Protesters are outraged over ICE’s latest targets: school-aged children

First, they killed a mom moments after she dropped off her son at school. Then, they came for the children; in one suburban Minneapolis school district, four students have been detained. On Friday, educators, activists, faith leaders and families braved frigid temperatures to protest the aggressive tactics of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in their state, with solidarity protests happening across the country.

The action comes as ICE has stepped up enforcement around schools. Student attendance has plummeted across the Twin Cities and in other communities where ICE has bolstered its presence. To accommodate families too fearful to send their children to school, districts are offering remote learning, more transportation options and support from social workers. 

“Our children should not be afraid to come to school or wait at the bus stop,” Mary Granlund, Columbia Heights school board chair, said in a statement. “Their families should not be afraid to drop off or pick up their children … Schools and communities must be safe places for children and families to thrive.”

Since the January 7 killing of Renee Nicole Good, 37, a mother of three who worked as a substitute teacher in Minneapolis, the aggressive tactics of ICE agents in Minnesota have garnered international attention — and from the beginning, schools have been at the center. ICE agents faced off with students and staff at a nearby high school on the same day as Good was shot dead. Then, on Tuesday, 5-year-old Liam Ramos was detained in the driveway of his home, still wearing his Spider-Man backpack. 

Columbia Heights Public Schools officials said this week that ICE agents took Liam and three other students away, including a high schooler who was detained with her mother inside their apartment. Their detention comes after President Donald Trump’s administration announced last year that it was rescinding federal guidance that prohibited immigration enforcement at sensitive locations such as churches, hospitals and schools. 

Columbia Heights Superintendent Zena Stenvik said ICE agents have gone as far as trailing school buses and driving onto campuses. “The sense of safety in our community and around our schools is shaken, and our hearts are shattered,” Stenvik said during a press conference on Wednesday.

Carlos Mariani Rosa, executive director of the Minnesota Education Equity Partnership and board member of a St. Paul school, told The Hill that attendance at some campuses has fallen to 60 percent; it is normally about 90 percent. 

To accommodate the needs of families who fear bringing their children to class in this climate, Minneapolis Public Schools is offering remote learning through February 12, while nearby Fridley Public Schools is adding transportation options and offering food assistance to vulnerable staff, students and families.

“Our staff are terrified to come to work, so now we’ve stood up transportation for them to and from work,” Fridley Superintendent Brenda Lewis told The Hill. “We have families who would normally walk to school, but they’re terrified to send their children, so we’ve added transportation. We’ve stood up food support. We’ve helped staff who are afraid to leave their homes get groceries delivered.”

Fears about ICE enforcement at schools escalated on the day an agent killed Good. Just hours after she died in South Minneapolis, the Border Patrol was accused of attacking and threatening students, teachers and staff at nearby Roosevelt High School.

The Department of Homeland Security has denied that ICE agents acted improperly, stating that agents were trying to apprehend a suspect near the school when a crowd mobbed them. That led agents to use pepper spray to control the crowd, according to the agency, which said that children were not the targets of their operations near schools.

But a sustained backlash against ICE has followed. Women leaders have been among the most vocal in opposing federal enforcement near campuses. 

“I met with principals of MN schools — city and suburban — and heard horror stories of kids and parents ‘under siege’ by ICE,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat from Minnesota, said on X last week. “Little kids scared. Dangerous encounters. This is no longer about a fraud investigation. If it was, 3,000 ICE agents wouldn’t be hanging outside of elementary schools and wrestling people to the ground in school parking lots.”

Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union — a 1.7 million-member parent-led advocacy group — has also objected to the detention of children near schools. 

“As a mother, I am heartbroken. As an American, I am disgusted. We live in the only country where parents send their kids to school and quietly wonder if they will make it home alive, unharmed, untaken,” she said in a statement. “This is not ‘normal.’ No child should grow up with the feeling that their safety depends on trying to be invisible. When government actions make children afraid to walk outside, go to school or come home, that is not enforcement, it is terror.”