More than an hour before dawn, on a pitch-black street lined with heaps of Minnesota snow, 10-year-old Elizabeth Zuna Caisaguano and her mother headed out to her school bus stop – just like they do every weekday at 6:10 a.m.
Out of nowhere, federal agents' vehicles surrounded the family's car in suburban Minneapolis. Elizabeth thought the agents were going to take her to school, her father told CNN.
Instead, the aspiring doctor and her mother were detained and flown 1,200 miles away to the South Texas Family Residential Center in Dilley, Texas – with the young girl's future up in the air.
Over the next month, at least five other kids from her small school district were also sent across the country to Dilley – including5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos.
"There are other students with whom we have lost contact who might also be in a detention facility," spokesperson Kristen Stuenkel said.
The children's plight has sparked renewed criticism over the Trump administration's immigration crackdown in Minnesota, known asOperation Metro Surge, which has alsoensnared children and separated family members.
A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson firmly denied accusations that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are trying to detain students.
"ICE does NOT target children or schools. That is not how it works," DHS said. "ICE keeps families together."
'ICE is going to drop me off at school'
On the bitterly cold morning of January 6, Elizabeth and her mother were driving to her school bus stop when federal agents intercepted the family's car and blocked it with their own vehicles, Elizabeth's father Luis Zuna said.
A witness captured the encounter on camera as multiple agents surrounded the family's car.
Elizabeth called her father, who was at his construction job, and said they had been stopped by ICE. But she told her father what sounded like reassuring words.
"She said, 'ICE is going to drop me off at school,'" Luis said. "So I thought, OK, they will drop her off at school, and we hung up."
But when Luis later called his daughter and didn't get an answer, he panicked and rushed to find her.
"He was here at school by 7:30 a.m. looking for her," Highland Elementary secretary Carolina Gutierrez said. "I know that because we open our school doors at 7:25, and he was the first person at my window."
Luis and school social worker Tracy Xiong hoped the ICE vehicle just hadn't arrived yet.
"Several staff members, including myself, waited outside the school building for a vehicle to approach and drop her off. No one ever came," Xiong said.
"That morning turned into hours of phone calls, desperately trying to locate a child. We did everything we could to keep Elizabeth's father calm and allowed him to remain at school as we searched for answers. By that afternoon, we had learned that Elizabeth and her mother were already taken to Texas."
DHS said parents "are asked (if) they want to be removed with their children or ICE will place the children with a safe person the parent designates.
"This is consistent with past administration's immigration enforcement," the agency said.
The agony of not knowing what would happen to his wife and only child overwhelmed Luis, Xiong said.
"In my profession, I have seen many people break down and grieve," she said. "But the image of Elizabeth's father will stay with me forever. I watched him sit in his car, bury his head in his hands and cry uncontrollably. Those are images you do not forget."
Two boys discover another schoolmate detained
Over the next several weeks, as Elizabeth languished in detention, at least six other children from her school district made the same cross-country journey from Minnesota to the Dilley detention center, Stuenkel said.
On January 29, a second-grade boy and a fifth-grade boy from Valley View Elementary joined their mother as they were taken away to Texas, the school district said.
"Their mother went to have her regularly scheduled immigration meeting," Stuenkel said. "As she was leaving it, ICE picked her up. Her two boys were at school at Valley View, and she called the school and asked the principal to bring her sons to her at the Whipple (Federal) Building here in Minnesota, where she was being held."
The family spent almost a week detained. On Wednesday, after outcry from school officials, the siblings and their mother were released from Dilley and returned to Minnesota.
And the boys reported a startling discovery in the Texas ICE facility – a schoolmate had been detained without the school district's knowledge.
"While the family was at the Dilley detention facility, the boys recognized another Valley View student in the cafeteria," Stuenkel said.
"This fifth-grade girl, her mother and stepfather had last been in contact with Valley View Elementary on January 9," she said. "School staff have been trying to reach them since that time and did not know where they were."
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The fifth-grade girl is still detained at Dilley, along with a 17-year-old girl who was taken by agents along with her mother from their apartment complex last month, Stuenkel said.
DHS said it can't comment on cases without specific details about the children or their parents. But the school district said it could not release some of the detained students' names because they don't have written permission from their parents to do so – and in these cases, the parents are detained with their children.
Several other children from the school district have been released – including Liam, the preschooler who made national headlines after he and his father were taken away by agents from the driveway of their home.
Hours before Liam was detained, a 17-year-old Columbia Heights High School student on his way to school was also taken away by agents and sent to Texas, Stuenkel said. The teen has since been released and has declined to speak publicly about his case.
A young girl thought her 'dream was over'
Elizabeth's journey started in an impoverished, rural part of Ecuador, where her parents knew she would have little opportunity to thrive, her father said.
"The conditions were really tough. There were a lot of thieves, bad crime conditions," Luis said.
He said discrimination against indigenous people like him was rampant, particularly in some urban areas.
"We lived in the countryside, and we went down to the city one time, and that's when they attacked me – they almost killed me," he said, showing scars still visible on his face.
"So after they threatened me, that's when we decided to come here and seek asylum."
Luis, his wife Rosa and their daughter Elizabeth sought asylum in the US in 2020. The family followed all proper protocols, including attending every required hearing, immigration attorney Bobby Painter said.
But in September 2025, in the midst of the Trump administration's immigration crackdown, a judge denied asylum for the family and issued a removal order, Painter said. The family promptly appealed the decision, and the case has been under appeal ever since, the attorney said.
In a statement to CNN, DHS said Elizabeth's mother "is an illegal alien from Ecuador with a final order of removal — meaning she was given full due process."
"Officers conducted a vehicle stop to arrest the illegal alien. Upon discovering a child was in the car, officers allowed her to make phone calls to place the child in the custody of someone she designated," DHS said. "She failed to find a trusted adult to care for the child, so officers kept the family together for the welfare of the child."
During the hourslong plane ride from Minnesota to Texas, Elizabeth was riddled with fear that she would be sent to Ecuador, said Gutierrez, a family spokesperson. Given the family's rural, impoverished community in Ecuador and limited access to education, Elizabeth later told her dad she thought her "dream was over."
'It's like they're stalking everybody'
Columbia Heights Public Schools is a tiny district of 3,400 students just north of Minneapolis. But the population seemingly swelled when federal agents descended on the area as part ofOperation Metro Surge.
"ICE is so prevalent in our community and it's like they're stalking everybody," Stuenkel said. "You can't even imagine how bad it is, because it's such an immigrant community. Over 51% of our students' home language is Spanish," and other immigrant families come from East Africa or Asia.
The school district has reported "ICE agents (who) have been roaming our neighborhoods, circling our schools, following our buses, coming into our parking lots and taking our kids."
At one school, "an ICE vehicle drove onto school property and came up to our high school loading dock, with no business being there. They were told to leave by the high school administration," CHPS said.
"Last week we had three students driving (separately) that got pulled over by ICE," Stuenkel said. All of those students were carrying their US passports and were released.
"But imagine if you were driving to work and three police cars pulled you over … let alone being a 16- or 17-year-old student on your way to school, and ICE is pulling you over," Stuenkel said. "How do you concentrate at school?"
Elizabeth and her mom are back home in Minnesota
On Thursday, exactly one month after federal agents took Elizabeth to Texas instead of school, she and her mother returned to Minnesota, Painter and Gutierrez told CNN.
"We're still not clear on the exact reason" of their release, the attorney said Thursday afternoon. CNN has asked DHS about what prompted Elizabeth's and Rosa's release Wednesday.
Gutierrez spoke with the family after they returned and said they're looking forward to "quality time together with privacy and peace."
But the family's legal journey is not over, as they continue appealing their asylum case. Gutierrez established aGoFundMe accountto help offset the family's expenses.
Elizabeth's school social worker, who has seen the impact of agents' actions on students, called for the detainment of children to stop.
"Children belong in schools, not in detention," Xiong said. "No child should ever disappear on her way to school."
CNN's Maria Aguilar and Chris Boyette contributed to this report.
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More than an hour before dawn, on a pitch-black street lined with heaps of Minnesota snow, 10-year-old Elizabeth Zuna Cai...
