It's Worse Than You Think And I Need Your Help

I can't believe this is happening. Again.

Aren’t our cities gorgeous? Too bad they’re currently under paramilitary occupation.

Friends. I wish I was returning from my unintended writing hiatus with a helpful how-to piece or an essay about what I’ve learned from four months of being an empty nester.

Someday, I’ll write you a quick, pithy article about how I trick myself into cleaning the kitchen before I go to bed. (I really do have a clever way to do this. A post for another time!)

But I live in Minnesota, so I don’t have the luxury of writing about things like that right now.

As you may have heard, last week in Minneapolis an ICE agent named Jonathan Ross shot a 37-year-old mother in the face three times as she tried to turn her minivan away from a crowd of ICE agents. Her name was Renee Good and her last words were “That’s fine, dude. I’m not mad at you.”

After he killed her, he called her a “fucking bitch.”

And if you can believe it, somehow things have gone downhill from there.

What’s happening right now in Minnesota

ICE kidnapped a 17-year-old U.S. citizen while he was working at Target. They abducted 4 Native Americans. They blocked in a car at a gas station near my house, broke the windows and pulled the man from his car. He was unconscious when they left - no update on how he is.

They intimidate and abduct legal observers who are following them and recording them - here they are pulling one from his car and kneeling on his neck. They are going door to door, presenting purposely misleading paperwork to gain entry. Observers have been detained, threatened, beaten, and offered bribes to share contact details of undocumented people or community organizers.

Scenes from the last week in the Twin Cities

They are running protesters’ license plates and then using their personal information to intimidate them. Many of the public schools are offering online learning options because students and parents are afraid to leave their homes. They shoved a man taking a photo of their van in front of an oncoming bus.

It seems never ending. More agents are on their way. They now outnumber Minneapolis and St. Paul police force. Yesterday, the president posted in all caps: “FEAR NOT, GREAT PEOPLE OF MINNESOTA, THE DAY OF RECKONING & RETRIBUTION IS COMING!”

Why hasn’t the national guard been deployed to protect us? When they were deployed to protect buildings owned by multi-national conglomerates five years ago? GREAT QUESTION.

What we’re doing and how you can help

Of course, it’s been lovely to see the outpouring of support and our community coming together. I’m glad that our attorney general has filed a lawsuit to block the deployment of more agents.

But things are awful and we need your help. If you’re reading this in New York or Brisbane or Derby, UK - Minnesota needs your help.

And if you’re here in the U.S. we’d love your help because, well, let’s not forget the “First They Came For” poem. If they can do this to us, they can (and will eventually) do it to you.

How you can help if you’re outside of Minnesota

• Keep sharing social media posts about what’s happening here.
  
  It’s already beginning to slip in the news. I’m currently in Arizona and 95% of people here aren’t aware that MSP is essentially under paramilitary occupation.
  
  Some social accounts from Minnesota you can follow: Women’s March Minnesota, Minnesota 50501, Indivisible Twin Cities.

• Tell your senators and reps they need to abolish ICE or at least dramatically cut their funding
  
  Here’s a call script from Jess Craven (a Substack I highly recommend!)
  
  Hi, I’m a constituent calling from [zip]. My name is ______.

First, I’m calling because I’m horrified by what ICE is doing right now in Minneapolis. The violence, lawlessness, and unconstitutionality of their actions is appalling. Even worse is Congress’s failure to do anything about it. You’re a co-equal branch of government. Act like it! Rein this lawless agency in! ICE needs to be defunded and abolished, Kristi Noem needs to be impeached, and the officer who executed Renee Good needs to be arrested and charged. Americans don’t want this and we won’t accept it. Make it stop now!

• Donate to one of the many local organizations that are supporting our immigrant neighbors right now.
  
  Unidos MN
  
  Minnesota Immigrant Action Rights Committee
  
  CAIR MN
  
  The Urban Village
  
  Here is a much longer roundup of all organizations you can choose from.
  

• Check in on your friends who live here
  
  I’m sure your friends who live in Minneapolis, St. Paul or any of the surrounding suburbs would appreciate it if you texted them. We are not okay.
  

• Boycott Target
  
  In addition to rolling back their DEI policies and scaling back their Pride merch, Target is allowing ICE to stage in their parking lots, abduct their employees and customers, and they’re refusing to meet with local leaders who want to talk to them about this. To add insult to injury, Target was founded and is based in Minnesota!!!

How you can (safely) help if you’re in Minnesota

With how ICE is treating legal observers and protestors, I understand that it can feel suuuuuper scary to make yourself vulnerable. I, too, would prefer not to be beaten and abducted by a group of armed, unidentified men!

The good news is there are many things we can do that are safe-ish.

• Call your elected officials every god damn day
  
  You can call after hours and leave a voice mail if you don’t like to talk on the phone! 5calls.org and Jess Craven have call scripts you can use.
  

• Shop and eat at immigrant-owned businesses
  
  If they’re open 🫠 Many of their usual customers aren’t comfortable shopping or dining out - they need your business! In St. Paul, we love Dragon Star Oriental Foods, Trieu Chao, and Bangkok Thai Deli.
  

• Volunteer with ICOM AID
  
  You can help families impacted by ICE with material support, delivering basic needs, or accompanying families to immigration court. Contact aid@mnicom.org.
  

• CTUL is seeking drivers to accompany their members to meetings, legal appointments, doctor visits and other urgent needs
  
  If you are willing to be part of a group chat where folks can find rides or to be on a call shift schedule to support your neighbors, contact tre@ctul.net
  

• Download Signal and join your neighborhood rapid response team
  
  Even if you’re not doing observation activities, there are other ways to be helpful.
  

• If you have an Airbnb or a rental, donate your space for temporary housing
  

• Be present at your local school’s pick up and drop off
  
  Because we currently live in a world where our federal agents are somewhat less likely to abduct children if there are lots of witnesses. V cool!!!!
  

• Invite your neighbors over for a potluck
  
  Strengthening those connections, making sure everyone has each other’s phone numbers, and having a good gauge on who you can turn to in an emergency is always a good idea.

Friends who’ve lived through something like this, I’d love to hear your suggestions in the comments. And I look forward to returning to regularly scheduled programming sooner rather than later!

P.S. Americans can be in the U.K. and Canada for up to 180 days without a visa and the EU for 90 days. If you’re under 30, Australia’s working holiday visa lets you stay for a year; New Zealand has a similar program. The D.A.F.T. visa to The Netherlands is great for self-employed folks or people with an online business. There are lots of countries that offer “digital nomad visas” that allow you to stay for 1 - 2 years.

If you’re the direct descendant of a Holocaust survivor, Germany, Austria, and Poland all have relatively “easy” routes to citizenship. Luxembourg also has an ancestry path to citizenship.