MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. – Top Trump administration officials certainly put on a show last week about changing tactics in Minnesota after federal immigration enforcement agents fatally shot Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old VA nurse in Minneapolis.
Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino lost his job. Border czar Tom Homan said he’s pulling 700 federal agents out of the state. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said she’s sending body cameras to every DHS field officer in Minneapolis. Even President Donald Trump sort of registered problems with his surge of Immigration Customs and Enforcement officers in the state that continues to spark widespread protests, traumatize immigrant communities and has left two Americans dead, Pretti and Renee Good.
“Maybe we could use a little bit of a softer touch,” Trump told NBC News on Wednesday, when asked if he’s learned anything from how his massive ICE operation has played out.
But for at least some residents, nothing has changed on the ground. At all.
“We had 2 abductions in my area on Monday and 2 more today,” Nate, a Minneapolis real estate agent involved in community efforts to protect immigrants from ICE, told HuffPost in a Thursday message. “They drew guns on observers in South [Minneapolis] yesterday and were jumping out of cars today about a mile and a half from us.”
Nate, who requested using only his first name, said he knew of at least eight observers ― citizens documenting potential legal violations by federal agents ― who were detained in Minneapolis by ICE on Friday. At least three were released later in the day.
Earlier in the week, Columbia Heights public schools had to cancel all classes because of bomb threats. This is the same diverse suburb that is home to 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos, and at least four children currently locked up in an ICE detention center in Texas.
Local school officials here say ICE officers continue to circle their schools, looking for immigrant children to nab. Federal officers are still grabbing brown and Black people on the streets, regardless of whether they’re in the country legally or have no criminal record.
“It does not at all feel like a lessening this week,” said Kristen Stuenkel, an education director for this school district. “On Tuesday, ICE was in the parking lots of all of our schools.”
There are still more than 2,000 federal agents swarming the region, she said, despite the hundreds Homan said he’s withdrawing. And even if every DHS agent wears a body camera, which remains to be seen, she said, that doesn’t mean the public will be able to see the footage from their encounters.
As we spoke, DHS had just abruptly expedited its asylum hearing for Ramos and his family to Friday morning, meaning it sped up its plans to try to deport them. Ramos and his dad had just returned home last weekend after being locked up in a Texas detention facility for 12 days, where the boy’s health rapidly deteriorated. His parents, originally from Ecuador, had been scheduled for their hearing in late February. They are not in the U.S. illegally and have no criminal record. DHS is simply trying to end their asylum claims.
The judge ultimately granted a continuance in their case, giving Ramos’ family more time to defend their asylum claim.
“They said those things, then expedited their hearing for Liam and family,” Stuenkel said of Trump administration officials. “They said those things, and they are still thick in our community.”
Photo by Charly Triballeau / Getty
While the Trump administration may not be easing up at all in its efforts to intimidate and hunt down immigrants, neither are the residents of the Minneapolis-St.Paul region. In interviews with dozens of people over the past two weeks, it was clear that virtually everybody is hunkering down together and coordinating to carry out sophisticated operations to keep their neighbors safe during ICE’s “occupation” here.
They take part in daily ICE patrols through neighborhoods, with people watching for unmarked cars and alerting each other to sightings. They drive each other’s kids to and from school, and even walk them into their homes, when those kids’ parents are too scared to go outside. They coordinate trips to grocery stores for immigrant neighbors and food deliveries to their homes. Schools and churches have become pantries. Between getting their children ready for school and cooking dinner for their families, parents use secure messaging apps like Signal to keep their constant communication with each other secret.
In Columba Heights, grandparents and retired teachers stand outside various public schools with whistles, blowing them when they see agents driving by when children are outside. School officials promptly provide cover.
Stuenkel said ICE agents didn’t detain anyone when they sat in her schools’ parking lots last week. Their presence was meant to intimidate this community.
“We are not intimidated, by the way,” she said. “We are undaunted.”
Nate, the real estate agent, said he’s in it for the long haul when it comes to fending off ICE in his community, whether it’s continuing to bring food to neighbors, helping with ICE patrols or being an observer when masked ICE agents show up. It’s just part of his daily routine now, he said,
Besides, he added, Minnesotans are stubborn as hell.
“This is like a very black-and-white issue to me. This is either justice and righteousness, or this is the opposite. You are on one side or the other,” said Nate. “We aren’t going away.”