by Josh Gallagher and Katie Schlomann, interviewed by Stacy Gehringer, Associate Director of Outreach at CASCW
In December 2025, Center for Advanced Studies in Child Welfare (CASCW) staff interviewed two county child welfare professionals, Katie Schlomann and Josh Gallagher, both of whom live and work in a rural Minnesota county with an estimated population of 22,000 residents, including at least 5,000 immigrants. In this diverse community, more than 100 languages are spoken, including Hmong, Spanish, K’iche’, Lao, and several East African languages, including Ethiopian and Sudanese dialects. According to Katie and Josh, racial and ethnic groups make up the majority of the population, and the county’s primary industries include pork processing, beef jerky production, turkey processing plants, and farm labor.
Meet Katie and Josh
With a background in family social science and family violence, Katie works in the Minor Parent Program, which serves undocumented immigrant mothers and, often, their documented children. As the program’s sole staff member, she supports approximately 50 mothers each year. Katie also leads the county’s minor delinquency and truancy program, which functions as its diversion intervention. Both programs operate within the county’s child welfare system.
Josh’s training in sociology, social work, and mental health counseling led him to spend seven years in child protection before recently transitioning to foster care and licensing. He continues to provide informal consultation and training to county child protection workers.
The Impact of Immigration Enforcement on Community
Since recent increased immigration enforcement both nationally and in Minnesota, there are notable impacts on the community, including decrease in trust and challenges in rapport building, inability to meet service needs of families, and decrease in school attendance. Katie shared that, “Everyone is rather afraid. As I get new mothers on my caseload, they do not want my help as they did before. They do not want their name in any system. When they do get to the point where they are eligible for benefits, they are rejecting the supports.” Even more troubling, Katie struggles to convince mothers to enroll in WIC (Women, Infants & Children), a nutrition and breastfeeding program that helps eligible pregnant women, new mothers, babies and young children. She shared that many parents have quit their jobs at the plants as they are fearful of raids and now struggle with unemployment. In addition to the local struggles, federal funding cuts have led to a decrease in cash assistance to provide direct support to these same families. Both Josh and Katie point out that trauma still lives in the community from a raid that happened many years ago at a local plant. A combination of these realities result in a compromised ability to build rapport and a decrease in access to services.
Josh shared a frustration: “We already had a hard enough time working with immigrant populations due to language barriers, cultural differences, different methods of parenting and just getting them connected to benefits that fit their needs because if they are undocumented they do not qualify. They may not trust us to begin with, then you throw in these dynamics, and how do you protect the children in our community? We have to work twice as hard for half the progress with some of these clients. How do you explain the [Child in Need of Protection or Services] CHIPS process to someone who has immigrated here and never been in a system like this before and then we add all of this fear? Our job is hard enough, we don’t need more roadblocks from the federal government.”
The Impact of Immigration Enforcement on Child Protection Efforts
Historically, both Josh and Katie have been cautious and intentional when discussing legal status with clients. When they do ask, they provide clear context, explaining that the information is used solely to determine eligibility for supportive services. They remain mindful of how sensitive these conversations can be. As part of their approach, they emphasize that they are not connected to immigration enforcement and that legal status only affects the types of services available.
Certainly within the community, as well as human services, everyone has varying political beliefs, and that undoubtedly impacts their positions on current immigration enforcement efforts. Josh points out that while there are many people who, “think this is a good thing,” because it is “less strain on a system,” there are many child protection workers who are extremely frustrated with these measures because they are unable to meet federal and state requirements with such routine barriers.
Katie and Josh have no shortage of stories about the impacts of the heightened enforcement on the work of child protective services:
- Many unaccompanied minors, who are also undocumented, work in the meat processing plants and are at high risk for labor exploitation. Katie described a 15 year old who was injured by a skidrunner. The hospital staff did not feel comfortable treating her without parental consent. Because her parents were in Guatemala, Katie had to aggressively advocate for medical treatment for this young person.
- Josh shared that social workers will travel from Texas to Minnesota and drop minors off without notifying local agencies. These unaccompanied minors are working in factories, are not enrolled in school, thus evolving into truancy cases.
- Katie spoke about a sharp increase in self-deportations, especially in the Minor Parent Program, since mothers do not want to get separated from their child(ren).
These experiences reflect the patterns and trends of a community that relies heavily on immigrants to fuel the local economy and also the collateral impact on these same families when it comes to service needs. Katie and Josh agree that they work in the “most creative county in the state” when it comes to procuring resources for immigrants.
What is your advice for supporting immigrant families?
Both Josh and Katie carry individual philosophies and approaches to their work:
- Respect the culture. Meet people where they are at.
- Do not make assumptions. Every family is different. What I can assume about one family, I can not assume about another.
- Get comfortable with making mistakes and apologizing. When you do make a mistake, say “I’m sorry, I messed up, this is on me, how can I be better?”
- You have to leave biases at the door. You are working with families who are scared of you. You can't walk in and assume the worst of people, or the best of people.
- You gotta be clay. Adaptable. Molded. Play-dough. You can’t be stuck in your way!
Josh and Katie agree that the current level of fear, anxiety, and isolation among immigrant community members is unsustainable. Katie hopes to see a decline in “hateful rhetoric and misinformation,” emphasizing that, “we are talking about actual people who have moms and dads and brothers and sisters. We need to protect people and not cause more harm to their families.”
Josh adds that even amid the “doom and gloom,” there are, “beautiful acts of humanity.” As a foster care licensor, he has received calls from families seeking to become licensed proactively so they can support children who may be separated from their parents. Both Josh and Katie find themselves doing extensive legwork and mutual aid beyond their formal job duties to help keep families safe.
They are also deeply moved by the community’s response. Clients are supporting one another by watching each other’s children, completing Delegation of Parental Authority documents (DOPAs), and stepping in as neighbors helping neighbors. As Josh reflects, “the beauty in humanity will come out in the worst of times.”
Josh Gallagher is currently working in a licensing position. He formally worked for 7 years in Child Protection.