“We will fight for the basic promise that every family deserves: that kids can learn, grow and get home safely, without fear of being taken.”
Columbia Heights, Minnesota, January 21, 2026 – National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues and Minnesota Association of Charter Schools Executive Director Joey Cienian issued the following statements after ICE agents arrested children near Minnesota public schools.
Statement from National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues:
“As a mother, I am heartbroken. As an American, I am disgusted. We live in the only country where parents send their kids to school and quietly wonder if they will make it home alive, unharmed, untaken.
Over the last several days, multiple children – some as young as five years old have been arrested and detained by ICE agents in the Minneapolis area and were shipped to facilities in Texas. And today in south Minneapolis, federal immigration officers detained two teenagers on their way home from school as neighbors filmed and demanded answers. These kids were not the targets of ‘immigration enforcement,’ they were the victims of racial profiling, assumed to be non-citizens and held without their parents’ knowledge.
This is not ‘normal.’ No child should grow up with the feeling that their safety depends on trying to be invisible. When government actions make children afraid to walk outside, go to school or come home, that is not enforcement, it is terror.
Tomorrow, Vice President Vance should be standing with these families and apologizing on behalf of the United States government – not grandstanding at press conferences with ICE agents who are violating the rights of American citizens and terrorizing our communities. The National Parents Union will not stand by as parents are forced into hiding and American childhood is pushed into the shadows. We will fight for the basic promise that every family deserves: that kids can learn, grow and get home safely, without fear of being taken.”
Statement from Minnesota Association of Charter Schools Executive Director Joey Cienian:
“Public schools should be protected spaces, and it is unconscionable and unacceptable for minors to be detained or harassed on school grounds or on their way to and from school. I cannot stress enough how negatively these actions in Minnesota are impacting public schools. We are experiencing a systemic breakdown of normal educational functioning with enormous psychological, educational and fiscal costs directly impacting students, schools, and school communities in Minnesota’s chartered public school sector. Schools are operating in sustained emergency mode, with fear and instability replacing predictability, instructional continuity and safety.”
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ABOUT THE NATIONAL PARENTS UNION
With more than 1,800 affiliated parent organizations in all 50 states, Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico, the National Parents Union is the united, independent voice of modern American families. We channel the power of parents into powerful policies that improve the lives of children, families and communities across the United States. https://nationalparentsunion.org/