A school superintendent in Minnesota says Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers “harassed” several of her students Thursday.
Zena Stenvik, superintendent of the Columbia Heights School District just north of Minneapolis, said that on Thursday morning, three of her high school students’ cars were surrounded by ICE vehicles and stopped.
This is the school district attended by Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old who was detained with his father earlier this month by federal immigration agents. Democratic lawmakers who visited the boy this week in a Texas detention center described him as lethargic.
“We want Liam back. We want him back home. I’ve spoken with his mother and I am heartbroken that he’s under the weather right now in that detention center,” Stenvik said. “At the same time, let him be a symbol for all of the children. The other students of mine that have been detained, two of whom are also in a detention center in Texas. And the ones who are getting harassed right now this morning.”
“I know for a fact right now behind our high school in the park, there are ICE agents looming,” she said, “and they’ve been circling my schools again this morning, parked outside of my middle school.
3 questions with Zena Stenvik
What happened on Thursday morning?
“ It’s not my job to talk to a 16-year-old child like I had to do this morning and talk them down and listen to them about their experiences where they had to show their passport to masked agents. That should never be any superintendent or teacher or educator’s job. This child was lawfully driving on their way to school, you know, and then I had to listen to a voicemail from another child who was stopped. You know what he did? He called the school principal immediately and to hear the fear in his voice, and, you know, he ended the voicemail by saying, please let me know as soon as you get this message. They’re looming around the high school, and I just want to keep everyone safe. These are children.”
How is the school responding?
“ Everything has changed. We are doing our best to provide normal routines for students and continue the learning, which is our mission, which is what our purpose is in the first place. Community members and teachers are walking children to and from school or giving extra rides. Providing resources such as food and other supplies, diapers, things like that. Many, many community members are standing on the corners of every single one of my schools in the morning and in the afternoon. It’s a very clear pattern of strong ICE activity around our schools. In the morning when children are arriving and in the afternoon when they’re trying to go home.”
What are you hearing from students?
“ They’re very fearful. You know, the older students are able to articulate and understand the racial profiling and the targeting that’s happening. The younger children, regardless of where they were born or what they look like, are all afraid that they’re going to be taken. They ask us that. Can I be taken? Will my parents be home when I get home from school?
“We tell them that while they’re here at school, they’re as safe as possible and we are working to find safe passage to and from school for them – whether that’s church members, community members, other parents. Because the bus stops and the walk zones have become – unbelievably, I have to say – have become not safe places.”
This interview has been edited for clarity.
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Will Walkey produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Catherine Welch. Walkey also adapted it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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