A 25-year-old teacher at a special education school in Inver Grove Heights was taken into ICE custody early Monday morning in the school parking lot and was held for nearly 12 hours at the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facility at Fort Snelling, her mother told the Pioneer Press.
After an apparent collision with a federal vehicle, Christina Rank was taken into custody in the parking lot of the Concord Education Center while it was still dark, according to her mother, Sarah Hunkele.
Nearly 12 hours later, close to 7 p.m., Christina Rank was released for 10 days pending an investigation, Hunkele said.
Little contact
Hunkele said the lack of information and waiting to hear about her daughter had been “terrible.”
“You don’t know where she is going, where she is at, what is happening. There is no communication.”
U.S. Rep. Angie Craig’s office was working to learn more information and called the detention “shocking.”
“I’m incredibly concerned about today’s incident in Inver Grove Heights and will be pushing for answers,” Craig said in a Monday night statement. “Schools should be safe places for our teachers to teach and students to learn. That’s why I’ve introduced legislation in Congress to keep ICE out of sensitive locations, like schools, daycares and churches.”
During a morning phone call after her detention, Rank told her mother that she didn’t know why she was being held, Hunkele said. Rank told her mother that she would be able to call her again once ICE officials decided whether to press charges against her. But then Rank was unexpectedly released shortly before 7 p.m.
Events unclear
Hunkele said she is working with attorneys and others to obtain surveillance video from around the school area to determine what took place.
Videos posted on Facebook by an apparent coworker appear to show an ICE official claiming that Rank rammed his car, while bystanders say they saw him ram Rank’s car. The video was taken after the incident, as agents searched Rank’s car in the parking lot of the Concord Education Center at 9015 Broderick Blvd.
While ICE agents claim Rank hit their vehicle with her own, Hunklele said based on the damage to her daughter’s car, it seemed unlikely.
“There was no damage to her front bumper. The only damage was to the passenger side door and the back window where they had broken it.”
Hunkele questioned why the ICE agents were at the school, which offers alternative learning services for nine south metro public school districts.
“With it being a Level 4 school, I don’t understand why they were there,” she said. “It’s special education in a highly heated environment. The staff is there not only to teach but to protect. For federal agents to show up with guns?”
She believes her daughter would never interfere, impede or attack officials.
The school
Rank has been a paraprofessional at the school for the past seven years, working one-on-one with students with disabilities.
“She’s young,” her mother said. “She’s very passionate about her work. She’s very caring. She would never do anything with ill intent. There was a lot of unnecessary force used in a situation that could have been defused in many other ways.”
Amber Cherrier, who has worked as a special education teacher in the past, said a Level 4 school is one where the students cannot be around their non-disabled peers and have very limited vocal skills.
“These children will likely not understand the demands shouted by police or ICE,” Cherrier wrote in an email Monday night. “They will likely not be able to comply and are extremely vulnerable around police and ICE, especially if the person does not have extensive training and understanding of neurodivergence and how to de-escalate a situation. They also will have a much harder time processing trauma that they witness or happens to them.
“In general, the teachers, paraprofessionals, and other staff working in a level 4 school are very compassionate people with patience and genuinely care deeply for their students. They do everything they can to protect the children in the building.”
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