Minnesota Students Return to Classrooms After ICE Raids Forced Families Into Hiding

For the first time in months, students at Columbia Academy in Columbia Heights, Minnesota are all back in their classrooms together. The reason they were gone tells you everything you need to know about the Trump administration's immigration enforcement strategy: terrorize entire communities until families are too afraid to send their kids to school.

According to CBS Minnesota, many students stayed home with their families during what the outlet describes as an "ICE surge" in Columbia Heights. The raids were severe enough that the school had to switch to e-learning -- not because of a pandemic or a natural disaster, but because federal agents had made the community unsafe for children to attend school.

The timeline here is particularly galling. Just two months ago, the President's Border Czar announced that agents would be leaving Minnesota after "months of immigration raids." That statement was supposed to signal an end to the enforcement operations. Instead, it served as an admission that the administration had spent months conducting sweeping raids in Twin Cities communities -- operations disruptive enough to keep children out of school.

The impact on students has been profound. When children miss months of in-person instruction because their families are hiding from federal agents, that is not immigration enforcement. That is collective punishment of entire communities, including U.S. citizen children who have every right to attend school without fear.

Columbia Heights is a diverse, working-class suburb north of Minneapolis. The community has a significant immigrant population, and these raids did not distinguish between people with criminal records and families simply trying to live their lives. The result was predictable: widespread fear, disrupted education, and families forced to choose between their children's schooling and their own safety.

The administration's defenders will argue that immigration enforcement is necessary and legal. What they will not explain is why that enforcement needs to be conducted in a manner that keeps American children out of school for months at a time. They will not explain why communities need to be subjected to what residents experienced as a "surge" of federal agents. And they certainly will not explain why the Border Czar's promise to leave turned out to mean so little.

This is a pattern we have seen in immigrant communities across the country under this administration: enforcement operations designed not just to detain individuals, but to spread fear throughout entire neighborhoods. When children cannot go to school because their parents are afraid to leave the house, that is not law enforcement. That is intimidation.

The students are back at Columbia Academy now, but the damage has been done. Months of missed instruction. Months of fear and uncertainty. Months of families living in the shadows of their own communities. And for what? So the administration could claim it was being tough on immigration?

The fact that it took this long for students to feel safe enough to return to school is an indictment of how these operations were conducted. The fact that the Border Czar's statement about leaving Minnesota clearly did not reflect reality is a reminder that this administration's promises are worth exactly as much as you would expect.

These are American communities. These are American schools. And these children -- many of them U.S. citizens -- deserve to attend class without their families living in fear of federal agents. That should not be a controversial statement. But under this administration, apparently it is.