When ICE Comes for the Drama Teacher
by Chris Peterson
Believe it or not, the latest immigration controversy in America isn’t unfolding at the border or in an airport detention room. It’s happening inside a suburban high school’s theater department. Fernando Rocha, the longtime theater manager at Juanita High School in Kirkland, Washington, was recently detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The arrest has stunned his school community and raised urgent questions about how federal power intersects with local public education.
Rocha, by all accounts, was a respected figure in the school. He ran the theater program, worked openly, and passed the background checks required of any public school employee. ICE claims he overstayed a tourist visa granted in 2018 and is wanted by Brazilian authorities for theft. But state lawmakers and advocates paint a very different picture. They say Rocha is an asylum seeker with legal status, no criminal record in the United States, and an active petition for permanent residency. That is not a subtle dispute. That is the difference between someone committing a crime and someone escaping one.
This isn’t just a story about an administrative hiccup. It is a warning. When a public school staff member can be swept up by federal agents without clear explanation, it reveals just how fragile the line is between public service and legal vulnerability. Rocha wasn’t in hiding. He wasn’t living under the radar. He was working in full view at a public institution. If his paperwork truly raised red flags, why wasn’t that addressed years ago? And why now, in the middle of summer, did ICE choose this moment to act?
The answer, it seems, has less to do with Rocha’s actions and more to do with a system that operates with limited accountability. Washington State has worked to shield local agencies from federal immigration enforcement. But ICE operates independently and often without transparency. They do not need to notify the school district. They do not need to prove anything to the community. And when they move, they leave behind a mess that someone else has to explain.
The Lake Washington School District has acknowledged the detention and is reviewing Rocha’s employment records. But that response feels painfully inadequate. This is not just about documents. It is about a school community losing a trusted adult without warning. It is about students returning in the fall to find an empty office and no answers. It is about the quiet fear that any immigrant employee, regardless of their record or reputation, could be next.
There are also serious questions about how schools navigate employment law and immigration status. If Rocha was legally allowed to work and live in the United States, then this arrest is not only unjust, it is deeply destabilizing. It sends a message that even those doing everything right can be pulled out of their jobs and locked away with little explanation. That message does not just hurt Rocha. It hurts every student, teacher, and parent who believed that schools should be safe from this kind of disruption.
Rocha’s case now moves into the immigration court system. But the harm to his community has already been done. The school lost a colleague. The students lost a mentor. And the rest of us are left wondering what kind of country arrests theater managers from public high schools with no warning and no clear justification.
At a minimum, Rocha deserves due process. His school community deserves answers. And we all deserve to live in a country where showing up to work every day, building trust with students, and contributing to public education is not something that puts you at risk.
Because if even the drama teacher isn’t safe, then we’ve written ourselves into the wrong kind of script.