The surge of federal immigration agents in Minneapolis has forced some parents like Danny Olson to confront difficult questions from their own children.
"Is anyone safe anymore?" Lily Olson remembered asking.
"That's exactly what you said," her father Danny said.
"That's not a question as a parent that you like to receive and not have a clear answer where you can say 'yes of course we're safe,' because it does feel more tenuous than it ever has felt before," he said.
Lily Olsson goes to middle school in the western suburbs of Minneapolis. She says she noticed big changes immediately after Operation Metro Surge started in the Twin Cities.
"Half of our bus was gone," she said. "We didn't know if they were safe or if they were gone — like, taken."
"We're supposed to be normal and act like it's not happening and then go to school and learn all the same lessons," she said. "Some people just aren't locking in. They just can't, you know, when we're thinking about all this stuff."
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The effects of ICE's immigration surge have caused widespread disruption at schools. One suburban district reported more than a third of students were marked absent the day after Renee Good's murder.
Many districts have opened online learning options, and some schools in the Twin Cities have sent emails warning of ICE distributing flyers that offer food support and delivery to families in hiding.
The detention of 5 year old Liam Ramos, still wearing his Spider-Man backpack, put a national spotlight on ICE's activity around schools.
Liam's father had picked him up from school just before they were both detained by ICE. The chair of the local school board says he wasn't the only student detained that day.
"One, the morning Liam was taken on his way to school, and two others, one who was driving to school with their mother. And the other who was getting ready for school and opened the door when she got a knock," said Columbia Heights School Board Chair Mary Granlund. "Only one of those 4 students is home, and it is not Liam."
