(The Hill) — Immigration and Customs Enforcement is increasing its activity around public schools, resulting in student protests and canceled classes, including in Minneapolis, where an ICE officer fatally shot a woman last week.
Fears of ICE, which had previously been forbidden from school grounds before the Trump administration rescinded that prohibition last year, have led to measurable declines in student attendance, and high schools students have staged walkouts in protest of increased enforcement.
Two teachers were reportedly handcuffed in Minneapolis last week in a clash with U.S. Border Patrol officers that made local headlines.
The district canceled classes for the rest of the week and plans to offer remote learning options for a month.
“I will say that all of our support systems as parents are a target today, and it’s increasingly challenging to be a parent and caregiver for our kids, for their friends, for their teachers, when our families are being terrorized and under constant attack,” said Christy Moreno, a parent on the Family Advisory Council for the National Parents Union.
The Department of Homeland Security said officers were not looking to go on school grounds at Roosevelt High School but were chasing a suspect who drove dangerously through a school zone and stopped close to the building during dismissal time.
DHS said a crowd formed around the officers at the Minneapolis school, the bystanders became violent and responses such as pepper spray had to be used, while witnesses accuse the officers of aggression.
The DHS said the situation escalated when a person who said they were a teacher “assaulted a border patrol agent” and the crowd that formed around the officers “threw objects and dispersed paint on the officers and their vehicles.”
“The guy, I’m telling him like, ‘Please step off the school grounds,’ and this dude comes up and bumps into me and then tells me that I pushed him, and he’s trying to push me, and he knocked me down,” one school official told MPR News.
“They don’t care. They’re just animals,” they added. “I’ve never seen people behave like this.”
Last month, ICE sparked outrage in Maryland when it arrested a woman near an elementary school after she had dropped off her kid.
In a letter to Education Secretary Linda McMahon, Senate Democrats blasted other accounts of ICE throwing a canister of tear gas 700 feet away from an elementary school during recess and two women getting dragged out of their car by ICE in front of a Chicago school building.
Each time, DHS has said the incident was due to violent or aggressive behavior by individuals involved who would not listen to the commands of the federal officials.
But the words have done little to quell the fear of parents and anger of students who have staged walkouts around the country.
In Texas, “students felt like their teachers didn’t even have agency, like their administrators didn’t have agency. And so, I’ve seen students feel like they have to step into more adult roles to protect their teachers, which is something that is very, very sad to see,” said Esmeralda Alday, senior director of partnerships and impact at ImmSchools, a group that works with K-12 schools on immigration issues.
Students want to walk out “in defense of students that are undocumented, since [they] have the privilege of being documented student,” Alday added.
Recently, around 30 students at Dublin Scioto High School in Columbus, Ohio, staged a walkout to protest ICE presence in the city under “Operation Buckeye.”
Students at Des Moines Public Schools in Iowa also staged a walkout last year after ICE arrested their superintendent, and multiple schools in California have seen similar demonstrations.
“It’s in a way very painful to see that we’ve come to a point where students are feeling hopeless and helpless and that they don’t have an option but to stand up to protect themselves, their families, their younger siblings, their peers, their communities,” said Moreno.
The situation is likely going to get worse as protests have erupted after an ICE officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Macklin Good in Minneapolis. The administration has argued she was using her car as a weapon against officials, while Democrats have denounced the shooting and urged protests to be peaceful.
In Portland, Ore., two people were shot and injured by Border Patrol agents last week, with DHS saying the individuals were linked to Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, though others dispute that accusation.
Schools not only have to deal with political implications of ICE activity around their area, but academic repercussions as well.
Studies have shown increased ICE activity in cities drops attendance in nearby schools, compounding the problem of chronic absenteeism that has persisted since the pandemic.
A Stanford University study found a 22% jump in absences from five California school districts during January and February of last year, compared to the same months in the previous years, around the time ICE activity increased in the area.
Alday said, “A lot of our work right now is frontline support for families, filling the gap for schools where they’re not able to offer legal support, or once families have to unenroll and students aren’t considered active in the school system anymore, then we just make sure that we continue in contact with the families” if they are in ICE detention.