ICE Inspires Mni Sota Makoce Surge of Love

This winter the people of Minnesota experienced an unprecedented and broadly condemned action by Homeland Security Department (DHS) police forces and its so-called “Operation Metro Surge.”  

Thousands of the over 400,000 people in my hometown of Minneapolis, and thousands more in the greater metropolitan area and throughout the state, had their lives upended.

Federal police killed at least two, and likely three, Minneapolis residents. Their killings of Renee Good, and Alex Pretti were recorded and viewed by millions of people. Victor Manuel Diaz was arrested in Minneapolis in January and died in ICE custody in Texas.

“Anyone who has witnessed this occupation in our community, or seen the footage online, knows that none of this has made us safer, as the federal government is claiming. Instead, it has caused irreparable damage to our community,” said Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarity in February.

There have been widespread and credible reports that federal agents have apprehended children, ignored constitutional due process and free speech rights and targeted schools, court buildings, hospitals, small businesses, and places of religious assembly. Families have been torn apart. Jobs, incomes and housing have been lost.

Once captured and detained by ICE, many people have been denied the right meet with clergy or lawyers. 

Following the killing of Pretti and persistent public pressure at the local, national and even international levels, tactics have changed, but the operation continues. While over 1000 agents appear to have left the state, an estimated 900 remain and people continue to be arrested and held. There appears to be less public intimidation, fewer large-scale sweeps and more targeting of individuals by smaller groups of agents operating more secretively and more abductions have been reported in suburbs and smaller cities. 

“I’m cautiously optimistic that the masked, lawless agents are leaving and are done terrorizing our communities,” said Hopkins Mayor Patrick Hanlon. “We will believe it when we see it.” Hopkins is a small-town suburb, of roughly 20,000 people, on the western border of Minneapolis.

“We have countless stories,” said Hanlen in late February, “just this week they have been circling bus stops with children in St. Lousi Park and Hopkins.”

“These untrained ICE agents ran like gangs through our streets tackling people, breaking into homes and illegally kidnapping children. Those things happened right here in Hopkins,” said Hanlon.

Judging our government on its ability to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty, the so-called “operation metro surge” has been a dismal failure.

The constitution, including the bill of rights, seemed meaningless to many of our federal visitors. Our checks and balances at the federal level were ineffective at preventing harm. State’s rights and the local courts appeared too feeble or too slow to stop the injury.

The hundreds of perpetrators of the violent, and potentially unlawful, acts, including those who killed Good and Pretti, have not been held accountable.

A Political Attack

To Hanlon, and many others, the federal action was not about safety, immigration or border enforcement. 

“Let’s face it, operation metro surge was never about cooperating about crime,” Hanlon said, “this was a political attack on our state.”  

The efforts at apprehension, abduction, detainment, and deportation in Minneapolis and the surrounding suburbs have been aimed primarily at people with Mexican, Central and South American and African, and sometimes even Native American heritage or identity. Federal police actions have been concentrated in the most diverse and dense areas of the city including the Ceder Riverside/Westbank, Central, Powderhorn and Whittier neighborhoods, as well as more ethnically diverse suburbs. Many of those who are targeted are citizens or are otherwise illegally living here.

By most accounts white immigrants and their children are not being targeted.

For example, I am the son of two immigrant parents who moved to Minneapolis about 3 years before I was born. My parents were born in Canada.  Their ancestors migrated there from Ireland, England, Scotland and France. I look and identify as a white celtic euro-american.

While thousands of immigrants and the children of immigrants, were afraid to leave their homes to go to work, school, doctor’s appointments and even grocery shopping, I did not experience that same fear. Three of my adult-children and two of my grandchildren live within two miles of where Good and Pretti were killed. While our daily lives have been disrupted, and as observers we may have been at risk, it was clear we were not targets.

Additionally, it was only after Pretti, a white straight male, was killed that changes to the surge’s leadership and changes to the number and supervision of agents involved were discussed at the white house. I believe that what is happening in Minneapolis is a manifestation and continuation of the historic racism that is still with us in the United States of America.

It was and is, what Britannica calls “the attempt to create ethnically homogeneous geographic areas through the deportation or forcible displacement of persons belonging to particular ethnic groups.” Or, as a Merriam Webster dictionary says, “the expulsion, imprisonment, or killing of an ethnic minority by a dominant majority in order to achieve ethnic homogeneity.”

It is ethnic cleansing.

A United Front Rising to the Challenge

The response from Minneapolis residents has been generally peaceful, decentralized, multipronged and coordinated through the cooperation of many groups and thousands of individuals from all walks of life and all parts of the state.

There has been a groundswell of support to protect and care for each other. Voices of support for the tactics of federal forces are hard to find but voices condemning their actions can be found throughout the state, country and even internationally.

Patty O’Keefe, a local environmental activist who was herself pepper sprayed, verbally abused and detained by ICE, said it well.  “To be clear it is precisely the people of Minnesota - the tactics and tone we have brought to the streets - that have protected countless neighbors, stalled ICE funding at the federal level, and shifted public opinion across the political spectrum.”

A large number of activist organizations responded quickly to coordinate, educate and help people get involved in a variety of ways including providing mutual aide, being legal observers, alerting others to the presence of ICE, knowing their rights, getting legal assistance, and keeping the public informed.

This includes labor, faith-based, social justice, environmental and other nonprofit and political groups, who helped organize and train legal observers, facilitate mutual aid, coordinate protest efforts, lobby for law changes, and take legal action.

Groups like Defend 612, MIRAC (Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee), Unidos MN, Monarca, Twin Cities Democratic Socialists of American, Isaiah MN, the National Lawyers Guild, the American Civil Liberties Unions of MN (ACLU MN) and likely hundreds of community organizations, neighborhood groups, nonprofits and individuals formed an effective and diverse network to inform and mobilize themselves and others.

Unidos MN, for example, developed a rapid response network and reported training an estimated 40,000 people throughout MN and in parts of Wisconsin to be rapid responders and legal observers.

Stories of neighbors helping neighbors included volunteers fixing doors that had been broken by federal agents, helping tenants make repairs without involving landlords as well as the creation of safe spaces and community meals for volunteers themselves to rest and recover.

A decentralized, grassroots network of mutual aid materialized quickly with individuals stepping forward to buy groceries, deliver donated food, provide rides, and stand watch at schools, childcare centers, clinics, places of worship, small businesses and parks.

“We stand up for the safety and integrity of our Seward families and community in several ways,” said Kelly Dean, a teacher at Seward Public School in South Minneapolis. Her school, like most, developed new protocols for safe arrivals and dismissal, practiced safety actions for responding to ICE activity in the area and helped supply families in jeopardy with basic needs like food and safe transport as well as online learning options for their students and families. They also had dozens of parents and neighbors patrolling the perimeter of their campus at every arrival and dismissal.

“All of these responses required a lot of behind-the-scenes thinking, enormous amounts of extra effort and work, and a deep commitment to each other as a united front rising to the challenge,” said Dean.

“The successes Minnesota has achieved thus far are the result of our uncompromising commitment to protecting each other - our unwillingness to bend the knee to a campaign of terror and political retribution,” said O’Keefe. “It is our principled resolve and righteous anger fueled by our love for our community that is changing hearts, minds, and the bounds of political possibility.”

“If the federal government is really ending this occupation, the reason is that Minnesotans resisted in countless nonviolent ways. This community continues to show inspirational energy and strength in caring for neighbors. Our immigrant community has demonstrated incredible courage,” said Moriarty. “To the people of Hennepin County: You are owed a debt of gratitude that can never be repaid for showing the federal government and the nation just how much you care for your neighbors and our democracy."

While the system, both economic and governmental, failed, organized people were able to support one another, resist and, so far, at least temporarily improve conditions.  

The Rule of Law and Legal Limbo

Minnesotans are also using the courts. It has already led to a number of people being released and likely prevented some deportations. 

At a forum hosted by two state legislators in February, independent journalist, Taylor Dahlin, reported that John Boehler from the ACLU MN said that “what we’ve seen here in a few months is the largest amount of constitutional violations in the shortest period of time in this state’s history.”

According to Boehler the ACLU MN has seen roughly 700 constitutional violations in the state in the last 8 weeks and have initiated several lawsuits already. Roughly, 3,500 people have completed their know-your-rights trainings.

Another lawsuit is being brought by International Refugee Assistance Project (IRAP), the law firm Berger Montague PC, and the Advocates of Human Rights in MN representing five individual refugee plaintiffs about access to counsel at federally owner Whipple building where detainees have been held. The State of MN has also filed at least one lawsuit.

"Despite any draw down, DHS's history of constitutional violations makes clear that they have no interest in the rule of law, humane treatment, or common sense. This is apparent in their budgetary and spending priorities: they direct a firehose of funds to expanding the use of armed agents, coercive detention, and surveillance and military technology," said Michele Garnett McKenzie, Executive Director at The Advocates for Human Rights. "At the same time, the flow of funds devoted to processing applications and to immigration court has slowed to a trickle, leaving immigrants trapped in legal limbo."

Minnesota religious leaders have also sued DHS, alleging they’re being blocked from providing pastoral care to immigration detainees at the Whipple Federal Building.

Moriarty, appears to be determined to prosecute federal employees who she believes violated the law.

In March she said that her office is investigating 17 alleged incidents of excessive force by federal immigration agents, including former Border Patrol chief Greg Bovino’s use of chemical irritants on protesters near Mueller Park in Minneapolis on Jan. 21 as well as agents’ treatment of protesters at Roosevelt High School on Jan. 7.

She said that “there is no absolute immunity for federal agents,” and that the state’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension continues to investigate the shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, but federal authorities are still refusing to cooperate.

“I do feel confident that we will be able to make charging decisions in those cases,” Moriarty said.

Bishop Whipple

Throughout this, one building with historic and spiritual significance has drawn a great deal of attention.

It is the 7-story Whipple Federal Building, at 1 Federal Drive, on federally owned Fort Snelling land just north of the Minneapolis–Saint Paul International Airport.  It has served as the main base for federal operations and is the place where detainees have been held before being deported or released.

As such, it has been and still is, a site of protest, observation and mutual aid as people are being released in the cold and often dark night without warm clothes or a way to get home.

The building was named after Bishop Henry Benjamin Whipple in1969. Whipple was the first Episcopal bishop of Minnesota and credited with convincing former President Abraham Lincoln to pardon all but 38 of the 303 Dakota people who were sentenced to death after the so-called Dakota War of 1862, another example of ethnic cleansing that people in the state are still suffering from. 

This February, a group from the Oceti Sakowin (Dakota and Lakota people) established a camp at Mni Owe Sni/Coldwater Spring, across from the Whipple Building, less two miles from where the 38 had been killed and hundreds of Dakota people were held before being forced out of the state. 

In March, Hennepin County Sheriff’s officers and other local law enforcement made several arrests there after declaring a protest unlawful.

"As long as ICE is still here in Minnesota, as long as ICE continues to exist, and as long as the Whipple Building continues to operate, our community is going to hold space and continue to fight to keep all of our families, all of our relatives, all of our immigrant families together," said Ward 9 Minneapolis Council Member Jason in a video he posted on social meeting from the building that same day. "So, we're asking people to continue showing up. We're here holding space with our beautiful community, asking for the return of all of our relatives, asking this building to shut down with its inhumane conditions."

Clearly the fight for justice in Minnesota has been long, and the horrific harms committed by our own federal, state and local governments are not over.

Our system continues to fail us.

Let us hope that lessons can be learned from this Minneapolis experience. Perhaps somewhere in this compassionate, grassroots, decentralized, nonviolent and persistent resistance we can find the formula we so desperately need to fix our flawed and failing system and achieve the lasting, just, and healing change so many of us seek.

 

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This article was requested and submitted to Green Horizon 

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