photo:Creator:Lorie Shaull, CC BY 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
For more than two months in the dead of winter, the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul endured a grave assault on public order and civility in ICE and Border Patrol’s pursuit of immigrants it deemed illegal. Black, Brown, Native, Asian Americans and immigrants have been targets of racist profiling as federal agents occupy streets and enter home without warrants. Journalists have been arrested for covering protests, residents monitoring ICE activity in their neighborhoods have been tear gassed, followed and doxxed. The killing of two US citizens by federal agents, and the lack of access to evidence by local law enforcement sparked cross partisan outrage across the country.
The Not In Our Town film team spent five days in Minneapolis-St.Paul in early February. As three thousand federal agents roamed their streets armed with guns, tear gas, and night sticks, tens of thousands of residents of the Twin Cities region met chaos and fear with kindness, courage, peaceful resistance, and a steadfast commitment to making their neighbors safe from harm. Our film team captured scenes from these momentous days. We will be assembling short clips of these stories to share with communities across the country in the coming weeks. The voices and actions we will highlight are from everyday people who overcame their own fears to stand up for families, neighbors, each other, and all of us. As we celebrate love this weekend and remember historic leaders, NIOT shares a love letter to Minnesotans.
A Love Letter to Minnesota
We never thought this could happen in this country, though history tells us otherwise.
Armed agents bursting into homes, dragging people from cars, rounding up random residents based on skin color or language, many of them citizens and legal residents, throwing them into SUVs and vans bound for detention centers
Over 4,000 people, including children have been taken to the Whipple Detention Center, or shipped off to other facilities.
Five year old Liam, pictured in his little blue hat, was taken from his family and sent to a detention center in Texas. A ten year old girl and her mother on the way to the school bus stop were surrounded and shipped to Texas. Six other children in one school district have been detained. These children and their parents are not dangerous criminals.
The danger from men with badges veered toward the helpers.
Two American citizens were killed by federal agents in January. Renee Good, a 37 year old mom killed in her minivan, after dropping her child off at school. Alex Pretti, a 37 year old intensive care nurse at the Veteran’s Hospital, shot to death on the ground.
You could have been afraid after witnessing the violence or repelled by the -20 temperatures, but instead, over 50,000 of you marched through downtown Minneapolis, and joined hundreds of businesses and schools in shutting down in protest to the brutal treatment of people in your community.
You organized block groups to warn neighbors of federal agents roaming your streets, blew whistles of warning, washed tear gas out of your eyes, pulled out your cellphones and filmed incidents of violence making it possible for the whole world to watch what was happening.
Thousands of you connected with local schools, churches, union halls, community centers to pick up and deliver groceries to neighbors who fear leaving their homes.
As you join singers wandering neighborhoods where families have been hiding in fear for months, as you train yourself to be non violent constitutional actors and observers. As you gather in town halls, streets, large beautiful places of worship, you are inside a song, a chorus creating “the harmonies of liberty” that the whole country is longing to hear.
You walk through your day with a collective attitude that these gut wrenching events aren’t compromising your goodness as people.
It sounds simple, like something from a fable, but the unity, courage and joint sense of purpose and action is like nothing most of us have experienced in our lifetimes. Like the brave ones in Selma and Birmingham, Midwestern Americans, from the first Native peoples who call this land home, to the descendants of Scandinavian and other European settlers, to those likewise searching for a better future from Africa, Latin America and Asia, you are making a stand that will be remembered in our history books.
Minnesota you are showing us unfettered, unified, unwavering love. With all of our hearts, we thank you and send love back to you.