Allowing ICE in Schools is 'Flashy Show of Toughness,' Professor Sarkar Writes in L.A. Times

In an Feb. 4 opinion piece published in the Los Angeles Times, Professor Shayak Sarkar and attorney Josh Rosenthal write about the Trump administration reversing policies that kept immigration enforcement officers from so-called “sensitive locations” like schools and churches.

“Ending the ‘sensitive locations’ policy has nothing to do with necessity,” Sarkar and Rosenthal write, noting that “when pressed on the wisdom of ICE terrorizing schoolchildren, Vice President JD Vance invoked the boogeyman of a ‘violent murderer in a school.’”

But given that previous policies already allowed ICE to make arrests at schools during emergencies, the real point of the reversal appears to be “making a flashy show of toughness and sowing fear among immigrants,” Sarkar and Rosenthal write, and inspiring "self-deportation."

Shayak Sarkar's scholarship addresses the structure and legal regulation of inequality. His substantive interests lie in financial regulation, employment law, immigration, and taxation.