Educators in Minnesota on Wednesday filed a federal lawsuit seeking to stop federal agents from conducting immigration enforcement near schools and bus stops.
The lawsuit is being brought by Education Minnesota, a teachers’ union group, and the school districts in Duluth and Fridley, a Minneapolis suburb. The suit names federal agencies and officials, including the Department of Homeland Security, as defendants.
The education groups accuse the Trump administration of unlawfully sending federal agents to schools and bus stops in Minnesota, making arrests near schools and creating “an atmosphere of fear for native-born citizens, naturalized citizens and legally present immigrants alike.”
The lawsuit is challenging a Trump administration policy that rescinded federal guidance limiting immigration enforcement at or near so-called sensitive locations, such as schools, churches and hospitals.
Trump officials, in announcing the decision last year, said they would no longer “tie the hands” of law enforcement and would instead instruct agents to use common sense around schools and other sensitive locations. “Criminals will no longer be able to hide in America’s schools and churches to avoid arrest,” the Department of Homeland Security said in a news release at the time.
The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Wednesday.
Trump officials have previously said they do not raid schools or target children.
“ICE does not target schools,” Tricia McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security, has said. “If a dangerous or violent illegal criminal alien felon were to flee into a school, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect the safety of the student. But this has not happened.”
The lawsuit argues that the policy change usurped decades of federal precedent. Since the 1990s, the lawsuit says, the federal government had instructed immigration agents to minimize impact in places with children present and to get special permission and operate discreetly if necessary.
The suit asserts that the Trump administration violated the Administrative Procedure Act, a federal law that requires certain notice and procedures when making a policy change.
By positioning agents near schools and at bus stops, the lawsuit says, the Trump administration has stopped children from being able to learn and teachers from being able to do their jobs. Across the Twin Cities, school districts have reported higher rates of student absences. Some are offering an online learning option for families afraid to go to school.
Trump officials have rejected responsibility for low attendance in the region, saying that school officials blaming ICE were stoking fear and disparaging law enforcement, contributing to a rise in violence against federal agents.
The lawsuit cites several examples of ICE enforcement near schools, including the case of a teacher who was removed from her car outside a Spanish immersion school in Minneapolis on Jan. 7. The same day, a preschool teacher in Apple Valley was detained while leaving school after “being tricked to come outside by a false claim that someone hit her car,” the lawsuit said.
On Jan. 14, a parent of an elementary school student in Brooklyn Center, a Minneapolis suburb, was detained while waiting at a school bus stop, according to the lawsuit.
Vans for St. Paul Public Schools and the Anoka-Hennepin Schools districts were also pulled over by federal immigration agents on recent school mornings, the lawsuit says.
Several suburban districts, including Fridley, Little Canada, Roseville, and Columbia Heights, have had agents in school parking lots or on school property, according to the suit.
Brenda Lewis, the superintendent in Fridley, said that agents were stationed in a school parking lot Saturday morning, shortly after a New York Times article on her school district was published.
She said that she had been followed by federal agents and that federal agents had recently been outside the homes of members of her school board. The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to questions about whether agents had surveilled Fridley officials.
Sarah Mervosh covers education for The Times, focusing on K-12 schools.
The post Educators Sue to Keep Immigration Agents From Schools and Bus Stops appeared first on New York Times.
