I live in Minneapolis. I’m Black, but a cop may see me as brown. Which might matter, might not.
Minneapolis is home to a couple hundred thousand people of color. We are citizens, immigrants, legal residents, and the various legal shades in between. It feels like, in the eyes of federal law enforcement, we are all the same. It also feels like the legal distinctions shouldn’t matter. We are all residents, neighbors, living together here in this frigid but otherwise pretty damn nice city.
The distinctions do matter, though. Tens of thousands of these Minnesotans (at least) are afraid to leave their homes or send their kids to school. They are dependent on good neighbors risking their lives to deliver groceries. Another set of tens of thousands of neighbors are blowing whistles, marching, legally observing and otherwise putting their safety on the line to participate in constitutionally protected activity to keep their neighbors alive. (At least, we hope it’s still constitutionally protected; ball’s in your court, again, Justice Kavanaugh).
I note the numbers because Minneapolis is not a big city. There are at least 3,000 federal agents here. For every Minneapolis police officer, there are 5 federal cops. If DHS wanted officers to canvas every household in the city, each agent would need to visit about 50 homes. They could get it done in a morning. Although if the goal was to arrest undocumented workers, they wouldn’t be in Minnesota at all, as 32 other states have more undocumented workers per capita than MN.
I’m afraid of ICE, and yet I cannot fathom the fear of someone at risk of being deported. Not the “criminals” the administration talks about, the actual people they’re deporting.
Sometimes it feels like if you are a citizen who is not out demonstrating, then you should have nothing to fear. Every now and then, I even convince myself I have nothing to fear. But this is not the reality. Here’s a bit of what it is like.
Parenting is equal parts delightful and exhausting. Most weekends, my wife and I each take our toddler out one morning to give the other a respite while the baby naps. It was often my favorite part of the week; his joy when eating syrupy pancakes or seeing a new animal at the zoo is the best. I still smile with him, but here’s what I’m thinking as he pours way too much syrup on those pancakes:
What will I do if I stops me on the way back to our car?
I’m a citizen, so I’d be totally fine, right?
But there was that video of agents throwing a citizen’s ID on the ground and then arresting them anyway…If that agent stops me, what would I do? What would happen to my son?
Even if - best case scenario - I get one of the cops who abides by the law, how long would I have to stand out in the -10 degree weather, clinging to my son, while they process my ID and go through the totally verbal screening process to determine how much violence my future holds?
I shouldn’t have to, but I definitely would let them scan my ID. Seems like playing with fire to deny it. But when I do…they’re not adding me to some database where I’ll get listed as a domestic terrorist just for existing outside in the city I live in, right? Probably not.
So I still go out. And I still take my son. And we still have fun. But I check IceOut before each step outside, just in case. And I’ve practiced saying my wife’s phone number fast and clearly so I can shout it to an observer who is holding my son while ICE cuffs me, just in case.
We’ll be fine, right?
An hour or so after the vigil for Alex Pretti, someone rang our doorbell at 9pm.
Panic.
Should you go? Should I go? Let’s send up the dogs and see how much they bark. But that will wake the boys. Okay let’s both go.
No one was at the door after our half-minute of indecision. It was probably a neighbor with details about the next neighborhood mutual aid meeting. Or someone looking for help because their car wouldn’t start. It was probably someone I would have enthusiastically helped a few weeks ago.
But it could have been a federal agent with questions about another person of color. Or an errant administrative warrant for our house, emboldening them to enter as soon as a Black guy appears on the other side. Probably, not, right? It was probably a neighbor with car trouble.
We’ll be fine, right?
To sum up our situation: 3,000 armed, unidentified, and unaccountable out-of-towners have been imbued with incredible power after their 47 days of training. Many seem to believe they have even more power than they do. Truly heroic observers are policing this gap, trying to hold ICE to account. I have no doubt they’ve saved lives. They’ve also been detained, injured, and killed for it.
I only hope that this terror is not visited on a single additional city in America. If you share this hope:
Pressure your senators to defund and hold ICE accountable, most urgently by not passing funding for ICE this week (and then not caving a week later if there’s a shutdown).
If you feel safe, demonstrate (peacefully) wherever you are. It matters. And that sense of safety may be fleeting.
A third specific thing you can do: Our friends' neighbor, a single mom of 2, was detained when she reported for her mandatory immigration appointment. Give to her legal defense here:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-single-mother-of-two-obtain-freedom
Also shared with many groups I’m involved with and so many people teared up thinking about you needing to memorize your wife’s number in case you need to scream it out. And what would you do with the children?? Just terribly frightening.