Two Hopkins Public Schools students were detained by ICE on Thursday morning, Superintendent Rhoda Mhiripiri-Reed said in an email to staff.
She noted that the children had been detained along with their parents.
“It is our hope that this family remains together while they are going through this horrific experience,” she wrote. “It pains me to write this, but I need to stress that because this is uncharted territory for us and for other school districts, it is likely we will not know about the well-being of this family or even the outcome of this situation unless they are able to share their journey at a later time.”
Toya Stewart Downey, the district’s communications director, said that the detainment did not happen on school property.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Emily, a fellow Hopkins parent, told Sahan Journal she had been helping this family by escorting their youngest child, a first-grader, the short distance from his home to the bus stop in the mornings. Sahan Journal is not listing her last name because she is working directly with affected families.
“They are very kind, just really friendly,” she said. Both parents held jobs and were hard workers, she said. She believed the older child was in middle school, she said. “Their son that we interacted with the most is also just really a sweet, sweet little boy, so bright and happy and kind and just a really good little kid.”
On Thursday, when she drove her own children to their school bus stop on Main Street, she noticed a vehicle she’d never seen on the block before, with a “line of sight” toward the bus stop, which she said activated her “spidey senses.”
Emily texted the father in Spanish, telling him to stay inside, to keep his door closed and to use his red know-your-rights card. He told her that his wife had been detained earlier that morning. Then she saw the suspicious vehicle drive away. She suspected that ICE had been waiting for the young child she accompanied to the bus stop or his parents. With her own children safely on the bus, and the suspicious car gone, she left.
Minutes later, she heard from her neighborhood chat group that several SUVs full of ICE agents wearing tactical gear had pulled into the business parking lots near the family’s home.
“That’s when I heard reports that the family had been taken,” she said. “Obviously this is happening everywhere, but when it happens to a neighbor, a friend, someone that you’re close with, it’s just so hard to process.”
Colin Fawcett, who works as a contract delivery driver, was driving along Main Street shortly before 7:20 a.m. when he noticed the ICE agents parked in the business parking lots. It was still mostly dark, and there were very few people around. He saw ICE agents escorting a Hispanic man and a young child between two of their SUVs. He recalled the story he’d seen the previous day about a 5-year-old detained by ICE in Columbia Heights. He felt angry and disappointed.
“It’s just such an unfair fight,” he said.
Heidi Garrido, a Hopkins City Council member, arrived on the scene shortly after ICE left with the family, finding “a very calm, empty scene.”
ICE’s presence in Hopkins is causing a “crisis” for families, schools, and businesses, she said.
“Most people here are sort of living in a state of disbelief that this could happen in our city, let alone our beautiful state, our beautiful country,” she said. “The fear that people are living in is unbelievable.”
Garrido praised the community support system that Hopkins residents have created. “What I’ve seen in the last month since all this started has been nothing short of remarkable,” she said. She described how people are giving their neighbors rides and walking children to school. “The organization around the ways people are helping — I’m just floored.”
Garrido recalled the first time someone spotted ICE in her small Minneapolis suburb, and how people reacted with curiosity.
“That was when we thought, oh my gosh, I wonder what criminal they’re looking for,” she said. “That just seems like such a long time ago now because of who they’ve evolved to be and who they’ve shown us they are. They’ve just elevated themselves to a whole new organization. They’re not here to protect us, they’re not looking for just hardened criminals, they’re not here to make us safe. This is a group that has come here emboldened by a hateful administration, and they’re just causing chaos.”
