At least 23 parents detained by ICE at one Columbia Heights school alone, superintendent says
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After the arrest, detainment and return of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, Columbia Heights and its youngest population have been in the public eye.
Although Liam’s case garnered international attention, the school district has been plagued for weeks by threats of deportations, according to superintendent Zena Stenvik. A second and fifth grader from Ramos’ school have also been taken into custody by ICE.
“I have one staff member who was stopped on his way to work every single morning last week,” Stenvik said. “At Liam’s school alone, at least 23 parents have been detained.”
As a response, students wrote letters to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as part of a project to express emotions about recent events. Stenvik is working to have the letters delivered to the Department of Homeland Security.
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“It’s very clear even to some of our youngest little people in our community that what’s happening is wrong,” she said.
According to Stenvik, many of the families and staff in her school district are people of color, which she said is why they’ve been targeted so much. She said teachers and staff are fielding questions from children who are worried they’ll return home to find their parents gone.
“It is really taking a toll on our educators,” Stenvik said. “It’s a level of intensity, anxiety and fear that no teacher should have to support on a daily basis.”
She also added that much of the staff are carrying passports themselves and delivering groceries to families who are sheltering in place.
Interactions with ICE aren’t the only thing causing anxiety for the students and faculty in Columbia Heights. On Monday, schools across the district were closed after a credible bomb threat. However, classes are resuming again Tuesday.
Listen to the full conversation by clicking the player above. Below is a transcript, lightly edited for clarity.
How is the district supporting Liam Conejo Ramos’ family and others affected by the immigration surge?
We are thrilled to have Liam back and reunited with his family. It feels like a glimmer of hope in all of the devastation that we’ve been experiencing over the last several weeks — over a month now.
At this time, you know the family is asking for privacy, and we are definitely doing that. When they are ready and when he’s recovered and they are ready to come back to school, then we will support them in any way we possibly can.
We have a really strong team of school social workers, school psychologists, school nurses. Then, of course, our educators are standing at the ready to support him and the family.
How are educators and staff doing when it comes to trying to keep attention on learning and not everything happening outside?
I can’t stress this enough that: it is really taking a toll on our educators.
I think parents of young children can can really empathize, and their heart tugs when they see Liam and his bunny hat. But the teachers love these children — the children in their classrooms — just as much, each and every day.
And so it is then incredibly challenging to have children, fewer children in their classrooms, but also walking children to and from school before and after the school day, working a full day, fielding questions from children about, “could I be taken? Will my parents be taken and the house will be empty when I get home?”
It’s a level of intensity, anxiety and fear that no teacher should have to support on a daily basis.
They’re also out supporting families, delivering groceries and supplies. And then, of course, some have shifted to online teaching as well. So the pressure is immense, and it is definitely taking its toll.
I will just add one more thing too about our staff is — our country has a long history of persecution and maltreatment of Black and brown and indigenous people, right? And our staff often pertain to those categories and are being persecuted themselves on their way to work, being stopped and harassed by ICE.
I have staff members carrying their passports and others who are driving each other to and from work. So it’s not only stressful for them as educators and caregivers for children, but for their own self as well.
Do you have any idea how many staff parents, students have been detained by ICE at this point?
I have one staff member who was stopped on his way to work every single morning last week, not detained because now people are carrying their passports. At Liam’s school alone, at least 23 parents have been detained, but there’s other aunts and uncles and cousins who have been detained as well.
If ICE and the Department of Homeland Security were fulfilling their commitment to persecuting violent criminals, that would be a totally different story. But when it comes to persecuting, detaining and then whisking people away to Texas, who have come here by legal means and are innocent children, that is just not okay.
Can you tell us about this project where students wrote letters to ICE agents?
Art and writing are perfect ways to express all of the emotion that the kids are feeling and unfortunately for many children here in the Twin Cities, they’re experiencing this firsthand.
Whether they’re seeing an ICE raid from their bus window on their way to school, or outside of their own homes. And so it was a kind of an after-school class project that kids wanted to express themselves.
My team is working on delivering those letters to the Department of Homeland Security from the children. We teach our children in school what's right from wrong, and it’s very clear even to some of our youngest little people in our community, that what's happening is wrong.
Have you had a chance to think about the long term effects of all this on these kids?
Yes, absolutely. We think about that daily. We know that this will have long, lasting impacts.
We learned a lot during the COVID pandemic, and this is a whole different level of intensity and fear coming at us from the federal government. And so we definitely know that this will have long, lasting impacts on children and adults alike.
And not only children who are being detained, but children who are coming to school in fear, children who are learning at home online because of fear and everyone in between.
What was Monday’s threat and school closure all about?
As school administrators, we are trained to navigate and handle and respond to school emergencies. And school administrators across the nation deal with these things, unfortunately.
I became aware of this threat pretty close to the start of the school day, and so didn’t have time to vet— I mean, our police, our law enforcement agencies work with the FBI and our IT folks, track down these servers and whatnot and where they’re coming from.
We just didn’t have time before the start of the school day to vet it. And because multiple staff members received the same copy and paste email in different buildings, I decided to cancel school for the day and allow our local law enforcement to do their job and secure the perimeter and also the interior of all of our buildings.
So we were actually able to have basketball games in the afternoon at our school yesterday, and some of the other activities once we got the final all clear.
How are you doing?
Oh, I have a very strong resolve to support our 3,400 children and nearly 600 staff members. We’re a strong community, and so we’re all banding together during this difficult time.
