Children’s well-being caught in the political crossfire in Minneapolis

Children’s well‑being is routinely used to win hearts and advance political agendas. Early childhood education, child tax credits, social media access, and reading scores are just some of the issues leveraged every election cycle. After debates end, Americans often hope politicians can set aside affiliations to define and accomplish shared goals when it comes to children’s well-being, such as improving academic achievement, addressing cell phone use in schools, and prioritizing workforce development.

What has unfolded in Minneapolis in recent weeks—federal agents entering communities and exerting violence with assumed immunity—is not protecting children from harm but actively inflicting it. While politicians are embroiled in legal battles in Minnesota, the impact of repeated traumatic events on young people growing up under this cloud of violence is being overlooked. Even as the Operation Metro Surge ends, the trauma remains, risking the creation of what I call a TraumatizNation: a generation growing up under trauma and adversity amplified by partisan conflict.

Children like Liam Conejo Ramos—detained by agents in January—or like Xochitl Soberanes whose father was taken by ICE, experience direct trauma. Impacts include separation anxiety, withdrawal, depression, and long-term post-traumatic stress. Advocates are starting to quantify and tell the stories of the young people forcefully separated from their loved ones, detained and deported, and living undocumented. Still, there is too little understanding of how to serve these children and too few resources for their schools about how best to support them.

Another question remains about the longer-term consequences of these experiences: How do repeated traumatic events in the Twin Cities and across the U.S. shape children, families, and educators over their lives? Even children who are not directly impacted are caught in the political crossfire of a story still unfolding. They are absorbing traumatic events escalated by political rhetoric and grappling with what these experiences mean for their futures.

During the recent ICE raids and killings of two U.S. citizens in his neighborhood, I spoke with a young man I’ll call Noah, a 9th grader in Minneapolis Public Schools. After Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed, he asked his mother, “What are we going to be like as adults?” Noah is contemplating what many young people—those at the nexus of political violence—will think, be, and vote like as adults.

For students like Noah in the Twin Cities, childhood has been marked by traumatic events spanning their entire schooling. When Noah was in kindergarten, Philando Castile, who worked at the same school as his mother, was shot by a police officer. Four-year-old Dae-Anna, in the backseat, watched him die. Children and families were left to process the killing of a school worker in front of a child.

Midway through Noah’s third grade year came the COVID‑19 pandemic. Children were away from peers and the normalcy of their classrooms for extended periods. They felt adults’ anxiety viscerally and watched politicians fight over school closures and their well‑being. When they returned, the alarm bells about learning loss, stunted social and emotional skills, and absenteeism were blaring.

At the end of third grade, George Floyd was killed near Noah’s home, devastating his community. Teachers struggled to talk about racial violence with eight‑year‑olds as troops rolled in and neighborhood businesses burned. Six‑year‑old Giana Floyd lost a parent and suddenly found herself in the global spotlight. For a moment, it seemed as if the country was acknowledging this trauma and coming together, but unity was short‑lived. Just a few months later, Noah and his classmates watched political violence unfold at the U.S. Capitol. A few years later, during the end of middle school, they grappled with the politically motivated shootings of two Minnesota politicians.

When Noah entered 9^th grade, a school shooting occurred in his community. He played baseball with many of the kids sitting in the pews at Annunciation Catholic School that day. The lockdowns and active shooter drills he had grown up with became all too real, and again teachers and families had hard conversations about safety, violence, and anxiety in a politicized environment.

Then came 2026. Midway through 9th grade, Noah’s neighborhood in Minneapolis was thrust back into the news. Near the park where he once watched puppets and parades, a mother was killed. In front of a frequent childhood donut shop, an ICU nurse was shot in the back. Over the past two months, young people in the Twin Cities have endured lockdowns and shakedowns that make them afraid for their peers, neighbors, and their own ability to move freely as teenagers should. With smartphones and social media, there is no way to shield them. They are watching children like Liam and his classmates detained on their way to school, having committed no crime and with no due process. They are trying to make sense of how a child in a bunny hat can be put behind bars.

As researchers and educators, we find ourselves asking the same question Noah asked: How will these experiences shape who today’s young people become as adults? For children who have directly experienced unfathomable trauma, like Dae-Anna, Gianna, Liam, and the Annunciation students, they will need lifelong psychosocial support to be able to cope with these experiences. For the many children, families, and educators in close proximity to the trauma, this will shape their adult lives in different ways.

So what can families, communities, and schools do to support young people growing up in this moment to prevent a TraumatizNation—a mass of young people shaped by trauma?

First, we must make children’s well‑being a nonpartisan agenda. No child or community should be considered collateral damage of political or state violence.

Second, we must dedicate research and resources to understanding and supporting children experiencing PTSD and trauma. Schools need substantial and sustained aid so that educators have what they need to support students’ and families’ mental health.

Third, we must ask whether politicians are keeping their promises to help children learn and thrive. And we must begin thinking of all young people in Minneapolis as our collective children—paying attention not just to headline moments but the story of this community over time.

Communities do not benefit from a TraumatizNation. No nation becomes great through a strategy of mass harm to its children and families. Regardless of political beliefs, children’s well‑being should be protected at all costs. A country as resource‑rich as ours should be using its power to safeguard its most precious resource—its children.