The principal of a Minnesota elementary school has described a “chaotic” scene after more than two dozen parents have been detained by ICE in recent weeks, with some families leaving the neighborhood entirely.
"When I come to school in the morning, I take a lap around my block with my truck first to see who is sitting there. When we go to dismiss kids, we look up and down the block,” said Jason Kuhlman, principal of Valley View.
The Columbia Heights elementary school is also attended by Liam Ramos, the five-year-old who was detained along with his father last month. The number of students is 570, with more than half of them being Hispanic or Latino.
"It's been chaotic for our whole staff,” Kuhlman told KARE.
Tensions remain high in Minneapolis and surrounding areas following the fatal shootings of two protesters last month. Ensuing protests have resulted in the Trump administration to reevaluate its approach to immigration enforcement operations.
However, the presence of federal agents has not decreased, Kuhlman claims. “It's been heavier than ever with just the number of ICE agents going back and forth that's in our neighborhoods, it has not slowed down one bit,” he said.
As well as Ramos, three other children, a first, second and fourth-grader, have been detained by federal agents. Kuhlman estimates that on top of that, 25 parents had been detained.
“Now we have single parent families trying to manage on a single income to stay here,” he said.
“It's 25 families, and that's a mom or a dad. I'm not counting grandpa and grandmas. I'm not counting aunts and uncles. We know we have multi-family units that are housing, but this is just parents,” he added.
The Independent has contacted the Department of Homeland Security and ICE about the number of parents and children from Valley View that have been detained.
Food donations are also being made to the school, with teaching staff making weekly deliveries to families who are struggling after having a relative detained. However, in some cases, staff members have discovered that the families have decided to leave town altogether.
“Families have fled that we had no contact with. I don't know if they left the state, left the city. They just ghosted us. We can't get a hold of them, so we don't know what happened,” Kuhlman said.
Liam Ramos and his father Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias returned home to Minneapolis this weekend after their arrest on January 20. They had been transported over 1,200 miles away to a detention center in San Antonio, Texas.
Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro shared images of the pair leaving the South Texas Family Residential Center early Sunday morning, including one of the youngster wearing the same blue cap he wore in a now-viral image of him standing on his frozen driveway with a Spider-Man backpack as federal officers arrested his father.
“I picked them up last night and escorted them back to Minnesota this morning,” Castro wrote Sunday. “Liam is now home. With his hat and his backpack. Thank you to everyone who demanded freedom for Liam. We won’t stop until all children and families are home.”
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