MINNEAPOLIS — The Uber driver has just pulled away from Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport, his Honda Accord headed downtown, when he turns to the backseat passenger with a grim look on his face.
“It’s crazy here. ICE everywhere,” he says.
It’s both a warning and a reality check, one that has clearly struck a nerve.
ADAM GRAY / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A woman is detained by federal agents Tuesday, near the scene where Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week.
“They’re catching our people,” the man adds.
He is of Somali descent, one of roughly 84,000 who call the Twin Cities home. According to U.S. census data, 58 per cent of that population was born in the United States. Of the remaining 42 per cent, the vast majority, 87 per cent, are naturalized American citizens like him.
And yet, a place that once felt warm and welcoming to him, his family and his people — a land of opportunity and freedom — now feels cold and unfamiliar.
It began with U.S. President Donald Trump recently referring to Somali immigrants as “garbage” who “contribute nothing” to the country. That was followed by the deployment of roughly 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the Minneapolis region in a sweeping crackdown that has drawn comparisons to Hitler’s Gestapo.
“I’ve been here 25 years; I have citizenship here. But even citizens they’re harassing,” the driver says.
“They give you a hard time. They’re stopping people everywhere. ‘Let’s see your documents, show me your documents.’ They’re catching a lot of Uber drivers at the airport. Even if they have a green card, they’re taking them.”
“I have citizenship here. But even citizens they’re harassing.”
The list of victims is growing.
Renee Good, 37, was shot and killed in her car by an ICE agent on Jan. 7. Legal observers suggest the incident, captured on video, may constitute murder. The investigation is ongoing, though how thorough it will be remains uncertain. Several prosecutors have already resigned in protest over what they see as interference from the Trump administration.
Good’s killing has become a lightning rod in both real life and on social media, where disinformation spreads as anger and rhetoric intensify.
The Free Press spent 48 hours in the Twin Cities this week while the Winnipeg Jets were in town to face the Minnesota Wild, and observed a place that feels very different from the one thousands of Manitobans have come to know and love.
ADAM GRAY / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
An illustration of Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer last week, adorns a makeshift memorial for her in Minneapolis on Wednesday.
“I really miss hearing the usual ‘True North’ during the anthem,” a Minnesota hockey writer quipped just prior to Thursday’s puck drop. The usual raucous shout-out by Jets fans who often make the trip was reduced to a whisper among the few in attendance.
The holidays offered a similar scene. Attendance at the World Junior Championship tournament was shockingly low in the so-called State of Hockey, especially from Canadians in Manitoba and northern Ontario, who largely stayed away because of the current political climate.
On Wednesday night, tensions escalated after another ICE-involved shooting. This one wasn’t fatal; the victim was shot in the leg. Tear gas was deployed during protests involving citizens who believe they are facing violent harassment from a federal government acting with impunity.
Two children, including one just six months old, were hospitalized after inhaling toxic fumes in their nearby home.
Signs are everywhere, literally, with “F—k ICE” posters in car windows and messages telling federal agents to leave town draped across bridges.
“This is not sustainable. This is an impossible situation that our city is presently being put in, and at the same time we are trying to find a way to keep our people safe, to protect our neighbours, to maintain order,” Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said during an emergency news conference on Wednesday night.
“We cannot be at a place right now in America where we have two governmental agencies that are literally fighting one another.”
“Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace.”
Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’s vice-presidential running mate in her 2024 presidential bid against Trump, appealed to the public on social media.
“I know you’re angry. I’m angry. What Donald Trump wants is violence in the streets,” he wrote. “But Minnesota will remain an island of decency, of justice, of community, and of peace. Don’t give him what he wants.”
Joshua Lott / The Washington Post
Federal agents face off with protesters Wednesday after an ICE officer shot Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan migrant, in the leg in Minneapolis.
Trump responded hours later, threatening to invoke the Insurrection Act and send the U.S. military if “the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the patriots of ICE.”
A bad situation may only get worse.
“It’s because this state is so democratic, and Trump is Republican. It’s political fighting. He’s coming up with an excuse. He’s punishing Minnesota,” says the Uber driver. “Everything is political.”
Trump has already announced plans to cancel work authorizations for approximately 2,500 Somalis in Minnesota, which will make them eligible for deportation.
“They are hiding. They can’t go outside. I’m not sure what they do. There’s no solution,” the man says.
He has not been checked by ICE yet, but he expects it will happen soon. Knowing he should have nothing to fear offers little relief, as stories of law-abiding citizens caught in what appears to be a large, disorganized and, sometimes violent, sweep surface daily.
“Everything is political.”
“It’s completely unacceptable that law-abiding Minnesotans are being thrown to the ground, detained, pepper-sprayed and threatened,” Amy Klobuchar, a U.S. Senator from Minnesota, wrote on her X account Friday. Her post shared a story from the Minnesota Star-Tribune documenting dozens of examples of people caught in ICE’s crosshairs.
Robert Reich, a well-known political commentator and professor who served as the U.S. secretary of labor under president Bill Clinton from 1993 to 1997, said this is a clear-cut case of “authoritarianism” on display.
“Any one of us could be detained for hours by ICE despite being a U.S. citizen. Any one of us could be in the next apartment building that ICE raids in the middle of the night. Any one of us could be the next to be brutalized by ICE for speaking out,” he wrote on social media.
ADAM GRAY / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Federal immigration officers confront protesters outside Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building Thursday in Minneapolis.
All of which might explain why some prominent people with platforms, such as athletes, are opting to “stick to sports” and stay in their lanes.
The Free Press asked asked a couple Jets players Thursday if they had any comment on the situation in the city they were set to play a hockey game in. They respectfully declined, not wanting to get political.
Members of the Wild have seemingly taken a similar stance.
“What happened in Minnesota was straight up murder in my opinion,” Doc Rivers, the coach of the Milwaukee Bucks of the NBA, recently told reporters following a game.
“The whole ICE thing, it’s a travesty. We’re attacking brown people. What’s going on in our country right now is absolutely wrong.”
“What’s going on in our country right now is absolutely wrong.”
Regardless of political affiliation, the climate in Minnesota is hard to justify.
“If ICE goes home, we go home,” one protester, a middle-aged Caucasian man, told local media Thursday as he and many others paraded with signs through a Minneapolis neighbourhood.
“We try to take care of each other the best that we can. It’s cold. But you have to help each other out and make sure people aren’t just being kidnapped off of the street.”
Added another participant, an older Caucasian man who said he’s never protested anything in his life, but felt like he had to take a stand: “This is nuts. They tell you it’s only immigrants. It’s (expletive) anybody. I have friends who got detained and all they were doing is (expletive) driving home from work. What the (expletive)?”
ADAM GRAY / THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Law enforcement officers stand amid tear gas at the scene of a reported shooting Wednesday in Minneapolis.
Not surprisingly, his video clip quickly went viral.
“We’re all human beings here. I don’t give a s—t who you are, where you came from, what colour you are. It doesn’t (expletive) matter. This is wrong,” he said.
The Uber driver is trying to do his part, joining fellow Minnesotans in honking his horn repeatedly every time he drives through a neighbourhood where ICE is present.
“When they come around, people in the neighbourhood are, ‘beep-beep-beep’ with the horn. Letting everyone know they’re coming,” he says.
“So when I’m driving the Uber, every day I see them somewhere here in a neighbourhood. I make sure to honk the horn. ‘Beep-beep.’ But it’s very crazy here. Very crazy. So much harassment.”
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Mike McIntyre is a sports reporter whose primary role is covering the Winnipeg Jets. After graduating from the Creative Communications program at Red River College in 1995, he spent two years gaining experience at the Winnipeg Sun before joining the Free Press in 1997, where he served on the crime and justice beat until 2016. Read more about Mike.
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