“We cannot normalize what’s happening right now — masked, armed groups of men roaming around our neighborhoods,” says Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of schools in Columbia Heights, Minn.
NEED TO KNOW
- Liam Conejo Ramos, 5, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Minnesota along with his father on Tuesday, Jan. 20
- The pair are detained at South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, near San Antonio
- The superintendent of Liam’s school district, Zena Stenvik, tells PEOPLE that Liam’s detainment has stirred fear across the district
A Minneapolis superintendent whose 5-year-old student was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents last week says the federal agents’ presence and their enforcement tactics in the community is stirring fear among her staff and students.
“A lot of my staff are carrying their passports,” says Zena Stenvik, the superintendent of schools in Columbia Heights, Minn., whose district serves 3,400 students in pre-kindergarten through grade 12.
The detainment last week of one of those students, Liam Conejo Ramos, who was taken into custody by ICE agents along with his father, Adrian Alexander Conejo Arias, as they arrived home from preschool, has become a flashpoint amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown. Critics argued the boy’s detention was the latest example of the cruelty of the administration’s deportation efforts, while the Department of Homeland Security said Liam — who was wearing a blue hat with ears and a Spiderman backpack when he was seized — had not been arrested or targeted by the agency…