Peter Brown’s gray mustache and beard were matted with ice as he stood watch on a frigid afternoon outside Green Central Elementary, in Minneapolis, not far from where a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fatally shot Renee Good last week.
Wearing a neon green vest and equipped with a whistle and walkie-talkie, Brown, an 81-year-old retired lawyer who lives nearby, kept his head on a swivel.
His eyes were taking in each passing car and pedestrian near the campus as he stood ready to sound the alarm should federal immigration personnel approach the school, which teaches in English and Spanish and is around the corner from the spot where Good died.
“I never did like bullies, and that’s what the federal government has become,” Brown said, explaining why an octogenarian stood outside for four hours in -2 degrees Fahrenheit with wind chill (-19C).
“What’s happening in my city is nothing more than authoritarian intimidation, and me and my neighbours are not going to put up with it.”
The Trump administration has deployed about 3,000 federal agents across the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, making it the latest region targeted by the president’s mass deportation program.
People who normally might be organising parent-teacher association meetings are arranging security patrols at their kids’ schools to watch for immigration agents.
Some parents not on patrol are escorting foreign-born teachers or staff members, driving them to and from their homes and schools to make them feel safer.
Others are delivering groceries and prescription medicines to immigrant families who are too afraid to leave their homes or send their kids to class.
US Senator Amy Klobuchar, a Democrat representing Minnesota, said yesterday she had met school principals from her state “and heard horror stories of kids and parents ‘under siege’ by ICE.”
“Little kids scared. Dangerous encounters. This is no longer about a fraud investigation,” Klobuchar wrote on social media, as she urged residents to remain peaceful.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and the Border Patrol, said this week more than 2,500 people have been arrested during the effort that officials have dubbed Operation Metro Surge.
DHS has repeatedly said its agents are not targeting schools, but focusing on convicted criminals.
But parents and school leaders say otherwise.
A spokesperson for Saint Paul Public Schools said in a statement that two of its contracted student transportation vans were pulled over by ICE agents this week.
Several schools and daycare centres have emailed parents to notify them of teachers and staff who have been detained, according to school leaders and parents.
DHS did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
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