Schools close, fears rise among Minnesota families, students amid ICE operations
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Twin Cities area schools are struggling with the heightened presence of Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in the Twin Cities and the killing of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent. School leaders say families are scared and absenteeism is climbing. Some districts cancelled classes Friday “due to ICE activity in our community.”
School leaders in districts around the Twin Cities said immigration enforcement actions are deeply affecting their students, staff and families.
Several district leaders said they or their staff members had encountered masked people in unmarked vehicles tailing, following and targeting their staff, students and families. The assumption is that these people are immigration enforcement officers, but it’s hard to tell because they are not in visibly marked uniforms.
North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale Superintendent Christine Osorio said masked agents targeted her school secretary, who is a U.S. citizen.
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“They sandwiched her in between her car — several agents at the crack of dawn,” Osorio said. “After waiting to see what they were going to do, she finally just went into the building, and then they drove away. But she was very shaken.”
Osorio reported high levels of absenteeism across her schools Thursday in the northeast Twin Cities suburban district.
“Our main priority right now is safety for everyone, first and foremost,” Osorio said.
“Secondly, how do we help kids keep learning, right? We fought so hard to get attendance rates back up after the pandemic dropped and higher poverty school districts like mine have taken longer to get there, to get that back on track, and we’re finally seeing really amazing fruits of our efforts. And it’s really, you know, disheartening to see it impacted so suddenly and severely.”
‘No playbook for this’ as absences climb
Fridley Public Schools saw similar problems.
Brenda Lewis, the superintendent, said students and staff members are terrified to come to school. At just one middle school, where normally 630 students attend classes, 140 students were absent on Thursday.
“As educators, our job and the reason that we’re in the profession is to give our students safe, warm, welcoming, productive learning environments, and it’s pretty hard right now to ensure safety when we also hear that ICE was literally on the grounds of public schools in districts that are very near us,” Lewis said.
“This is this is unconscionable,” she added. “It’s just, it’s it’s paralyzing, and you have to lead through it. But there's no playbook for this.”
Lewis made the decision to cancel Friday classes district-wide.
“Our community has experienced significant fear and disruption over the past 24 hours due to ICE activity in our community. We have listened closely to our students, families, and staff, and we are responding to the reality of what many are living through right now,” she wrote in a letter to families.
Columbia Heights Public Schools shifted to flex learning on Friday “out of an abundance of caution.“
Both districts said they planned to resume classes on Monday.
Other school officials told MPR News they saw ICE agents detaining people outside bus stops in front of schools today. And that they’re trying to make arrangements to have extra adults on transportation to get kids to and from school buildings safely.
Minneapolis Public Schools on Wednesday canceled classes districtwide for the remainder of the week “due to safety concerns,” following the killing of Renee Good. The district said it acted “out of an abundance of caution.”
The move came hours after an official at Minneapolis Roosevelt High School said armed U.S. Border Patrol officers came on school property during dismissal Wednesday and began tackling people, handcuffed two staff members and released chemical weapons on bystanders.
A Border Patrol spokesperson said later that agents were chasing a U.S. citizen who had been involved in an altercation with Border Patrol that led to a 5-mile chase ending up near the school.
Officers used “targeted crowd control” in the area but no tear gas, the spokesperson said. However, video obtained by MPR News reporters and photographers show that uniformed agents did deploy chemical irritants on Roosevelt school grounds.
Gov. Tim Walz told reporters Thursday that he’s talked with Minnesota Education Commissioner Willie Jett about whether or not it’s safe for schools across the state to continue to operate.
“Should we be in classes today and tomorrow in those schools or does it pose a potential risk and so we’re trying to figure that out,” Walz said.
“I think many of the things and lessons we learned during COVID is local communities and local schools being able to make some of these decisions in the long run probably gets us better outcomes, but we are deeply concerned with that,” he added.
Student protests
Students in many districts are planning demonstrations to protest ICE’s killing in Minneapolis and ongoing presence in the state.
Protests led by students and families are expected Friday around the Twin Cities metro area.
In Minneapolis Thursday, more than 100 elementary-aged students staged a protest near Kenny Elementary School. They marched down a street carrying signs reading “No ice,” “Get out,” and “Rest in Power Renee Nicole Good.”
May Wyatt, the parent of one of the students said she and her kids felt afraid, but that gathering with others in their community helped.
“What I keep telling my babies … is just that the tide of the world is toward justice, and that most people around us want that and are working for good, and some people are trying to stop that, but they won’t win,” Wyatt said.
