The little girl approached the therapy dog outside the school library, reaching out to touch her fluffy blond coat. Social worker Nicole Herje leaned in.
鈥淗ow does it feel when you pet Sage?鈥� Herje said.
鈥淚 like it,鈥� the girl said. 鈥淚n Ecuador, I had a dog.鈥�
A few months earlier, this girl and many of her classmates at Valley View Elementary were to avoid the immigration officers flooding their suburban Minneapolis community. Attendance plummeted as families kept their kids from school during the Trump administration鈥檚 enforcement surge.
Sage the goldendoodle is not just a cute diversion. She鈥檚 part of a broader strategy to address the psychological wounds of children who witnessed arrests, lost relatives to deportation or endured anxious weeks indoors. At least four students at the school were themselves detained, sent hundreds of miles away to a Texas family detention center.
Immigration officers made more than 4,000 arrests and before 鈥淥peration Metro Surge鈥� wound down in February, leaving an imprint on the psyches of young children that could haunt them for years, mental health providers say.
Columbia Heights Public Schools, like many other districts, offered virtual learning for children who remained at home during the crackdown, but online schooling ended after spring break, and with many back in class, the staff has been focused on their recovery.
鈥淲hat we know about trauma is that our bodies hold on to the fear,鈥� Herje said.
Sheltering at home, kids had shared feelings on Zoom
The children logged into Zoom in February from various parts of their homes: in living rooms and bedrooms where the curtains were drawn, beneath a rack of clothing in a closet, on a couch with a Mexican flag pinned on the wall behind. Few of the kindergartners could sit still. One stepped away and did cartwheels.
Fears lingered well after the thousands of immigration officers President Donald Trump deployed to the Twin Cities had come and gone. It did not help that one of their schoolmates, preschooler Liam Conejo Ramos, was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement when he arrived home from school, and a bright blue hat with bunny ears.
That鈥檚 why, in the middle of their virtual school day, Herje led the kindergartners in a special class on emotions. They shared what made them happy and sad, calm and angry. They talked about missing their classmates and longing to return to school.
鈥淲hen you鈥檙e happy, you laugh and jump and dance and play, and you want to share that feeling with everyone,鈥� Herje said, reading from the children鈥檚 book The Color Monster. 鈥淎nyone want to raise your hand and tell us something that makes you feel happy?鈥�
鈥淲hen I鈥檓 happy, I want to go to school when I see my friends,鈥� said one girl.
Herje followed up: What made them sad?
鈥淲hen my grandma, she go [to] Ecuador,鈥� another girl said.
All had lived through one of the most aggressive immigration crackdowns in history. There were the masked immigration agents patrolling in SUVs, followed by demonstrators blowing high-pitched whistles. There were the arrests of tearful and screaming immigrants, captured on video and played on endless loops across social media. In many cases, parents were taken away.
A growing body of research is illuminating the impact of trauma on children, even those too young to understand. Prolonged exposure to a high-stress environment can reshape a baby鈥檚 brain, explained Rebecca Parlakian, the senior director of programs at early childhood advocacy group Zero to Three.
鈥淲hen a child is experiencing sustained and consistent traumatic experiences where they have lost the sense of basic safety, we see that the brain reorganizes itself for survival, which actually translates to structural anatomical changes in the brain,鈥� Parlakian said.
Trauma signs include lack of appetite, fear of sleeping alone
The symptoms of trauma can vary widely depending on the child, their age, and what they鈥檝e witnessed or experienced. Robyn Tabibi, a family physician in St. Paul who often works with expectant parents, said she treated a 3-year-old who had lost several relatives to deportation and had to move homes with his mother to avoid being targeted.
鈥淗e gradually stopped eating, became listless, refused to play anymore,鈥� Tabibi said. 鈥淗e鈥檚 in this new space, and he is so traumatized.鈥�
Children from families with no immigration concerns also developed anxiety.
Sarah Anikpo was born in the United States, and her Liberian-born husband gained citizenship in 2020. So Anikpo, a psychiatric physician assistant, didn鈥檛 think to discuss the crackdown with their 9-year-old son Zeke, even as helicopters whirled over their South Minneapolis neighborhood.
Then an ICE officer fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen who had just dropped off her son at his elementary school. Protests erupted. Zeke鈥檚 district canceled classes for two days.
After that, Zeke couldn鈥檛 sleep in his own room. He told his parents of a 鈥済ray man鈥� haunting his dreams, and grew anxious about flashing lights through his window. A classmate broke down crying, asking Zeke to pray for her mother and grandmother, who had returned to Mexico. It made him angry, and afraid.
鈥淲e couldn鈥檛 talk him out of it,鈥� Anikpo said. 鈥淗e definitely didn鈥檛 feel safe.鈥�
The fear that courses through immigrant families鈥攅ven those here legally鈥攃ould have profound consequences for a generation of American schoolchildren, experts say. The Brookings Institute estimates live with a parent who is undocumented or has temporary legal status, and have parents who were detained or deported during this Trump administration.
鈥淐hildren in mixed-status families often live with chronic anticipatory anxiety that a loved one could be detained or deported,鈥� a group of psychiatrists wrote in a . 鈥淭hese fears have been shown to lead to school absenteeism, academic disengagement, and heightened emotional distress.鈥�
Valley View staff have identified students who may need extra help, including the two 5th graders and a 2nd grader who, like Liam, had been detained at Dilley Detention Center in Texas, where court documents say . Herje ran group therapy sessions alongside Sage the goldendoodle for these students.
Returning to school is what many really needed. Herje has witnessed joyful reunions between young friends who hadn鈥檛 seen each other in person for months.
Herje asked them back then what makes them feel loved. One girl piped up: 鈥淲hen I鈥檓 in love, I find my best friend.鈥�
