Minnesota immigrant advocates and the state’s largest school district scrambled to respond Friday to reports of a federal operation targeting children in the U.S. without parents or legal status.
The operation, called “Freaky Friday” by immigrant rights groups, asks young people to self-deport in return for $2,500. Letters sent by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) suggest that their family members living in the U.S. will be arrested if they refuse to comply.
The American Immigration Lawyers Association (AILA) sent a widespread email to attorneys notifying them of the operation and urged them to look for signs. Children who are in the United States without parents or legal status are classified as “unaccompanied minors” in the federal immigration system.
The operation targets unaccompanied minors between the ages 14 to 18 years old, according to several local immigration attorneys who received AILA’s email notification and shared it with Sahan Journal. ICE could drop the age to 10 years old, local attorneys said.
When she received the news of the operation, “I was very alarmed,” immigration attorney Maria Miller said.
Many unaccompanied minors seek asylum through different legal options, she said, including under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act. Oftentimes, unaccompanied minors entered the United States through crossing the U.S.-Mexico border and were processed by ICE. While awaiting the outcome of their deportation cases, they are allowed to stay in the country, usually with a relative or caregiver.
“They are protected by the law and the U.S. government cannot take that right away from them,” Miller said.
More than 4,000 unaccompanied minors were sent to homes in Minnesota between 2021 and 2024. Most are concentrated in Minneapolis, St. Paul, Worthington and Windom. Several local attorneys told the Sahan Journal that they have not heard of unaccompanied minors in Minnesota receiving letters as of Friday.
In a statement, ICE officials pushed back against allegations that they are coercing young people into dropping their asylum claims.
“These allegations are categorically false,” ICE spokeswoman Emily Covington said in a statement. “The anti-ICE activists have made up a ridiculous term, ‘Freaky Friday,’ to instill fear and spread misinformation that drives the increased violence occurring against federal law enforcement.”
The offer letters are a “strictly voluntary option to return home to their families,” she said. The payment to minors for assisting in their deportation would be provided after an immigration judge grants the request, she added.
“Cartels trafficked countless unaccompanied children into the United States during the Biden Administration, and DHS and HHS have been working diligently to ensure the safety and wellbeing of those children,” read her statement.
Erika Zurawski with the Minnesota Immigrants Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), said while initial information indicates that the operation will begin with letters, she fears the operation could also lead to future ICE actions in or near schools.
“It’s definitely cause for concern that their primary goal right now is to target children for deportation,” Zurawski said.
Jim Skelly, communications director for the Anoka-Hennepin School District, said the district — which is the largest in the state with more than 38,000 students — heard about the operation around midday Friday. The district office then sent out a memo to the principals and directors of each of the district’s 36 schools warning against the rumored operation and reminding them of the district’s policies for how to handle immigration officials should they arrive at a school.
Skelly told Sahan Journal that parents haven’t been notified but school leaders are now prepared to answer their questions and concerns.
“It was mainly just about awareness because it was information shared on the grapevine and what is known at this point, and then these are the action plans of how to respond if any of this would happen at a school site,” he said. “But that hasn’t happened to our knowledge at this point.”
