Glinda is your typical 14-year-old girl.

She loves to go to the beach. She loves to play outside with her five siblings and make up games for them.

But this summer, she’s afraid to do any of that. She’s afraid to even take out the trash.

Last year, Glinda’s father was arrested at their home by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, before ICE’s increase in public enforcement hit the Lewiston area in January. His case remains pending, and he is being held at a detention facility in New Hampshire.

Glinda, who lives in Androscoggin County, shared her story with a reporter earlier this month. The Sun Journal agreed to use an alias out of Glinda’s concern for her safety. She wanted people to hear what she and her family are going through, and how the reverberations from ICE activity continue to affect their lives.

A reporter sat down with Glinda and her mother at a public library, and confirmed her father’s arrest by ICE.

“People deserve their freedom and rights,” she said through her tears.

“Everyone should be treated equally.”

Less than two weeks later, an ICE agent shot and killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Biddeford.

HER STORY

Glinda moved with her family from an African country to the United States in 2018.

At the time, they were a family of five. She said they arrived on a tourist visa and immediately settled in Maine, joining the state’s growing African immigrant community. A few months later they applied for asylum.

Now, they are a family of eight: Glinda’s three youngest siblings were born in Maine.

Her father was the sole provider for the family. With him at a detention center, Glinda, as the eldest child, has tried to find a job to help her mother earn money, but she’s having a difficult time finding a place that will hire a 14-year-old.

Even if she could, she worries about leaving the house and the risk of detention.

“We never felt worried or scared before this,” said Glinda’s mother, who hasn’t seen her husband in nearly a year. “Now, we feel like we can’t even go outside.”

SHE’S NOT ALONE

For a while after the ICE enforcement surge in Maine, Glinda said she was afraid to go to school. Her classmates singled her out for being an immigrant. Some teachers supported ICE’s efforts, she said.

She was not the only one.

Daily school attendance showed that more than 4,000 students a day across the state missed school at the height of the operation.

Maine’s records are consistent with other areas where ICE enforcement has been present, experts say, and children are displaying high levels of anxiety as a result.

Carolyn Sattin-Bajaj, a professor of education policy at the University of California Santa Barbara, has studied the impact of ICE enforcement on students.

Because schools do not collect immigration status from students, there’s no way for a teacher or other staff member to know a student is an immigrant by just looking at them, Sattin-Bajaj said. But national studies show that attendance among English language learners has declined in President Donald Trump’s second term, which started in January 2025.

When the students are not in school, Sattin-Bajaj writes, they are missing critical learning opportunities, socialization and community building, among other experiences. For some students, it also means missing a free breakfast or lunch.

Sattin-Bajaj believes that in areas where ICE enforcement is ongoing, school districts should consider professional development on how to comfort students.

“I think it’s how do we help teachers know it’s a potential light bulb they can turn on,” she said, urging teachers to look for signs that students are not paying attention in class or going to the playground, and know that it could be because of anxiety over ICE.

Staff at some schools, including Portland, have had trainings on how to de-escalate situations involving ICE if the agency arrives at school. Additionally, schools have made social workers and counselors available.

“Teachers are a point of contact for most kids. It’s about supporting them in a way that feels empowering, yet not burdensome and not scary. They need models for when these things come up in class,” Sattin-Bajaj said.

At Glinda’s school during the surge in ICE, she said, some students used it to make fun of immigrants. When the teacher failed to address the bullying, she said, she felt alone and wasn’t sure who to turn to.

WHAT’S NEXT?

As she awaits news on her father’s case, Glinda continues to try to find ways to support her family.

She wants a job where she can work with children because she is used to helping her mother around the house. She likes to cook for her siblings — the youngest just turned 1 — or play games they make up, like seeing who can braid each other’s hair the best.

The family is grateful for the support of close family friends they call cousins, as well as a mentor who helps them navigate the situation.

But they are mostly staying inside now.