this week dropped its lawsuit against the , which the district sued earlier this year to prevent immigration arrests from occurring in school buildings.
DPS sued Homeland Security in February in an effort to force the federal government to reinstate a policy that largely prevented immigration enforcement at schools and other “sensitive locations,” such as churches and hospitals.
A federal judge in March declined DPS’s request for a preliminary injunction to block agents from school property, saying the district did not show that impacts to its schools could be linked to changes to Homeland Security’s sensitive locations policy rather than broader concerns about the rise in immigration enforcement under the new Trump administration.
DPS had argued that the government’s policy change instilled fear in teachers and students.
to dismiss the lawsuit Tuesday afternoon, saying in a news release that the lawsuit’s claim was moot given that the federal government has both published a new sensitive locations policy and “admitted that the policy had not been fundamentally changed from the previous version.”
“This was another significant victory for DPS and school districts nationwide, as the Department of Homeland Security admitted in federal court that the policy had not been changed in a meaningful way and that schools remained protected as sensitive locations,” the district said in a statement. “This fact was not previously known.”
DPS said the lawsuit was dismissed without prejudice, meaning that the district can refile it if federal immigration agents go onto school property.
