“The Recovery Is Ongoing”: Elgin Superintendent Reflects on Year of ICE Enforcement

CHICAGO — Since the Trump administration began its immigration enforcement surge— Operation Midway Blitz — in September 2025, school communities across the state have grappled with how best to protect their students and maintain a stable and positive learning environment.

During the early months, students in Elgin, Illinois, were “abruptly [unenrolled] from school, families [stopped] accessing services they are legally entitled to including education, health services, food programs, health care, and attendance [fluctuated] as parents [weighed] education against perceived safety,” District U-46 Superintendent Suzanne Johnson wrote in February.

In the months since, Johnson has worked with community members, administrators and advocacy organizations to help students and their families feel confident and comfortable receiving the education they’re entitled to.

Schools are “one of those systems that’s impacted by policy and practice that resides completely outside of us,” Johnson said. Immigration policy decisions are made at the federal level, leaving state and local school officials asking how they can “provide [their] charge, which is providing access to an amazing public education for our students, when we’re so impacted by something that we can’t control.”

According to an April 2026 report from the Illinois Accountability Commission, Elgin experienced two major enforcement actions by federal immigration agents — a “heavily armed raid" in September and an “all-day standoff” between federal agents and the residents of a suburban street. Around 10 people were detained or arrested at those events. Agents have still been visible in the community in the months since, Johnson said.

The presence of immigration enforcement has had pronounced impact on students in Illinois and across the country. In Chicago, attendance at one school dropped by four percent (almost 70 students) in the weeks after Midway Blitz began. Research compiled by the Brookings Institution demonstrates that the presence of federal agents can have significant negative effects on students’ mental health, academic performance and even postsecondary educational trajectories.

Johnson said Elgin avoided many of the worst of those effects in large part due to the resources and relationships U-46 has worked to establish with families and community organizations, creating a high-trust environment in the district and within schools.

“Our attendance didn’t suffer. If anything, we had improved attendance, anecdotally, and talking with principals of schools that were most significantly impacted, the kids kept coming,” Johnson said, referring to students who remained enrolled in school. “I think it’s because of the trust and the relationship that our school leaders build, that our teachers build, that our community members who support our schools build.”

In addition to enforcing stringent visitation policies requiring immigration agents to present a valid criminal warrant before accessing a district building, which Johnson says existed prior to Midway Blitz, district leaders followed up on community reports of federal activity in the areas around schools. There, they collaborated with community organizations like Food for Greater Elgin and Centro de Información to provide resources and share updates.

“We do thankfully have some really great partnerships in the City of Elgin and working with Centro and some of our other community members who want to get word out,” Johnson said. “We really try to have a very targeted approach to that, because what we also don't want to do is bring... unwanted attention to our community either.”

Johnson says that U-46 will continue that targeted approach heading into the upcoming academic year, where a later start date and shifting school boundaries have given the district new opportunities to engage with families.

“At absolutely every school, we’re welcoming students and families into welcome back events so that they can get to [know] the school; they can start to build relationships with the school,” Johnson said. “For our administrators, our teachers, our support staff who know that there are families that they're going to need to check in with and follow up, it's an opportunity to do that, and then it's also an opportunity to start to meet our new families and to build those relationships, because that's really what is so critical."

Beyond these opportunities for outreach, Johnson made clear that the district is invested in removing “whatever barrier it is of getting kids here and getting families the resources they need.”

“If we do this together,” Johnson said, “we are a tremendous force, and [students should] know that they should reach out, and there are people who will help them.”

Learn more about how immigration enforcement has been impacting Illinoisans here.