Appearing as a guest on MSNBC Reports Thursday afternoon, MSNBC weekend anchor Jonathan Capehart compared school fears of immigration agents to fear of school shootings. He went on to claim that immigration agents are "snatching people up off the streets whether they are citizens or not without a care, it seems, for due process or the rule of law."
His comments came during a segment in reaction to reports that Los Angeles school officials are trying to make students feel secure as they attend school in the aftermath of a case of mistaken identity in which a student was detained by agents near a school. They want "safe zones" from law enforcement.
MSNBC host Alex Witt began:
Well, today students across Los Angeles are back in the classroom, but the usual feelings of excitement for some are being swapped with nerves and feelings of genuine fear after a summer of dramatic ICE raids in the place they call home. The school district is rolling out new safety measures to help parents bringing their kids to and from school feel safe amid concerns campuses could soon become targets of the administration's immigration crackdown because we know it has already happened.
After a piece by reporter Camila Bernal, Witt referred back to reports that school officials plan to patrol near the school and actually warn parents if they see immigration agents so they can choose not the come to school to avoid them as she went to Capehart and posed: "So teachers are worried about their students. Are they going to show up to school? Will they be safe once they get there? I mean, it is a lot on top of trying to focus and learn, right? So what does this say about the moment we are in, Jonathan?"
Capehart then made his over the top comparison to school shootings:
JONATHAN CAPEHART, CO-HOST OF MSNBC's THE WEEKEND: It says a lot, Alex. I remember in the days when we were lamenting the fact that elementary school kids and high school kids had to learn, you know, active shooter drills, and today we have to worry about children in classrooms -- I was going to say, you know, migrant children or immigrant children, but, as we were talking about at the start of this segment, U.S. citizens' --
WITT: U.S. citizens.
CAPEHART: -- children now have to worry about whether they are going to get stopped by ICE, stopped by people from the federal government.
Even though it's inevitable that, from time to time, cases of mistaken identity happen, Capehart melodramatically declared:
Alex, you asked me the question, "What does mean about where we are right now?" And it is very troubling -- extremely troubling because we have federal law enforcement swarming throughout the country snatching people up off the streets whether they are citizens or not without a care, it seems, for due process or the rule of law or the Constitution that is supposed to protect anyone on these shores. And yet we're talking about a 15-year-old kid who was mistakenly arrested, thrown in handcuffs, and then had those same federal law enforcement people say to him, "Well, look at the bright side -- you've got an exciting story to tell." That's the kind of excitement a child should never have to tell.
Earlier in the day, in a segment with host Ana Cabrera, Bernal had informed viewers that school officials plan to warn parents if immigration agents are nearby as if they were a danger:
So there's more than 1,000 educators who have volunteered for these safe zones. And what they say is that they are going to be around the school patrolling, looking out for immigration enforcement operations so that they can essentially warn a lot of the families and a lot of the students who are concerned about coming to school.
Whether this might be illegal because it could tip off illegal aliens to avoid arrest was not addressed.
Transcripts follow:
MSNBC Reports
August 14, 2025
1:13 p.m. Eastern
ALEX WITT: Well, today students across Los Angeles are back in the classroom, but the usual feelings of excitement for some are being swapped with nerves and feelings of genuine fear after a summer of dramatic ICE raids in the place they call home. The school district is rolling out new safety measures to help parents bringing their kids to and from school feel safe amid concerns campuses could soon become targets of the administration's immigration crackdown because we know it has already happened. We have new video shared by the San Fernando Valley Sun of an incident earlier this week, the moment a 15-year-old high school student with disabilities was briefly detained in Los Angeles after he was mistaken by ICE agents as a Salvadoran national with prior criminal convictions and suspected ties to the MS-13 gang.
(...)
So, Jonathan, as Camila (Bernal) has mentioned there, teachers are going to participate in these patrols. You have the L.A. superintendent who acknowledged this is definitely outside their job description. ... So teachers are worried about their students. Are they going to show up to school? Will they be safe once they get there? I mean, it is a lot on top of trying to focus and learn, right? So what does this say about the moment we are in, Jonathan?
JONATHAN CAPEHART, CO-HOST OF MSNBC's THE WEEKEND: It says a lot, Alex. I remember in the days when we were lamenting the fact that elementary school kids and high school kids had to learn, you know, active shooter drills, and today we have to worry about children in classrooms -- I was going to say, you know, migrant children or immigrant children, but, as we were talking about at the start of this segment, U.S. citizens' --
WITT: U.S. citizens.
CAPEHART: -- children now have to worry about whether they are going to get stopped by ICE, stopped by people from the federal government. And, Alex, what makes the story about that one young teenager who was detained mistakenly, in the story, it says that the police -- the federal officials told this -- I think it was 15 years old, "Well, think of it this way, you've got a great story to tell." That's outrageous. That's a child, and the child was traumatized, and, as the mother said, you know, he's worried.
And to the point, you know, repeat what that teacher said, the ripple effects of children not going back to school, their classmates seeing that they are not there, the worry that that must put on them, talk about mixed status households where you already have immigrant families, you know, mixed status families where every day, every hour, they're worried about whether either they're going to see their parents again, a parent again, a guardian again, or even their siblings again. And on top of it, it's not just on migrant children or immigrant children. We are talking about U.S. citizen children, and that is where we are.
(...)
Alex, you asked me the question, "What does mean about where we are right now?" And it is very troubling -- extremely troubling because we have federal law enforcement swarming throughout the country snatching people up off the streets whether they are citizens or not without a care, it seems, for due process or the rule of law or the Constitution that is supposed to protect anyone on these shores. And yet we're talking about a 15-year-old kid who was mistakenly arrested, thrown in handcuffs, and then had those same federal law enforcement people say to him, "Well, look at the bright side -- you've got an exciting story to tell." That's the kind of excitement a child should never have to tell.
(...)
MSNBC's Ana Cabrera Reports
August 14, 2025
11:16 a.m. Eastern
ANA CABRERA: It's the first day back to school for kids in Los Angeles, and, because of President Trump's immigration crackdown and the ICE raids in that city, some public schools in predominantly Latino neighborhoods say they are making changes to protect immigrant children and their parents. NBC News correspondent Camila Bernal is live from outside a high school in Los Angeles. Camila, what are you hearing from families and faculty there ahead of this first day of school?
CAMILA BERNAL: Hey, Ana. So school here starts in about 15 minutes. This is the second largest school district in the nation. It's about half a million students who are going back to school in this school in particular, a lot of the teachers worried, and, despite the excitement, just the fear of immigration enforcement operations is really front and center. And the concern for the district has also been attendance. Who is going to show up to school? So there's more than 1,000 educators who have volunteered for these safe zones. And what they say is that they are going to be around the school patrolling, looking out for immigration enforcement operations so that they can essentially warn a lot of the families and a lot of the students who are concerned about coming to school.
