35% of Our Students Are Gone

Hosted by Andrew Horn of Amherst, NH.Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Pocketcasts.A Minneapolis-area middle school administrator speaks anonymously about the dismantling of public education under ICE’s Operation Metro Surge. In the past two weeks, attendance at her school has collapsed by 35-40%. Students are taping passports inside their jackets and checking them compulsively—”like they check their phones.” A parent was detained at a bus stop while putting their child on the bus. Teachers are calling in sick because ICE is in their neighborhoods. Heritage Spanish classes sit three-quarters empty.This is not a story about policy debate. It’s a primary-source account of what happens when federal immigration enforcement turns school hallways into trauma zones, when staff must train to distinguish judicial warrants from administrative ones, and when an administrator says flatly: “You’re going to have to take me before you take a child. There’s no way in this world you’re going to take a child out of my building.”From students who memorize their parents’ phone numbers because “their future is not guaranteed” to community members patrolling school grounds with walkie-talkies, this episode reveals how a police state is being built in real time—and what it costs the children caught inside it. Get full access to Citizen in a Republic at citizeninarepublic.substack.com/subscribe