On the top floor of a Spanish-immersion elementary school in St. Paul, a fifth-grade class is in the middle of a lesson about Don Quixote. Their teacher, Ms. A, walks them through ideas of “enchantment” as students gather in small groups. Flags from Latin American countries hang from the ceiling. Most of the children are Latino.
NPR is using only first names or initials for people at this school and omitting the school’s name because staff fear federal scrutiny. Still, Ms. A tries to help students connect literature to their lives. She points out that Don Quixote doesn’t actually slay giants, but he wants to do good — a way, she says, to see the character’s humanity even if he’s misguided.
This ordinary classroom moment follows an extraordinary winter. For nearly two months, thousands of federal immigration officers carried out a mass deportation and detention campaign in Minnesota. Families hid in homes; neighbors delivered groceries. Nonwhite citizens began carrying passports in case of stops. Protests were met with tear gas and pepper balls. Many children stopped attending school.
The immigration surge has ended, but its effects remain. The school offered a virtual option during the operation, and more than a third of students chose it. Ms. A says the students who went online were quieter and less engaged: “In person, they would talk and participate and ask questions. They went online and they didn’t say a word. Their faces were not the same.”
Early childhood experts say that reaction is predictable. Hopewell Hodges, a researcher at the University of Minnesota who studies children’s developmental resilience, compares a child’s world to tree rings — the child at the center with caregiving systems, classrooms and neighborhoods layered outward. When those systems are disrupted, the impact moves inward. “The young ones are often developmentally bearing the brunt of conflicts and tensions and stresses that originate in the adult world,” Hodges says.
At this school, not every student returned when in-person classes resumed. Some families left the state or country: one went to El Salvador, others to Mexico, Nebraska, California, and another plans to go to Venezuela. The principal, Amanda, says some children didn’t want to come back because they feared their parents might be taken while they were at school. “Levels of stress are just really spiking in our kids,” she says. For staff who are Latino, apprehension is personal: Amanda, originally from Mexico City, began carrying her passport. Ms. A, who is Puerto Rican, spoke with her seven-year-old daughter about what to do if a parent is detained.
Even after the surge subsided, families reported seeing ICE agents in neighborhoods. On the day NPR visited, a district security vehicle idled outside after a community member reported an ICE vehicle nearby. The sense of threat has pushed the school and its neighborhood to organize protective measures. Community members in neon vests patrol the playground at recess. One classroom has become a distribution hub overflowing with cereal, beans, masa, cleaning supplies, diapers and backpacks filled with books and stuffed animals.
Katherine, a parent volunteer who helps run the pantry, says the support will continue as long as resources allow. “It’s the right thing to do. I mean, it’s our community. These are our friends, our neighbors. And they need help. So we help,” she says.
Hodges notes that such community support can act as a buffer for children. “Kids are going to be alright if our community is able to be alright,” she says. She adds that adult systems must work to prevent future surges to protect children’s development.
Back in Ms. A’s classroom, there were bright signs of relief on the first day in person after weeks online. Children poured into the hallway, excited and ready. “I had one kid who ran in the hallway with open arms running to me,” she recalls. Eleven-year-old Ellah, the principal’s daughter who stayed in school during the closure, says she was happy many classmates returned: “It feels a lot better. Like, there’s a lot more people in our class and it feels like how it was.”
Camila, another 11-year-old who returned after weeks of virtual learning, says she felt scared during the surge, especially for her parents who had to go to work. School helps her feel safer. “It felt good because I got to see my friends again,” she says. “They help me feel safer.”
For Ms. A, the priority now is to make the classroom a place where children can feel normal, cared for and loved. “You know, we’re good. I love you. I care about you. I’m here for you. We’re all here for you. I think that that’s the way we move forward,” she says.
The school’s response — a mix of outreach, material support, visible community protection and an emphasis on emotional safety in classrooms — shows how one community is trying to mend the disruptions left by immigration enforcement. Even as fear lingers, students returning to shared routines and relationships is a crucial step toward rebuilding a sense of stability.