Rural Minnesotans Stand Up to ICE

President Donald Trump inaugurated his government’s massive ICE operation targeting people of Somali descent in Minnesota in early December by calling the entire group of people, among other racist and xenophobic slurs, ​“garbage.”

In his tirade, Trump blamed the entire Somali-descended population in Minnesota, which includes about 80,000 residents across the state, for the actions of a few dozen people of Somali descent involved in a fraud scandal, much of which has already been adjudicated in court. He also echoed the erroneous claims of right-wing Internet commentators that stolen money was used to fund terrorism.

Not wasting any time, a clergy rapid response team gathered in a Minneapolis mosque the next day for an emergency press conference organized by statewide coalition ISAIAH. Rabbis, imams, and pastors from across the state gathered to collectively condemn the President’s hateful rhetoric and express solidarity with people of Somali descent in their state.

“No human being is garbage, Mr. President, and shame on you for saying so,” said Reverend Paul Graham, a pastor from rural Northfield, Minnesota, who was serving at St. Ansgar’s Lutheran Church in rural Cannon Falls, Minnesota, at the time. Hundreds of thousands of viewers watched a video of Graham’s speech after it was shared online and reposted by Senators Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker.

Graham told the Daily Yonder what troubled him most about Trump’s rhetoric: ​“as soon as leaders who have a lot of power start talking about a whole group of people as something less than human, that is a huge problem.” Not only does it dehumanize people, Graham said, but it authorizes and even emboldens political violence against them.

Indeed, since Trump’s ​“garbage” comment, his administration has unleashed thousands of ICE agents upon Minnesota, raiding homes, businesses, and workplaces across Minnesota and arresting over 3,000 people at the time of this publication, often violently and without legal reason or proper warrant.

While the hot spots remain in urban centers like Minneapolis and Saint Paul, the siege has spread to other parts of the state, including small towns like St. James, St. Peter, Detroit Lakes, Willmar, and Faribault.

Rural Minnesotans are not standing idly by. Faith leaders, community workers, and ordinary residents are coming together to protect their neighbors.

People of Somali descent are not new to Willmar, Minnesota, a town of 21,015 about two hours northwest of the Twin Cities. Somali refugees came to the town as early as the 1990s, according to Willmar Director of Community Growth Pablo Obregon, many resettling from the Twin Cities or other nearby towns. Obregon estimates that about 1,200 people of Somali descent currently live in Willmar.

And people of Somali descent are not the first immigrants to call Willmar their home. ​“Willmar has been an immigrant community for a hundred years at least,” Obregon said. 

Before the wave of immigration from East Africa, there was a wave of immigration from Hispanic countries. Before that, a wave of immigration from European countries like Norway and Sweden. 

No matter the country of origin, motivations for moving to Willmar have looked similar: job opportunities and the generally welcoming culture of the town.

Despite Trump’s baseless claim that people of Somali descent ​“aren’t people who work” or say “ ​‘let’s make this place great,’” Willmar’s Somali community has breathed new life into the town’s economy. 

Beyond contributing to the workforce at the local Jennie-O turkey plant, many have started their own businesses, turning a strip of shuttered storefronts in a downtown previously in decline into a vibrant business district some call ​“Little Mogadishu” due to the number of Somali-owned restaurants and grocery stores thriving next to long-established businesses in the community. 

“Many of our downtown businesses are now Somali-owned,” Obregon says, a story of resilience not only for the Somali business owners but also for the Willmar community as a whole. 

“They’re paying rent, they’re paying taxes, they’re complying with Minnesota and federal requirements. And that benefits the entire economy of Willmar,” Obregon said. Safe to say, people of Somali descent have done much to make Willmar great. 

For its part, Willmar strives to be a welcoming town for all residents. Obregon says there has been a sustained community effort to create stability and belonging for everyone in Willmar through equal access to wellness and health resources, children and youth programs, and leadership development opportunities. 

Despite their contributions to the community, people of Somali descent and other immigrant groups are under attack in Willmar as ICE presses into greater Minnesota.

Willmar lies within Kandiyohi County, one of eight counties in the state that has agreed to assist ICE’s escalated operations in the state and one of three with a longstanding agreement with immigration authorities to detain people in local jails.

Just in the last few weeks, ICE has abducted several people in Willmar. On January 12, ICE agents violently arrested a 19-year-old Somali high schooler in downtown Willmar, dragging her into an unmarked vehicle as residents shouted in protest and recorded on their phones. On January 14, ICE agents ate lunch at a Mexican restaurant in town, left, and returned later that day to arrest its owners and a dishwasher.

Those are the arrests that made headlines. Longtime resident Julie Vossen-Henslin says that ICE has arrested many others too: a Somali woman taken outside her apartment complex, a woman taken in the parking lot of the local Goodwill, a person taken from their car, left damaged and abandoned in a snowbank.

“It’s horrific,” Vossen-Henslin said. “[My neighbors are] being treated like animals.”

The effect on the community has been palpable. The day after the 19-year-old Somali woman was arrested, 90% of Somali students did not attend school. Even before then, hundreds of children in Willmar have been missing school since December for fear of ICE. 

“People don’t want to send their kids to school, or get out of their houses, or go grocery shopping, or to doctor appointments, or even to work,” Obregon said.

“And [it’s] not because they don’t have documents,” Obregon explained, as indeed the majority of people of Somali descent in Minnesota are U.S. citizens. Even citizenship has not proven to be enough for ICE, with agents arresting many U.S. citizens including a 20-year-old Somali-American citizen in Minneapolis last month. 

Vossen-Henslin said that many of her Black and brown neighbors are afraid to do simple things like walk to their cars, whether or not they are citizens.

“The fear, the anxiety, the uncertainty is present,” Obregon said. ​“And that affects the mental health of the families – children, parents – and affects the economic life of our community as well.”

With a cloud over the community, Willmar residents are trying to build cover for each other. 

Vossen-Henslin says that a group of Willmar residents – lawyers, church folks, and high-schoolers alike – have been working together to protect their neighbors, from watching and documenting ICE arrests in real time to picking up the pieces after an arrest, identifying abducted neighbors so they can alert their family members, return their cars and belongings, and care for the homes, pets, and children left behind.

Some residents are sending care packages to residents afraid to leave their homes to buy things like groceries and toiletries. Some have been sitting outside the local mosque almost everyday with orange whistles around their necks to alert the community if ICE agents show up. A 15-year-old resident has been checking in on classmates that have been missing school.

The community has also been protesting. After the fatal ICE shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis, Willmar residents held a candlelit vigil honoring Good and protesting ICE’s actions in the state. One local performed ​‘This Little Light of Mine’ on a harmonica. Another sang and played ​‘This Land is Your Land’ on his guitar. 

The day after the 19-year-old Somali woman was arrested, community members protested in downtown Willmar, holding signs with messages like ​“Jesus told us to love your neighbors, not deport them!” and ​“Stay warm, melt ice.” 

“We’re energized to help, but the heartbreak is deep,” Vossen-Henslin said. She worries about what will be left of Willmar if and when ICE leaves the town: the experience has left scars that she doesn’t see going away anytime soon. ​“People are going to need help if this ever ends,” she said.

Still, the community is not relenting. ​“We are not letting [our Somali neighbors] walk alone during these challenging times,” said Obregon. ​“We are in solidarity with them. We work with them in their successes and we tell the stories about their successes. And these days, we are also working with them in their challenges. They are not alone.”

Pastor Graham is also standing in solidarity with fellow Minnesotans faced with ICE attacks, living up to his words in his viral speech last December. 

The key, he says: ​“sustained, local, strategic efforts.”

These efforts started long before Trump ever uttered the word ​“garbage” about people of Somali descent in Minnesota. 

Since the dawn of the second Trump administration, Graham has been a part of a network of faith leaders from urban and rural parts of the state organizing through ISAIAH to resist Trump’s immigration policies. In October, hundreds of Minnesota faith leaders held a prayer vigil as Kristi Noem held a press conference at the Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis. 

“Many pastors and faith communities are saying, ​‘we know this is wrong,’” Graham said.

To Graham, this kind of community action is important because, as he put it, ​“once that kind of power starts being taken, as we’ve seen with the current administration, they don’t give it back voluntarily. It’s got to be people that rise up and say, ​‘we’re going to use our democracy and put a stop to this nonsense.’”

Graham is not naive to the fact that things look grim in the state. But instead of falling into despair, Graham is falling into community. 

At the end of December, Graham and other rural pastors visited an Islamic Center in Faribault, meeting with Somali faith leaders to express their support for the community during this difficult time.

The greater Faribault community is standing in solidarity with their Somali neighbors, too. As ICE has deployed more and more agents into urban and rural parts of the state in recent weeks, community members in Faribault have started taking to the streets. 

Over 100 students walked out of Faribault High School on January 12 in protest of ICE’s actions in Minnesota. Days prior, residents held a protest on a busy downtown street corner with signs reading ​“I love my immigrant neighbor” and ​“Together we stand strong.”

“We are all interconnected,” said Graham. ​“We’re all brothers and sisters. What’s happening to Somali people is happening to my brothers and sisters.”

Bringing it back to his faith, Graham said, ​“It’s not overly complicated. Jesus said, ​‘love your neighbor.’”