Sending child to class becomes act of faith

Immigrant families in Minnesota hope federal agents won't detain their children.

- BY BIANCA VÁZQUEZ TONESS

GIANCARLO, left, and Yair pray with their mom before Giancarlo is picked up for school in Minneapolis.

(LIAM JAMES DOYLE Associated Press)

In some ways, 10-year-old Giancario is one of the lucky ones. He still goes to school.

Each morning, he and his family bundle up and leave their Minneapolis apartment to wait for his bus. His little brother hefts on his backpack, even though he stopped going to day care weeks ago because his mom is too afraid to take him.

As they wait behind a wrought-iron fence, Giancarlo’s mother pulls the boys into the shadow of a tree to pray. It’s the only time she stops scanning the street for immigration agents.

“God, please protect my son when he’s not at home,” she says in Spanish. She spoke with the Associated Press on condition of partial anonymity for the family, because she fears being targeted by immigration authorities.

For many immigrant families in Minnesota, send-inga child to school requires faith that federal immigration officers deployed around the state won't detain them. Thousands of children are staying home, often for lack of door-to-door transportation — or simply trust.

The fear has turned into reality. Many parents and some children have been detained, including 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who with his father, originally from Ecuador, was taken into custody in the Minneapolis suburb of Columbia Heights as he was arriving home from school. They were sent to a detention facility in Texas but returned after a judge ordered their release.

Schools, parents and community groups have mobilized to help students get to class so they can learn, socialize and have steady access to meals. And for those who are still sending their children, the trip to and from school is one of the only risks they are willing to take.