Washington, D.C.’s large immigrant population is facing a reign of terror: Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have flooded neighborhoods with large Latino populations, imposing checkpoints and hanging a threat over families’ heads as kids and parents prepare to go back to school next week.

Instead of worrying about having the right notebooks for the school year, many families are now afraid of getting detained by ICE on their way to school drop-off and pickup, three school staff members and local organizers told The Intercept. Teachers claim that the D.C. school system has been unhelpful, treating the situation as business as usual and even discouraging organizers from providing guidance to families on school grounds.

“Most parents’ biggest concern is that something will happen to them on the way to school in front of their children,” said Hillary, an elementary school teacher in the city who asked to be identified by her first name because she was concerned her activism might get her school targeted by ICE, “or it’s going to happen before they’ve been able to pick up their children from school, and there will be no one to come get their kids.”