Two Minnesota school districts and an 89,000-member teachers’ union are suing the Department of Homeland Security, accusing federal agents of breaking their promise not to conduct raids near schools—and terrorizing students in the process.
WHAT’S GOING ON: The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by Fridley and Duluth school districts and Education Minnesota, claims that DHS agents “conducted enforcement operations in or near schools and school buses, and detained minor students” during Operation Metro Surge. The suit also references the January incident at Minneapolis’s Roosevelt High School, where Border Patrol agents pepper-sprayed, tackled, and handcuffed people on school grounds just hours after ICE officers shot and killed Renee Nicole Good.
“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 DETAILS: The fear is real, and it’s devastating schools. Fridley Superintendent Brenda Lewis laid it out plainly: “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.” She noted that attendance is suffering as families choose virtual learning—not because it’s better for their kids, but because terror has taken over. “This fear is not perceived,” Lewis said. “This is justified fear.”
DHS had explicitly promised not to raid schools. The agency’s own website stated that ICE “does not raid schools.” That promise, apparently, meant nothing.
OF COURSE: While teachers and students deal with the fallout, the Trump administration is demanding Minnesotans stop protesting before ICE will consider leaving. Border czar Tom Homan said Wednesday that any drawdown of federal forces is “largely contingent upon the end of the illegal and threatening activities against ICE.” Translation: Stop exercising your First Amendment rights, and maybe we’ll stop traumatizing your children.
This is the same administration that killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis last month—ICU nurse Alex Pretti and poet Renee Nicole Good—then launched a smear campaign calling them terrorists. Zero ICE agents have died during immigration enforcement since the agency was founded in 2003.
WHY IT MATTERS: Schools are supposed to be safe spaces for children. When federal agents show up with pepper spray and handcuffs, that safety evaporates—and so does any pretense that this administration cares about following its own rules. The lawsuit isn’t just about one incident. It’s about whether the government can promise one thing, do another, and face no consequences. If DHS can unilaterally scrap protections for schools without explanation or procedure, what protections are actually safe?
The kids who saw agents tackle people on their school grounds won’t forget it. Neither will their parents. And neither should anyone who believes that “protect and serve” should mean something.