Bentonville fourth graders dropped off at ICE office

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — On Thursday, Jan. 15, fourth-grade students from Bentonville’s TREC Center for Gifted Education were mistakenly dropped off at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) office in Fayetteville during a scheduled field trip.

The students were supposed to be on a field trip to a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) office, school officials said. HSI and ERO are both directorates, or divisions, of ICE.

On Saturday, after photos of the Bentonville school bus in front of the ERO office circled on social media, Bentonville Schools Superintendent Debbie Jones said in an email to parents that the fourth grade students were dropped off at the wrong location. “Unknown to our bus driver and teachers, students were delivered to the wrong site,” she wrote. “When informed that it was the wrong building, students were immediately driven to the correct building. At no time did students witness any aspect of ICE operations, nor did they tour the site.”

ERO office employees told Arkansas GRITA on Friday that students were dropped off at the building and had to wait for the bus to come back.

Jones said in the email that the field trip was part of the TREC students' forensics educational unit. As part of the unit, she said in the email, they were shown "sophisticated techniques" by HSI agents, such as "thermal imaging cameras, audio wires, and night vision goggles." Arkansas GRITA has requested further comment from Bentonville Schools. Jones' email appears in full at the end of this article.
 
ERO is a department within DHS that is responsible for detaining and deporting immigrants. HSI is the principal investigative component of DHS. The ERO building that students were mistakenly dropped off at houses detained immigrants before they are transported to a Louisiana detention center. It remains unclear which HSI building the field trip was intended to visit. Google Maps identifies the ERO building as a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office. DHS is the federal Cabinet agency that ICE operates under. The location is currently identified on ICE's website as an ERO site.

One student told their mother that they were dropped off at the wrong location and waited in the ERO lobby to keep warm as they waited for the bus to return.

The exterior doors of the ERO office are posted with flyers that encourage “voluntary deportation,” with notices asking “Do you want to Return Home?” “Would you like a chance to come back legally?” and “Take a form and use the app to go back home.”

The forensics field trip has been an annual off-site field trip for the TREC program for several years. A teacher with Bentonville Public Schools, who wishes to remain anonymous, described the students attending this year's field trip as “immigrants themselves.” 

“We are such a diverse immigrant community at my school and I’m terrified for them,” the teacher said. “I feel so bad for the fourth graders who went.”

“Taking a group of children to a site where ICE officers are stationed every day is troubling and lacks sensitivity to the experiences of many families,” said Irvin Camacho, co-founder of the Alliance of Immigrant Respect and Education. “I hope that in the future, greater consideration will be given when selecting locations for student activities or forensic exercises, ensuring they are conducted in environments that are appropriate, supportive, and free from unnecessary distress.”

Bentonville Public Schools demographics as of the 2025-2026 school year are 66% Caucasian, 11% Hispanic, 10% Asian, 5% two or more races, 3% African American, 1% Native American, and nearly 1% Hawaiian/ Pacific Islander. Bentonville school district reporting states that students come from 95 countries of birth and 71 native languages.