ICE detains school children in Minnesota
Minneapolis has remained on edge as heavily armed federal officers roam the streets, rounding up suspects they assert are dangerous criminal immigration violators
MINNEAPOLIS, United States (MNTV) – Minneapolis has remained on edge as heavily armed federal officers roam the streets, rounding up suspects they assert are dangerous criminal immigration violators while sometimes ensnaring law-abiding U.S. citizens.
They have been met with throngs of demonstrators conducting their own patrols, blowing warning whistles and chanting at the agents.
In Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, school officials said at a press conference that immigration officers had detained at least four children this month, including a 5-year-old boy on Tuesday.
The forceful actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have sparked widespread criticism after an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three.
Tensions appeared unlikely to subside after school officials in a nearby suburb said ICE agents had detained a 5-year-old boy. Federal authorities showed little sign of softening their approach, announcing on Thursday the arrest of two people in connection with a protest that disrupted a church service in St. Paul on Sunday.
A Department of Homeland Security (DHS) spokesperson, Tricia McLaughlin, said ICE had not targeted the child but his father, who she said left his son behind when he fled on foot after agents attempted to stop him. An officer remained with the child for his safety while others arrested the man, she added.
Parents targeted by ICE are asked if they want their children to be placed with someone they designate or removed with their parents, she said. She did not address the school district’s allegation that three other children were detained.
Separately, Trump administration officials said on Thursday they had arrested at least two people involved in a demonstration that interrupted a Sunday service in a St. Paul church, where protesters alleged a pastor had been assisting ICE.
FBI Director Kash Patel said one of the organizers was charged with violating a federal law that bars physical obstruction of reproductive health centers and houses of worship.
The administration has expressed no intention of backing down after Trump deployed some 3,000 federal law enforcement officers to the Minneapolis area in what DHS described as its largest immigration operation ever. The city is the latest Democratic-leaning jurisdiction that Trump has targeted with a federal show of force.
Trump has said he acted partly in response to fraud allegations against some members of the state’s sizable Somali American community; the president has described Somali immigrants as “garbage” and said they should be thrown out of the country.
While Trump officials say the operations are a necessary response to lax Democratic policies on immigration, local Democratic leaders have accused ICE agents of racial profiling and argued that Trump is intentionally fomenting chaos to justify his aggression.
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