with documents, to reunify with unaccompanied minors,” she said.

“The second thing we see is the taking away of legal services for unaccompanied kids to fight their cases and be able to get permanent status,” Molina Alt added, in reference to the Trump administration’s efforts to strip legal aid for these children — a move that’s been criticized by members of both parties.

“If the administration's ultimate aim is to safeguard unaccompanied children from trafficking and exploitation, the most important measure that it can and should take is to ensure legal and social services for as many unaccompanied children as possible,” Boyd said.

“In many cases, attorneys are an unaccompanied child's most critical line of defense against trafficking and exploitation and can actually help guide a child's cooperation with law enforcement officers in the detection and prosecution of human traffickers and other bad actors,” he added.

Boyd noted that a federal court issued a temporary restraining order against the termination of core legal services for unaccompanied children. Since then, the Trump administration has “made representations to the court that it is actively taking steps to achieve compliance with that order.” But, to date, funding and services have not been fully restored.

“Every day that goes by in which that funding is not restored, in which those services do not resume, is another day in which these children are at grave risk,” Boyd said.