On June 6, 2025, a claim circulated online that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had raided an elementary school graduation in Los Angeles.
The claims circulated ahead of a weekend of protests in the city following ICE raids on June 6. The claim likely stemmed from a TikTok video (archived) uploaded by @justsayuhatebasketball on TikTok.
The TikTok user said a nearby elementary school — Gratts — "was having their graduation and all of a sudden a bunch of parents have to run out because [ICE] is there."
The user went on to say that 15 people just got "picked up" at The Home Depot on Wilshire Boulevard.
The claim also circulated on Facebook (archived), X (archived), Instagram (archived), Threads (archived), Bluesky (archived) and Reddit (archived). Snopes readers wrote in asking if the claim was true.
However, though local and national media reported on immigration enforcement action in LA and resulting protests around June 6-8, 2025, we found no evidence ICE made arrests at Gratts Learning Academy for Young Scholars on June 6, as the TikTok user above claimed. A spokesperson for Los Angeles Unified, the school district where Gratts Learning Academy was located, said via email that the graduation ceremony at the school on June 6, seen in its online calendar, "continued without any disruption."
"The claims that immigration enforcement activity arrived to the school and during the event are false. Additionally, no schools near Gratts went on a soft lockdown," the spokesperson said, addressing an additional claim @justsayuhatebasketball made during his June 6 video. Therefore, we rate this claim false.
We reached out to ICE to ask whether its agents entered Gratts Learning Academy, and to the school seeking to confirm whether ICE agents showed up at its graduation. We also asked ICE for an updated tally of arrests and their locations in LA on June 6. We reached out to the TikTok user to ask where and how he first heard about the alleged Gratts Learning Academy raid. We await replies to our queries.
According to a statement from Yasmeen Pitts O'Keefe, an ICE spokesperson, cited in local media, Homeland Security Investigations, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the FBI arrested around 44 people in LA on June 6, including near a Home Depot on Wilshire Boulevard as part of immigration enforcement operations. The versions of the statement shared online did not name Gratts Learning Academy.
The TikTok user mentioned the Wilshire Boulevard action in his video. The Home Depot on Wilshire Boulevard is about 1,200 yards from Gratts Learning Academy.
ICE Acting Director Todd Lyons confirmed in a statement on the agency's website that agents made arrests in Los Angeles on June 6, but he did not confirm locations.
It was unclear whether unrest unrelated to arrest fears might have sparked rumors of an ICE raid at Gratts Learning Academy.
The reported appearance of ICE agents at an LAUSD school came months after Alberto M. Carvalho, the district's superintendent, told local media that Homeland Security agents attempted to access students at Lillian Street and Russell elementary schools in the city.
According to a Department of Homeland Security statement reported in local media at the time, the agents were "conducting wellness checks on children who arrived unaccompanied at the border," and the visits "had nothing to do with immigration enforcement."