ICE operations are encroaching on schools and day cares

Families with children enrolled in Spanish immersion daycares learned on Jan. 7 that a teacher had been taken into ICE custody as she was about to start work.

Several Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in tactical gear removed the teacher from her car directly outside of a Jardin Spanish Immersion Academy branch in Minneapolis, according to bystander video viewed by the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Parents who were dropping off their children pulled to the side of the road and blew whistles to alert others about the detainment.

The Star Tribune has not verified the teacher’s identity, but several parents confirmed she was detained and had not yet been released. They created a GoFundMe page to help with her legal efforts.

The website says the teacher had a work permit through 2030. Her current whereabouts are unconfirmed. Officials with Jardin, a national day care chain, have not responded to requests for comment.

The Trump Administration has repeatedly said that it does not target day cares, children or schools, but they’re not keeping a distance. The Minnesota Star Tribune has confirmed several instances of ICE activity near those facilities, involving educators or witnessed by school-age children.

St. Paul Public Schools said Jan. 15 that two vans operating under contract to carry students and staff have been pulled over by federal agents while enroute to school this week. The vans were eventually able to continue to school without further disruption.

ICE agents also have detained several day care employees authorized to work in the U.S., their employers said in emails to parents. They also have staged operations near child care centers.

The shift has alarmed lawmakers and parents, who say people entrusted to care for children are being swept up in the Trump administration’s focus on fraud in Minnesota.

Day care attendance has dropped as a result, day care organizers said at a recent news conference. The immigration enforcement actions have prompted parents to raise money for at-risk staff and stand watch for ICE outside their child care centers.

Another Spanish immersion preschool, Un Mundo Nuevo Children’s Academy, emailed parents on Jan. 7 that ICE had briefly detained a teacher after she was “tricked by people who falsely claimed that someone hit their car.”

When the teacher went outside, ICE agents detained her, the email said, “even though she is a legal resident of this country.” She was released 10 minutes later.

The day care, which has branches in Burnsville and Apple Valley, asked supporters to send letters to city officials requesting protection of its staff members’ rights.

Un Mundo Nuevo did not respond to requests for more information.

Tricia McLaughlin, assistant security at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), said in September that media coverage about fears of school raids was “attempting to create a climate of fear and smear law enforcement.”

Yet as thousands of federal agents have increased immigration enforcement in Minnesota this month, they’ve encroached on school property and other places where children congregate, a policy shift issued on the first day of the Trump administration’s second term.

Previously prohibited from “sensitive” areas, the DHS empowered immigration agents to go into schools, churches, hospitals and shelters in pursuit of “murderers and rapists” and other dangerous criminals.

At a news conference in south Minneapolis on Saturday, Jan. 10, parents, day care providers and state legislators blamed a viral video by a conservative influencer for driving political scrutiny of Minnesota’s day care industry. Shortly after YouTuber Nick Shirley published his video in December alleging fraud at Somali day cares, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem sent investigators to Minnesota, posting video of federal officers entering a business and questioning the staff.

The federal efforts have parents worried that multicultural day cares and those serving low-income families are also being targeted.

“Many families in my area are afraid to send their kids to school because ICE is staking out our bus stops,” said state Rep. Carlie Kotyza-Witthuhn, co-chair of the House Children and Families Finance and Policy Committee.

Parents throughout the Twin Cities have mobilized to defend noncitizen teachers after receiving emails about increased federal activity near day cares.

Christina Zauhar, who has two daughters at the Mis Amigos Spanish Immersion in Golden Valley, said parents alerted each other on Jan. 7 about masked men in ICE vehicles circling the block.

Parents have since teamed up to monitor ICE activity in shifts and escort staff to and from their vehicles, Zauhar said. She said Mis Amigos administrators have assured parents that safety protocols and business attorneys are in place in case of emergency.

Mis Amigos parents have set up a GoFundMe, which says a staff member was detained last week and transferred to a facility in Texas. It also says another staffer’s husband had been detained.

Neither man was arrested on or near school property but were picked up while running errands, Mis Amigos executive director Lori Semke told the Star Tribune.

While she said she had no reason to believe the staff member, Pablo Nieves, was targeted for his work at a day care center, Semke questioned why ICE detained him. She said he is in the country legally and has work authorization.

“He is just one of the most incredible people I’ve ever been able to work with,” Semke said. “When somebody like Kristi Noem says, ‘Believe us, we’re picking up the worst of the worst,’ that’s not what they’re doing.”

In Duluth, Young Minds Learning Center CEO Jessi Anttila said her staff alerted her to an unmarked SUV with blacked-out windows on the road leading into their parking lot on Jan. 7. An hour later, several more suspicious vehicles had parked in the lot, and parents were struggling to squeeze in to drop off their kids, Anttila said.

She said that when she arrived, she saw men inside the vehicles wearing tactical vests — at least one reading “HSI,” or Homeland Security Investigations. Anttila said she confronted an agent, telling him he was on her property and demanding to know why.

She said the agent said the men were taking care of a “situation” but refused to elaborate. Anttila said the agent asserted the men would leave when they were ready.

Anttila alerted the local ICE watch group chat, and volunteer observers soon arrived. As they watched, she said, the federal agents took long guns from their vehicles and tried to enter a nearby apartment while yelling they had a warrant.

After Anttila sent a message to parents about what was happening, several parents came to collect their children.