Two Minnesota school districts and the state’s largest teachers union sued the Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday, claiming the agency violated the law when it changed a longstanding policy last year and allowed immigration enforcement near schools.
“For decades, federal policy recognized that schools are different: places designed for children, education and for the stability that families depend on,” said June Hoidal, an attorney representing Fridley Public Schools, Duluth Public Schools and Education Minnesota in the lawsuit, in a Wednesday news conference.
Hoidal noted that schools had seen clear and immediate effects from the policy change.
“Quickly, attendance declined, families’ daily routines and the sense of safety that schools depend on were overshadowed by fear. As a result, schools had to adjust their schedules, cancel activities and redirect time away from teaching and towards managing this uncertainty brought about by this change in policy,” she said. “What our clients are seeking is a court order to restore clear limits around schools consistent with longstanding policy, so that schools can function as intended.”
Monica Byron, the president of Education Minnesota, noted that the code of ethics for Minnesota educators requires teachers to “make reasonable effort to protect the student from conditions harmful to health and safety.”
“Although it pains me to say this, one of the greatest threats to the health and safety of Minnesota’s school-age children right now are the ICE and Border Patrol agents in our state,” she said. “The ICE presence at and near Minnesota schools is causing lockdowns, emptying schools and traumatizing children every day.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court Wednesday, claims that when DHS rescinded a longstanding policy restricting immigration enforcement activity at sensitive locations including schools, the agency failed to follow rulemaking laws.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations around Minnesota schools have become a national flashpoint. Border Patrol agents firing chemical munitions on Roosevelt High School students and staff became some of the first evidence of immigration enforcement agents on school property. The image of an ICE agent grabbing the Spiderman backpack of 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos in his blue bunny hat also helped put an international spotlight on ICE’s actions in Minnesota.
Kristen Sinicariello, a high school social studies teacher, Education Minnesota member, and girls’ soccer coach in Columbia Heights Public Schools, described “monumental destruction and disruption to our student learning” since Operation Metro Surge began in the absence of this policy. Attendance plummeted, and many students have opted into online learning — changes that are primarily affecting Latino students.
The Columbia Heights school district has been hit hard by Operation Metro Surge. At least seven Columbia Heights students have now been detained by ICE, a number the district updated Wednesday when a pair of elementary-school brothers freed from custody reported they had spotted a classmate in the Dilley Immigration Processing Center. The district had lost contact with that student for nearly a month and said that it is possible other students it’s lost contact with have been detained as well.
Last Wednesday, as Sinicariello drove to work, she saw three ICE vehicles at a park near her school. That day, a student in her AP World History class arrived late to school, told her that ICE had pulled him over and that he was going to spend the class period with his counselors.
“Today, this student had his head down all of class,” she said. “Fear for himself and his family have made him unable to learn.”
The girls’ soccer team she coaches had to forfeit a game on Saturday because too many players were afraid to leave their homes. A mother who often drives the players whose parents are staying home “was herself then followed and menaced by ICE while her two teenage daughters were in the car with her,” Sinicariello said.
On Monday, seven ICE vehicles were loitering in student and staff parking lots before school began, she said.
“None of this should be legal,” Sinicariello said.
The federal government’s previous policy for immigration enforcement around sensitive locations, established in 1993, required immigration agents to minimize the impact of their actions on schools, and request exceptions to the policy in writing unless exceptional circumstances arose. Congress also required DHS to submit public reports on enforcement actions in protected areas.
On the first day of Donald Trump’s second term, DHS rescinded this policy. The lawsuit claims that the abrupt scrapping of the previous policy violated the Administrative Procedure Act, which requires explaining a rule change and allowing time for public comment.
The new policy left enforcement at sensitive locations to agents’ “enforcement discretion” and “common sense.”
In a statement, Tricia McLaughlin, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security, insisted that the agency had not made any immigration arrests at schools, and reiterated that agents could use their common sense.
“ICE is not going to schools to arrest children — we are protecting children,” she said. “If a dangerous illegal alien felon were to flee into a school, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect public safety. But this has not happened.”
But the schools and union cite numerous examples of immigration agents conducting enforcement actions in plain view of Minnesota schools in the past month.
Outside Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis shortly after dismissal on Jan. 7, the day Renee Good was killed, Border Patrol agents tackled people, handcuffed staff, and deployed chemical munitions on staff and students. Two staff members have been detained in parking lots of Spanish immersion day cares. ICE agents have staged enforcement operations in Fridley and Roseville school parking lots. Little Canada and Columbia Heights schools have also reported ICE agents in their parking lots; the proximity of ICE agents nearby has sometimes led schools to move recess indoors.
School bus stops and routes have become a major source of stress for many students and parents. A parent of a Brooklyn Center elementary school student was detained while waiting at a school bus stop. A Hopkins parent observed a vehicle she believed to be ICE near a school bus stop, minutes before ICE detained a child who usually waited at that bus stop along with his family. School vans carrying students were stopped by ICE agents in both the St. Paul and Anoka-Hennepin school districts. Richfield Public Schools also reported ICE agents present on a bus route.
Fridley Public Schools said it had to close schools for two days due to safety concerns related to immigration enforcement activities, including a staff member being stopped by armed DHS agents near school property. Attendance in the district has dropped by a third, endangering the district’s funding. Teachers, social workers, and administrators have now diverted their time to creating remote learning options, delivering food and patrolling for immigration officers. Many staff, despite their legal authorization to work for Fridley Public Schools, are afraid to go to work. People delivering food have been followed by ICE.
Brenda Lewis, superintendent of Fridley Public Schools, said she’d had to divert significant attention to monitoring ICE activity — and that ICE activity had intensified near her schools since she’d started speaking out. Lewis has been vocal about ICE’s impact on her district at press conferences and was recently featured in a New York Times article. She and multiple school board members have had ICE outside their homes or been followed by ICE, including one who was followed from her home to her child’s day care dropoff.
On Wednesday morning, after border czar Tom Homan announced he would be “drawing down” 700 of the 3,000 federal immigration officers present, Lewis said she felt a “glimmer of hope.”
“That glimmer of hope lasted maybe three minutes,” she said. One of the elementary schools in her district started the day with six ICE vehicles “up and back, up and back, up and back, right outside of our school.”
One mother, who is legally in the United States, arrived with her child “terrified,” and was followed by ICE vehicles “for no apparent reason.” Lewis described how ICE agents screamed at, mocked and took video of the principal, who was present as always for school dropoff. The previous day, she’d had to tell international teachers, who have work sponsorship from the school district, not to walk to a nearby store because ICE was nearby.
“This is our clear and present reality,” she said. “This is not a joke. This is not exaggeration. And honestly, I could care less right now about politics. We need this to stop, and we need this to stop immediately.”
She thanked John Magas, the superintendent of Duluth Public Schools, for joining her in the lawsuit.
According to the lawsuit, Duluth Public Schools has had to divert nearly a third of some staff members’ time to planning around immigration activities, amounting to a monthly cost of $573,000 of emergency planning. That district has also seen widespread absenteeism from immigrant communities and is concerned about the potential loss of funding.
Magas said some Duluth students were staying home, and others had self-deported.
“We have dedicated staff members of color who now carry their passports with them at all times, just hoping to avoid wrong detention,” he said. “We’ve also seen students who were once excelling in their classes now failing, their mental health shattered by the continued and constant weight of this anxiety. This is not an environment for learning that any of us accept, and we believe that this policy change is misguided and harmful.”
Magas said that his district had not been as affected as some others who were afraid to speak out, fearing loss of federal funding, investigations or retaliation.
“While our district has not experienced the large-scale enforcement that we’ve seen here in other districts, it’s important for us to stand up as good neighbors,” he said. “That’s what we’ve seen in Minnesota, whether it’s in the streets of Minneapolis or whether it’s the neighbors to the north in Duluth, we want to stand up for our neighbors here in Minnesota and across the country.”
Magas said he hoped other districts would join the lawsuit, and that Congress would return protected status to schools as a condition to funding the Department of Homeland Security.
“If we’re going to continue to fund an army of oppression, I think that we at least need this in place so that we can keep our schools safe,” he said.
