How childcare workers in Minnesota are protesting ICE

Since the Trump administration deployed 2,000 immigration officers to Minneapolis a few weeks ago, childcare workers have been on high alert. Immigration officers have shown up at childcare centers across Minnesota, leaving many childcare workers scared to show up for work. Childcare providers, who have long faced funding challenges and staffing shortages, are now being forced to figure out how to protect their workers while continuing to provide an essential service to families. 

Today, many of these centers—at least 50 providers, according to the childcare coalition Kids Count on Us—have shut their doors to participate in an economic blackout across the state that is being called the Day of Truth and Freedom. The collective action is intended to protest ICE’s presence in the state, by halting all economic activity for the day. 

For childcare workers, there is a lot on the line: A viral YouTube video that made the rounds in December put a target on their backs, alleging that Somali-run daycares were committing fraud and misusing public funding. The video has since been debunked, but the damage was done: The Trump administration issued a freeze on $10 billion in federal funding for childcare and social services in Minnesota, along with four other states. (A federal judge has temporarily blocked the freeze for the time being, and the states in question have brought a lawsuit against the Trump administration.) 

“From the beginning, childcare and the ICE operation were very closely tied,” says Meredith Loomis Quinlan, the director of childcare at advocacy group Community Change. “There’s threats of these frozen funds, and at the same time their colleagues are getting targeted by ICE. These childcare providers have really stood together—and the childcare movement of parents and providers are a really core [part] of what’s happening right now in Minnesota.”

Many of them feel it is essential that they fight back against both ICE and the looming threat of a funding freeze. That’s why Kayley Spencer and Megan Schmitz, directors at a childcare center in northern Michigan, decided to close their daycare for the day. 

“We have connections all around the state, [and] other providers and families are experiencing this very real heaviness around being scared to go to school, being scared to go to work, and being scared to leave their houses,” Schmitz says. “We needed to show solidarity, and that we won’t stand for our neighbors and families and other providers being targeted in that way.” 

While their staff has not been directly targeted thus far, they have fielded questions about how the center would navigate any encounters with ICE and introduced protocols accordingly. “That is something as a childcare provider that I never thought I’d have to come across,” Schmitz says. “What if they do show up now? So having those protocols in place was really important for us, to make our staff feel secure in coming to work.”

This day of action is also intended to call attention to the federal funding freeze, which could leave many childcare providers struggling to keep their doors open. “We’re operating on razor thin margins,” Spencer says, noting that their center has six families who rely on childcare assistance from the state. “If you lose those six families—even one—you’re at risk of permanent closure.”

Access to childcare allows countless parents to stay in the workforce, and closing for the day is not a decision that providers take lightly. Spencer and Schmitz were candid about why they felt it was important to participate and why collection action was critical at this moment. 

“We’re very transparent with our families about how this is not just an isolated incident,” Schmitz says. “We are in the collapse of childcare if we do nothing—and we’re already at severe risk of that every single day, and this is just another way to not give childcare [providers] the funding and the resources that they so badly deserve and need.” 

Spencer and Schmitz say they had the support and understanding of many families they serve—and a number of them who are small business owners closed shop for the day in solidarity, as well. “[As] providers, our only goal is to provide safe spaces for these children—and now they’re being targeted, and it’s not okay,” Schmitz says. “This is such a small way of us showing support, but we knew we had to do it.”

These actions have also extended beyond Minnesota, as childcare workers around the country are finding ways to show their support. Community Change works with grassroots organizations in many states that are hosting events or taking other actions—from protesting ICE facilities to closing their centers in solidarity—to draw attention to what is happening in Minnesota. Meanwhile, childcare providers and advocates in Minnesota are continuing to put pressure on Republican lawmakers to preserve the federal funding that is so crucial for centers to keep serving families. 

“People might feel hopeless or afraid right now, but there are so many ways to show up for our neighbors and for each other,” Loomis Quinlan says. “So we’re just trying to encourage more people to join our movement.”