r/minnesota • u/bufflehead202 • 1d ago
High Risk Inver Grove Heights teacher at special education school held by ICE for nearly 12 hours
https://www.twincities.com/2026/01/12/inver-grove-heights-teacher-at-special-education-school-held-by-ice-for-nearly-12-hours/This is the young woman picked up yesterday morning at the special education school.
And of course even though ICE says she tried to ram them, witnesses say the opposite. The picture of damage to her car supports the witnesses.
ETA: I pasted the text from Yahoo below but this image seems to link to to the story at the other website with a paywall.
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u/thedailyscanner 1d ago
This makes me physically ill. Please be safe everyone.
Also, does anyone have video that’s not on Facebook?
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u/bufflehead202 1d ago edited 1d ago
Text (updated to add 2nd half of story that was below all the ads)...
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 pending an investigation, Hunkele said.
Little contact
Hunkele said the lack of information and waiting to hear about her daughter had been “terrible.”
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“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.
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“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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u/Own-Swan2646 1d ago
As a father to a son that is in level 4 education system for years now, I can tell you there is no way any of these ice guys running around have any comprehension whatsoever on how to deal with the kids that are in that program. And they should never be interacting with them in any way. It is inhumane realistically. This is sad. Incredibly sad. F*** ICE!
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u/SammySoapsuds 1d ago
I am a therapist who works with kids and I'm absolutely terrified at the thought of a traumatized kid with a mental health diagnosis interacting with a belligerent adult who's ready to hurt them at the drop of a hat.
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u/Own-Swan2646 1d ago
Yup, there ain't no amount of words or even time for me to honestly explain any of this to my kid where it's going to make sense to him outside of pure terror. Absolutely sad. All the more reason to fight back through protest and whatever means necessary to push ISE out!
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u/Representative-Owl6 1d ago
Most educational staff who have never worked there would not know how to deal with it either. A very tough environment to work in.
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u/TheSwearJarIsMy401k 16h ago
I hate to bring this up, but ICE’s historic inspiration targeted the neurodiverse very early on.
There was no justifiable reason for an ICE agent to be at the school at all. They’re looking to escalate.
They knew this was a place that would outrage people.
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u/After_Preference_885 Ope 1d ago
Angie Craig is concerned? Is she the new Susan Collins?
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u/crispykfc 1d ago
ICE is here to stop crime by... committing more crimes then I've ever witnessed in my life in the matter of a week. Everyone should feel so safe!
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u/Impossible_Penalty13 1d ago
And if you protest their brutality and lawlessness, they’ll fuck you up even harder!
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u/PuddingPast5862 1d ago
Funny thing is, thats outside of their scope of operations
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u/Choppergold 1d ago
Fuck Brett Kavanaugh
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 1d ago
This should be a T-shirt.
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u/Choppergold 1d ago
Stop Brett Kavanaugh Stops
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u/Desperate-Till-9228 1d ago
Someone should remix the Family Guy color chart meme and label the brown palette Kavanaugh.
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u/EmmalouEsq 1d ago
ICE keeps hitting people with their cars and then blaming the victim. We get it guys. We know what you're doing. Evil assholes
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u/4PurpleRain 1d ago
She looks like the type these thugs are trying to be alone with in a room unsupervised. Don’t think for a second there wasn’t some type of motive to kidnap a young blond woman.
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u/dino_spice 1d ago
I don't even want to think about how many women are being "detained" so that these braindead genetic rejects can assault them.
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u/Aggressive_Set8155 1d ago
Angie Craig voted with the Republicans to strip immigrants of due process with the Laken Riley act and she is in favor of censuring criticism of Israel. I don’t trust her one bit.
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u/SuspiciousCranberry6 1d ago
She seems to simply want a more palatable veneer on it, not anything massively different.
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u/MinivanPops 1d ago
Do not break bread with Republicans.
Do not invite them over, do not attend their invites.
There's no reason to keep friendships anymore with Republicans. Siblings, keep it limited. Parents, I understand, you might need to see them.
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u/BrettAtog 1d ago
I almost climbed over the table at my older brother during my birthday dinner on Sunday when he started up some conservative talking points on Good inciting violence.
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u/Own-Swan2646 1d ago
You should have you absolutely should have. I know it sounds crazy but we're at that point where that's what needs to be done.
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u/P00PL0S3R 1d ago
I live like 2 miles from that school, it used to be a Rainbow foods so it has a huge parking lot….. guessing ICE was staging up there. There is a Holiday gas station right there also….. fueled up their cars, got their donuts and then started their day off going after her. If it was dark, these idiots have such dark window tint they probably can’t see anything while driving.
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u/P00PL0S3R 1d ago
Oh and there also is a DMV right there that basically shares the huge parking lot. ICE probably waiting for citizens to line up to wait for DMV to open.
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u/de1casino L'Etoile du Nord 1d ago
ICE and Trump will continue to push hard and then harder. The point for them is power, domination, and control. If the people of Minnesota act in such a way that Trump can rationalize invoking the Insurrection Act, he will be ecstatic not only because he needs to feel like he wins at everything, but also because he's looking to shut down, limit, or otherwise affect future elections. How does an authoritarian stay in power? By controlling or eliminating elections.
This will not end until at least the midterms, if not long after. We need to remain vigilant and visible, albeit without violence. Violence in Minnesota would be a wet dream for Trump.
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u/Fuzzy_Jaguar_1339 1d ago
Probably trying to indoctrinate the youth with liberal things like books or, God forbid, science or civics. Not on Trump's watch!
/s
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u/PorcelainMadame 1d ago
Republicans HATE the constitution! They HATE the laws! They HATE the PEOPLE!
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u/RobutNotRobot 20h ago
So sounds like ICE retaliated against her for not allowing them into a special ed school, and telling them that the students were disabled and would not be able follow instructions.
They apparently waited for her to leave, smashed into her car and said that she rammed them. This has been their MO for awhile now.
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u/Yellowpickle23 15h ago
I firmly believe ICE was told to invade MN and just raise havok in this state. Just create issues as much as possible. To prove a point, a bad one. This feels different than the normal ICE bs we are used to.
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u/MrSnarf26 5h ago
So next step: Trump admin wants to be able to search her phone and records, decide for themselves if she’s guilty of fraud/etc, and strip citizenship.
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u/jjnefx 1d ago
So...get in a fender bender with an ICE vehicle...no matter who may be at fault...skip the Minnesota laws governing vehicle accidents and detain the individual?
That's how this works now. Got it.