Minneapolis — In some ways, 10-year-old Giancarlo is one of the lucky ones. He still goes to school.
Every morning, he and his family pack up their belongings and leave their home Minneapolis Apartment to wait for his bus. His little brother carries his backpack, even though he stopped going to daycare weeks ago because his mother is too afraid to take him.
As they wait behind a wrought-iron fence, Giancarlo’s mother pulls the boys into the shade of a tree to pray. It’s the only time you stop checking the street Immigration Agents.
“Oh God, please protect my son when he’s not home,” she says in Spanish. She spoke to The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity in part to the family because she feared immigration authorities would target her.
For many immigrant families in Minnesota, sending a child to school requires faith Federal immigration officers Scattered throughout the state will not detain them. Thousands of children are staying at home, often due to a lack of door-to-door transportation – or simply because of trust.
Fear has turned into reality. Several parents and some children, including a 5-year-old child, were arrested Liam Conejo Ramoswho was detained with his father, who is originally from Ecuador, in the Columbia Heights suburb of Minneapolis, where he was Getting home from school. They were sent to a detention center in Texas but… He came back After the judge ordered their release.
Schools, parents and community groups have mobilized to help students get to class so they can learn, socialize and get meals on a consistent basis. For those who still send their children, the journey to and from school is one of the only risks they are willing to take.
“I don’t feel safe when he goes to school,” Giancarlo’s mother said, shaking her head. “But he wakes up every day and wants to go. He wants to be with his friends.”
Giancarlo Minneapolis Elementary School is the best thing for him these days. There is soccer to play at recess. Registered to learn. Giancarlo has his eyes set on learning to play the flute next year when his fifth graders choose an instrument. He has “demasiado” – “too many” – best friends to mention.
But the house confinement of his mother and brother weighs heavily on him. He saves half of the food he gets for breakfast and lunch at school to share with them, and has lost four pounds this year. He’s more interested in bringing you pizza or hamburgers, treating the family who used to eat in restaurants when his mother, an asylum seeker from Latin America, still worked and felt safe leaving the house. Giancarlo also applied for asylum, and his brother Yair holds American citizenship.
Sometimes only seven of Giancarlo’s classmates show up when there should be nearly 30. “The teachers cry,” he said. “It’s sad.”
With as many as 3,000 federal officers roaming the state this year, some immigrant parents are betting that their children will be safer riding or walking with white Minnesotans who were strangers just weeks ago — rather than in their own cars or holding hands.
One mother, an immigrant from Mexico, gave up her housecleaning job, and her husband stopped going to his construction job to reduce their chances of being detained. Her 10-year-old daughter, born in the United States, is the only one leaving home, and she rides with the parents of another student to her private Christian school in Minneapolis.
“It raises my blood pressure,” the mother said. She spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted by immigration authorities.
Under long-term guidance that was eviction By the Trump administration, schools and other “sensitive places” such as hospitals and churches were previously considered off-limits to Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other immigration officials. Children, regardless of their immigration status, have Constitutional right To attend public school.
This winter, truancy rates and demand for online learning spiked as immigration officers showed up in school parking lots.
In St. Paul, more than 9,000 students were absent on Jan. 14, more than a quarter of the 33,000-student district, according to data obtained by the AP. In Fridley, a suburb of Minneapolis, school attendance dropped by about a third, according to a lawsuit the district filed this week in an attempt to block immigration enforcement operations near schools.
The children sent letters to St. Paul Superintendent Stacie Stanley pleading with her to offer online learning. Her voice trembled as she read a letter from an elementary school student: “I don’t feel safe coming to school because of ICE.”
When the district introduced the temporary virtual learning option, more than 3,500 students were enrolled in the first 90 minutes. This number has since increased to more than 7,500 students.
After school on Wednesday, about 20 retired teachers and principals crowded into the front office at Valley View Elementary School — where Liam Conejo Ramos attends pre-K — for a briefing before taking children who live nearby home. School officials say several other students and more than two dozen parents have been arrested.
“We live in a place where ICE is everywhere,” said Renee Argueta, the school’s family liaison. Argueta, an immigrant from El Salvador, organized teachers who walked and drove students to and from their homes.
The previous day, the group met with federal officers in the neighborhood at dismissal time. Argueta felt it necessary to calm some of the teachers upset by the encounter.
“Your only goal is to get the students home, no matter what you see,” he told the group. “We don’t go near Immigration and Customs Enforcement. We don’t take out our phones.”
After distributing walkie-talkies, Argueta and two other teachers met a group of 12 children waiting for them in the hallway. Argueta took the hand of the youngest child, a pre-K boy, and led the group outside.
In the back of the class, second-grade teacher Jenna Scott spoke with a former student, now a third-grader. I tried to keep the conversation light.
“I’m so excited to see your house,” Scott told her.
“Have you registered for the parent-teacher conference?”
“No, Miss Ice,” said the girl.
“I know. Tell your parents you can do it online this time.”
The third-grader then ran home. After that, Scott said, a 10-minute walk is a delicate dance. “You don’t want to scare the kids, but you also want them to walk fast.”
The day before, Argueta said, they were driving students home when they heard car horns warning that immigration agents were nearby. A little girl who was walking in front started to panic and ran back towards Argueta.
“ICE viene” or “ICE is coming,” she shouted.
He took her hand and continued walking. I asked if he was afraid.
He said: No.
I asked him if he had papers and if he was in the country legally. Argueta had a green card and permission to work, but he lied. He told her he wouldn’t do that, so she wouldn’t feel alone.
Her hand relaxed in his. She smiled again.
So he held her hand until they reached her doorstep, and she entered with her mother.
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Associated Press data journalist Sharon Lowry in Philadelphia contributed to this report.
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