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By Becky Z. Dernbach and Cynthia Tu, Sahan Journal

This story comes to you through a partnership between MPR News and Sahan Journal, a nonprofit newsroom dedicated to providing authentic news reporting about Minnesota's new immigrants and refugees. 

One January night, 13-year-old Alessandro, his parents and his two younger sisters slipped out of their St. Paul home. They brought only diapers for the baby and a small suitcase of clothes they grabbed in a hurry, leaving everything else behind. 

Thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents had come to Minnesota as part of an aggressive campaign to arrest as many immigrants as possible. For two months, the Honduran immigrant family hadn’t left their home even to buy groceries, while throughout the Twin Cities ICE arrested 

And now, ICE had come knocking at their door. Days later, the family escaped in the night, heading east to New York City. Alessandro sent a good-bye message to his favorite teacher, saying he hoped to someday return to Battle Creek Middle School.

Though many districts tried to keep students engaged through online learning and food deliveries, some families, like Alessandro’s, decided they had to leave. A new Sahan Journal analysis shows the extent of the enrollment loss following Operation Metro Surge: as many as 1,700 students left the Minnesota school districts and charter schools with the highest percentage of English learners. 

“Kids literally disappeared,” said Brenda Lewis, the superintendent of Fridley Public Schools. “Literally in an unprecedented manner. Overnight.”

José Pecina Galvan, a bilingual educational assistant at Alessandro’s school who became the main point of contact for about 50 Spanish-speaking families, says 10 to 15 of his students never came back. Some moved to another state or city to be with family, including an 11-year-old who had to move to Missouri to stay with his sister after both his parents were detained at work. Some returned to their home countries.

“Some of them I just couldn’t even get ahold of,” Pecina Galvan said. “The mom or dad might have got taken, and they don’t have family, we don’t have a way to reach them.”

Sahan Journal requested October and March enrollment data from the 20 school districts and 20 charter schools with the highest percentage of English learners in Minnesota. Across the 29 districts and charter schools that provided data, enrollment was down by about 1,700 students in March 2026 compared to October 2025. By contrast, midyear enrollment across those same districts declined by fewer than 80 students in the 2024-2025 school year.

The enrollment losses spanned urban, suburban, and rural districts and charter schools with high English learner populations. And the midyear enrollment declines compounded a year-over-year drop. The same districts and charter schools lost about 1,000 students between October 2024 and October 2025.

Explore: How mid-year enrollment fluctuated over the years

Learn more about the data methodology on the 

The post-Metro Surge decline could foreshadow longer-term losses. As birth rates have fallen, and Minnesota loses residents to other states, immigration has been a key factor 

Some students who left their schools over the winter may be back this fall. But educators and advocates say they’ve heard from many families who have spent their summers preparing to self-deport.

Mara Solis, a fourth-grade teacher at St. Paul’s Wellstone Elementary School and a member of the teachers union’s Immigrant Defense Committee, worries that numbers will drop further in her district and throughout the metro area in the fall. She said she fears that “we’re going to see big enrollment surprises come October when we do our final counts.”

Empty seats, even as students trickle back

All but one of the school districts that provided data to Sahan Journal saw a midyear enrollment decline. The largest declines were in Minneapolis and St. Paul, which each lost nearly 500 students. 

Alli Kildahl, a social studies teacher at St. Paul’s Battle Creek Middle School, recalled the first day students were back in person after a temporary online learning option ended in March.  

“When that initial burst of joy faded, we looked around and realized we’re still missing a lot of kids,” she said. “A lot of them slowly trickled back over the next month or two. And some of them are still not anywhere to be found.”

Suburban districts like Roseville, Fridley, Columbia Heights, North St. Paul-Maplewood-Oakdale, and Burnsville-Eagan-Savage also lost dozens more students than usual midyear, as did some rural communities with high immigrant populations including St. James, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle and Willmar.

Among the charter schools that provided data to Sahan Journal, enrollment was overall more stable, but some schools serving high Spanish-speaking populations saw midyear enrollment dips, too. About half of the charter schools that responded to Sahan Journal’s data request saw slight midyear increases. 

, a bilingual paraprofessional at North High School in Minneapolis, said one of her students was deported to Ecuador, some moved out of state and the school lost contact with others. When students started returning from online learning, she recalled “a lot of joy” tempered by the feeling of loss for the students who didn’t return.

“It was heartbreaking because their absence was definitely felt, and it was profound,” she said.

Lewis, the Fridley superintendent, said her district serves a large Somali population, most of whom do not require English language services, as well as a growing number of Spanish-speaking new immigrant students. Both populations stayed home during the ICE surge.

“It’s a horrible feeling in the middle of what was happening to just have classrooms empty and not to know where children are,” she said.

 with families, delivering groceries and identifying whether they needed support with rent or utility payments. The district also created an online option, which Lewis said stemmed enrollment losses. 

In Fridley, more than 460 students went online during the ICE surge. Many districts and charter schools, mostly in the metro area, provided 

 for their students during this time; these online options served more than 20,000 students at their peak, according to data collected by Sahan Journal.

Still, Fridley, a district of 2,600 students, saw a midyear enrollment drop of 55 kids — about 2 percent. Some students left the Fridley area, which they now saw as unsafe, Lewis said. Some parents could no longer afford their housing after they could not go to work, and moved in with relatives.

But some children left without saying where they were going. 

Another measure of students disappearing is through 15-day drops. Under state law, school districts must drop students from enrollment after 15 consecutive absences. In Fridley, the number of students removed from enrollment for high absenteeism who never returned to school tripled in the 2025-2026 school year compared to the previous year, rising from four to 12.

“That means we can’t get a hold of the family, and we have not heard from any other school district or charter in the state that they’ve been enrolled. So those are literally children that we have no information on where they are,” Lewis said of those 12 students. “Those are the tough stories, because you just don’t know. Did they move out of state? Did they self-deport? Were they detained?”

Faribault Public Schools, a diverse district in a meatpacking town an hour south of Minneapolis, also saw a significant increase in 15-day drops that didn’t return to school. In the 2024-2025 school year, 11 students were dropped and did not return. But last year, that number increased to 48.

In a statement, Faribault Public Schools acknowledged an increase in 15-day drops compared to the previous five years.

“While we are aware of the increase, we are unable to attribute it to any single factor, though we do believe there is likely a correlation between Operation Metro Surge and the 15-day drops we saw in January and February,” the district said in a statement. “As with any enrollment changes, a variety of circumstances can influence a family’s decision.”

Decline dates to beginning of second Trump administration

Sarah Schmidt de Carranza, executive director of multilingual learning for St. Paul Public Schools, traces her district’s decline of enrollment among English learners to Trump’s inauguration in January 2025, nearly a year before Operation Metro Surge began.

Typically, her district welcomes many newcomer students just starting to learn English every spring. But with the border effectively closed, and 

 of refugees being admitted to the United States, there are now very few newcomer English speakers.

“Honestly, they have plummeted,” said Schmidt de Carranza.

Then Operation Metro Surge began. Thousands of ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents descended on the Twin Cities, detaining 

“It took what was already going on and exacerbated it,” she said. “Maybe a lot of families that weren’t necessarily thinking of leaving did because they felt unsafe. … We definitely saw some enrollment impact because of that as well.”

A net of 900 students left St. Paul Public Schools between October 2024 and March 2026 — including nearly 500 English learners. Schmidt de Carranza kept monthly counts, and saw another 150 English learners leave the district between March and June 2026. She also noted that English learners weren’t the only population affected by Operation Metro Surge — many St. Paul students who speak another language at home are also proficient in English.

English-learner enrollment at St. Paul Public Schools

As enrollment of English learners declined and the district faced a $14 million budget shortfall, the St. Paul school board voted in June to cut 16.3 positions for English language teachers. Schmidt de Carranza said the district would continue to meet the staffing ratios for English learners required by the union contract.

“But providing additional staffing above and beyond what the contractual agreement is, is not really something that we’re able to do right now,” she said.

Solis, the Wellstone Elementary teacher, said that many of the positions cut, like English language teachers and counselors, are essential to new immigrant students.

“It’s going to even further affect those students that were most highly impacted by the surge, because the teachers that are being cut are the people that offer stability to their everyday life,” she said.

For Alessandro, the transition to New York City was tough. Instead of getting to school on a yellow bus, he had to take the subway to school by himself. He missed his friends and teachers at Battle Creek Middle School. 

“I felt bad, as if I was missing class,” Alessandro said in Spanish.

“My son just wasn’t the same,” said his father, Orlando. “Mentally, he just shut down.”

Sahan Journal is not using full names for the family due to their immigration status.

After three months in New York, Orlando decided to bring the family back to Minnesota. He was concerned that his son wasn’t adjusting — both his grades and self-esteem had dropped. He wanted Alessandro to finish the school year in St. Paul. 

Alessandro was thrilled to return to Battle Creek Middle School. “This is where I feel safest, where I know I have someone to talk to in school,” he said.

Now, he’s looking forward to starting eighth grade, and his younger sister will be starting kindergarten. 

But his teachers are concerned about what the school year will look like. Kildahl said the budget cuts hit Battle Creek Middle School hard — and she’s worried about further enrollment losses. 

“The school is just going to be really different when we come back,” she said. “The class sizes are going to be big, and we are going to be missing families.”

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Immigration enforcement in Minnesota

A Sahan Journal data analysis shows student enrollment declined in Minnesota school districts with the highest percentage of English learners after the federal immigration operation. For some, the loss will have long-term impacts.

‘Kids literally disappeared’: Minnesota schools lost at least 1,700 students following Operation Metro Surge

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