Our Children Are Being Trained To Deal With ICE

On the way home from school today, my daughter told me something that stopped me cold. When I asked about her day, she said that instead of playing with her friends at recess, they had to practice what to do if Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) came to their school.

Let that sink in. Children were not pretending to be astronauts or playing tag. They were rehearsing what to do if armed agents of the federal government arrived at their place of learning.

This is Minneapolis in 2026. And it is not normal. This is what state violence looks like when it filters down into daily life — not always with sirens and batons, but with drills, whispers, and parents quietly wondering whether today will be the day their family is torn apart. Immigrant families across Minneapolis are being pushed into hiding.

People are afraid to go to work.

Afraid to walk their kids to school.

Afraid to answer the door.

Afraid to exist in public at all.

Children are being trained for ICE the same way past generations were trained for fires or tornadoes. We are telling kids that their government might come for them — or for their classmates’ families — and that they need to be ready.

The cruelty of this moment is not abstract. It shows up on playgrounds. It shows up in the quiet of kids who are too anxious to run and laugh. It shows up in families weighing whether survival means disappearing.

What’s happening in Minneapolis is part of a broader national unraveling. The federal government is using immigration enforcement as a tool of fear, and children are collateral damage. People far from here need to understand this reality — the lived truth: six-year-olds practicing what to do if agents come to their school. This should alarm everyone, regardless of politics. A country that forces children to rehearse for state violence has already crossed a moral line. And we will all live with the consequences of that choice.

ICE, please go home.