Minnesota schools sue to block ICE enforcement near campuses after Operation Metro Surge

Fridley Public Schools, Duluth Public Schools, and Education Minnesota — the state's 89,000-member teachers union — filed a federal lawsuit on February 4, 2026, seeking an injunction barring ICE from conducting enforcement within 1,000 feet of school property. The suit challenged the Trump administration's January 2025 revocation of a decades-long "sensitive locations" policy that had protected schools, hospitals, and churches from immigration enforcement under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Since Operation Metro Surge launched in December 2025, Border Patrol agents had fired chemical irritants outside Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis while classes were dismissing, ICE agents had pulled over two school vans in St. Paul, and five-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos was detained on his walk home from school and allegedly used as "bait" to lure his father — both were sent to a Texas detention center before a judge ordered their return. Attendance had dropped by nearly one-third in some districts.