Minnesota Teachers Sue Over ICE Terror at Their Schools

Two Minnesota school districts and an 89,000-member teachers’ union filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Department of Homeland Security, accusing federal agents of breaking their promise not to conduct raids inside or around schools during Operation Metro Surge.

“The Department of Homeland Security scrapped that policy without explanation, without using the proper procedures,” attorney June Hoidal told MPR News. “And that’s not how federal agencies get to act.”

The lawsuit, filed by Fridley and Duluth districts and the state teachers’ union Education Minnesota, claims that agents “conducted enforcement operations in or near schools and school buses, and detained minor students.”

It also refers to a January incident in which Border Patrol agents pepper-sprayed, tackled, and handcuffed people on the grounds of Minneapolis’s Roosevelt High School, just hours after ICE officers shot and killed Renee Nicole Good. “This conduct has caused direct harm to the regular functioning of school districts and teachers, as well as the students they serve,” it read.

“Right now, students are afraid to come to school. Parents are afraid to drop them off. Staff are coming to work wondering if today will be the day that something happens in one of our buildings,” Fridley Superintendent Brenda Lewis said Tuesday. “We are seeing attendance impacts. Families are choosing virtual learning, not because it’s best for their child, but because fear has taken over, and this fear is not perceived.… This is justified fear.”