Zena Stendvik, superintendent of the Columbia Heights Public Schools District, has swapped her high heels for a pair of boots amid the ongoing immigration enforcement operations in and around Minneapolis, Minnesota, at times stepping into a security role for her students, HuffPost reported Saturday.
Minneapolis has become a hotbed for the Trump administration’s immigration policy, with the president having deployed thousands of federal immigration enforcement agents to the area in response to allegations of fraud perpetrated by Somali migrants.
The immigration enforcement operations in and around Minneapolis have been marked by chaos and controversy, including the fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents this month and the detention of several young students, notably a five-year-old boy taken into custody on his way home from school. With the operations still underway, Stendvik told HuffPost that she has felt compelled to personally step in to protect her students.
“I stopped wearing my high heels to work. I wear my boots to work, because I have had to run out onto a corner or into the back of the high school,” Stendvik said, speaking with the HuffPost. “I stay on the perimeter of our school and help direct students, either to go back into the building or, you know, just stay with me and watch for a second to make sure it’s OK. We have numerous staff and, like you said, grandmas and grandpas and other people at every corner of every school building, every morning, every afternoon.”
The aforementioned five-year-old boy detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents – Liam Conejo Ramos, who was reportedly used as bait to capture his father – is one of several young Minnesota students recently detained by ICE.
Jason Kuhlman, the principal of Valley View Elementary School – part of the Columbia Heights Public Schools District – told the HuffPost that in his 28 years as an educator, he’d never grappled with such a difficult dynamic of students being nabbed by immigration enforcement agents.
“In 28 years, I’ve lost kids to cancer. I’ve lost kids to violence. I’ve lost parents,” Kuhlman told the HuffPost. “I am losing two children to a detention center and I don’t know if we’ll ever see them again.”