Columbia Heights Public Schools are closed on Monday “due to a credible threat,” the district said. The school district is the same one attended by 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, who was returned to Minnesota after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers apprehended him and his father.
“No students or staff should report to school today,” Columbia Heights Public Schools wrote on social media.
The Columbia Heights Police Department later said a bomb threat had been emailed to multiple schools. The police chief said the threats were “racially and politically motivated,” but did not mention Ramos by name.
Police from Columbia Heights, Minneapolis and Metro Transit, as well as the Columbia Heights Fire Department, searched the campuses and found no suspicious items. Multiple agencies are investigating the source of the threats.
Classes will resume on Tuesday, police said.
The district includes five schools and has about 3,400 students, according to its website.
The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, claimed after Ramos’ removal earlier this month that immigration agents “did NOT target or arrest a child.” However, the superintendent of the district earlier reported that at least four students in the district had been taken by federal immigration enforcement officers. The district said a 17-year-old boy was reportedly removed from his car on his way to school, and a 10-year-old elementary schooler who was taken alongside her mother two weeks earlier.
Lawmakers celebrated Ramos’ return, but the news was bittersweet as other Columbia Heights students remain in custody and immigration enforcement continues.
“We are traumatizing these kids. We are robbing them of their futures,” said Hennepin County Sheriff Dewanna Witt.
In a new interview, Witt was asked about the threat and the situation in Columbia Heights.
“This is the last thing we need. Our kids should go to school and feel safe. Our kids need to know that they’re going to come home and their families are safe. They should not be having the worries of adults at their young age. It’s going to have an everlasting impact on them,” said Witt.
On Sunday, just hours before the threat, WCCO spoke with Columbia Heights Superintendent Zena Stenvik about the human and social toll of the immigration operation.
“I’m also concerned for the impact that this surge and presence of ICE in our community is having on all of the children,” said Stenvik.
The Trump administration may appeal the ruling that allowed them to be released.
“The facts in this case have not changed despite this absurdly lawless order,” DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said on Monday. “The father who was in the country illegally made the choice to take his child with him to a detention center.”
Ramos and his father could still be required to leave the U.S. while their asylum case is still pending. As of Monday afternoon, the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review’s online court docket shows no future hearings for Ramos’ father.