Ketzali Sanchez Resendiz called her grandfather in Mexico the morning of her graduation from Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis.
At the beginning of the school year, she expected he would be at her graduation ceremony. He’d instilled in her the importance of education, which he hadn’t been able to pursue for himself, and had often been the one to drop her off and pick her up from school. He’d helped pay her older sister’s college tuition.
But in January, Ketzali returned home from a trip to Mexico with her sisters. Her parents told them that while they were gone, their grandfather, who lived with the family, had been detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Shortly afterward, he was deported.
“I think I immediately started sobbing,” said Ketzali, 17. “That was probably the hardest thing I’ve been through in my life.”
Without her grandfather, the house felt empty. Ketzali avoided walking past his room. As the ICE surge in Minneapolis escalated, Ketzali’s parents stopped going to work, causing financial strain on the family. But Ketzali kept going to school.
“I wanted to keep going for him,” she said.
In the fall, Ketzali is headed to the Dougherty Family College, a two-year program at the University of St. Thomas, where she hopes to study criminal justice.
“It was such a traumatic experience for me, but I pushed through and I kept going, and I think I’m really proud of myself for that,” Ketzali said.
For Roosevelt High School’s class of 2026, senior year was both ordinary and unprecedented. As they navigated the usual high school milestones, students also found themselves in the middle of a Border Patrol operation that spilled over into school property. Agents deployed chemical irritants on staff and students, and detained a staff member who was later released. Hundreds of students staged a walkout in protest.
After that incident, Minneapolis Public Schools announced an online learning option as many students stayed home in fear. Some saw family members detained and deported. Some never came back to school.
“It was kind of a weird, apocalyptic sense,” said Josie Meyer, who saw many of her classmates vanish from her Spanish immersion classes. “We had all experienced e-learning through COVID, but to see it only impact a very specific, vulnerable community felt so dystopian.”
Meyer, who plans to attend American University in Washington, D.C., found a “glimmer of hope” in how the Roosevelt community filled the school gymnasium and hallways with food for families who needed it. Parents also organized rides and helped pay for rent for families who needed support.
“It was a beautiful, really bittersweet feeling to see how fast and how strong our community reacted,” she said.
Addressing the graduating class in a ceremony at Royalston Square on Saturday, Principal Christian Ledesma noted that just as graduates might feel they are not ready for the next steps in their lives, the school community had not been prepared for what happened in January — but they still stepped up to help their classmates and neighbors.
“What I’ve learned is that anybody who’s done anything worth doing was never really fully ready when they started,” he said. “The people who change the world show up anyway, doubts and all, fear and all, but kind of sort of making the best version of themselves, and it’s always, always enough.”
He described how members of the school community refused to let each other suffer alone.
“We weren’t ready, but we did it anyway,” he said. “That’s your inheritance. That’s what you get to carry out of here. So, when I tell you to go close the distance between yourself and someone who is hurting, between what is needed and what you can give, I’m not asking you to be some future, better, more courageous version of yourself. I’m asking you to be exactly who you already are.”
A strong community
Carlos Garces, who plans to attend Augsburg University and become an English teacher, described a sense of community throughout his years at Roosevelt that became supercharged during Operation Metro Surge.
That sense of community was palpable through his relationships with friends and staff, and during Black History Month assemblies that a friend of his performed in annually — one of Carlos’ favorite high school memories.
“Whenever he sings, everyone’s always really excited to hear it, everyone’s very supportive, and you can just feel a sense of community,” he said.
When thousands of ICE agents descended on Minnesota, Carlos, who’d expected a senior year of fun activities and traditions, began protesting and spreading awareness about ICE on social media.
“I thought it was really nice to see how everyone came together for a similar goal,” he said. “I kind of always knew that we had a strong sense of community, but it didn’t really set in as much as I thought it did until Metro Surge happened.”
Turning struggles into strengths
Some students found that the struggles they overcame — and the adults who supported them at Roosevelt — shaped their plans for the future.
Ayan Abib, who had to balance virtual learning with a concussion this winter, described her senior year as “roller coaster after roller coaster.”
“Now that’s all in the past, I’m excited about what’s coming,” she said.
She and her sister were hit by a car while walking home from Roosevelt in early December, just as the first influx of ICE agents arrived in Minnesota targeting the Somali community. The car accident left Ayan with a concussion that took her out of school for a month. She initially thought the car had been targeting them, but came to believe the driver had been distracted.
Shortly after Ayan returned to school in January, thousands more ICE and Border Patrol agents arrived in Minnesota, leading to a confrontation with staff and students outside Roosevelt the same day Renee Good was killed. After that escalation in the federal immigration operation, Ayan opted for online learning — but with her concussion, it was hard to look at screens.
After a month, she returned to school in person. She expressed gratitude to her school nurse for helping her through that experience and advocating for her. Ayan had already planned on becoming a nurse, but her support from the school nurse through her concussion reinforced her decision.
“It really confirmed it for me,” she said. “This is what I want to do. I want to help people at their worst moments.”
Ayan plans to attend Normandale Community College to study nursing for two years before transferring to St. Catherine University for her bachelor’s degree.
Payton Blair said the staff at Roosevelt helped pull her out of bad habits, like skipping class and letting her grades slip, and supported her mental health. She grew up without her parents, raised primarily by her grandmother with a stint in foster care. She didn’t start to understand her childhood trauma until middle school.
At Roosevelt, her school psychologist and assistant principal helped her process her thoughts — and adjust her educational habits.
“I think it was just having adults in the building who are willing to listen to me and help me work through my struggles,” she said.
Payton spent three years as president of Roosevelt’s Black STAR Union, where she learned to see herself as a leader for the first time. Now, she plans to attend the University of Kansas to study social work. Her experience as a child inspired her to want to help others.
“I want to be a safe place for mostly children just to express themselves and feel loved,” she said.
As Ketzali crossed the stage to accept her diploma and shake Ledesma’s hand, she thought of the sacrifices her parents had made leaving their country as young adults to start a new life together. And she thought of her grandfather in Mexico. He’d told her how proud of her he was.
“It’s a hard feeling,” she said, about being apart from him as she marked a milestone in her education. “But I was really happy.”
