Dispatch from Minneapolis

As many of you have been experiencing the horrors unleashed by ICE in many of our communities, we thought we’d take a moment to pass the mic to a friend of FwF located in Minneapolis. We are so grateful to the storytellers and network of resistance fighters.

Now onto our friend’s dispatch:

As bad as the news might say it is, it’s far worse (the Sahan Journal is a local paper, with lots of great reporting on what is happening). I was shaken when a playground/park a few blocks away from me was attacked with tear gas and pepper spray, and according to witnesses ICE just rolled up and started attacking people. The administration says there was a hostile crowd, however the word on the ground is that ICE was pissed they were denied access to the bathrooms at the nearby gas station and that people were following their convoy that was attacking people in the neighborhood all day to make more social media propaganda videos for Bovino. The chemicals in the snow on the playground will melt into the ground in a few months, but who knows what they are and if they will impact kids or pets. They have taken children from schools. They have tear gassed kids. They almost killed a baby. They did kill a mom and a nurse. It’s absolutely horrifying.

I have friends in the suburbs who, despite being Ojibwe, are keeping their children home from school and not leaving their home. ICE started going door-to-door though, and so now they are terrified at home too. There’s nothing in question about their citizenship, but they know that hasn’t stopped ICE from traumatizing other Native families.

The network of protectors and observers gives me hope – they are all putting bodies on the line and there are stories of elders guarding schools, and people delivering food to those too afraid to go outside.

They killed Renee & Alex hoping that it would deter us, but the trainings for legal observers have been overflowing.

Minneapolis won’t stand down and watch our neighbors get attacked. It’s an incredible community and there are so many helpers.

Ashley Fairbanks even created Stand with Minnesota all the way from Texas, because Minnesota is her home, and she had to help.

Many of the families that live here moved here, like Renee Good and her family, to raise children in a diverse, welcoming place. We’re so lucky to have this community, and it’s what is getting us through now.

The lessons learned will sustain us in the long term, because despite what they say in the news about drawing down, it does not look like they are going anywhere soon.