Earlier in the day, this community room was smudged with burnt sage. Marcella Torrez says the act clears out negativity, leaving only goodness here.
In this Indigenous art gallery-turned-donation site, heaps of hand warmers and water bottles tower around her. Legal observers monitoring federal agents on the frigid streets of Minneapolis, as well as other community members who need a boost, are welcome to partake.
For walk-ins, there’s a kettle of wild rice soup.
Why We Wrote This
Support for tribal members has surged among residents of the Twin Cities, as Native Americans – legal citizens if born in the U.S. – allege incidents of targeting during ICE deportation raids.
During an immigration enforcement surge in the Twin Cities, Ms. Torrez says she has carried her ID from the Red Lake Nation in case of mistaken arrest. While she supports targeting foreigners in the United States who commit fraud, she also thinks the Trump administration is “using that as a cover-up, because they just want all the immigrants out.” Meanwhile, U.S. citizens like her are afraid of being stopped and detained, mistaken for immigrants unlawfully here.
All Native Americans born in the United States are American citizens. Congress ensured their birthright citizenship through a law enacted in 1924. Yet allegations from tribal leaders and community members of the targeting and arrest of Native Americans by federal immigration law enforcement – accusations echoed in several states – have amplified fears of racial profiling. Those concerns have made some hesitant to leave their homes, advocates say, while prompting a surge in community support, such as donations and neighborhood patrols.
In Minnesota, people of Indigenous descent have joined health care workers, clergy, local law enforcement, teachers, students, and postal workers in protesting the federal forces. Outrage escalated over the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal law enforcement.
Operation Metro Surge, which deployed some 3,000 federal agents since December, is now winding down, according to the Trump administration. Border czar Tom Homan has said that a smaller security force will temporarily remain.
Yet Native American activism will continue, locals say. “We will be there till the end,” notes Ms. Torrez, who works for the nonprofit Native American Community Development Institute.
Out on patrol
Beneath the icy sidewalks of South Minneapolis lies the homeland of the Dakota people. They ceded their territory to the U.S. government during the 1800s – a move scholars say was coerced. A century later, a federal program uprooted Native American families, who were given modest funds to leave tribal land and live in cities including Minneapolis. By the late 1960s, the American Indian Movement was born here to advocate for community members, denouncing racial profiling and other alleged aggression by police.
Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor
In 2020, protests over the murder of George Floyd by a local police officer here shook the city, turning violent at times. Native activists convened patrols to “prevent anybody from behaving badly by burning down buildings, breaking in, looting,” says Robert Rice, who’s owned Pow Wow Grounds, a Minneapolis coffee shop, since 2011.
“We’ve spent years building this community up, and we didn’t want any of our buildings destroyed,” says Mr. Rice. More than 35,000 Native Americans are estimated to live in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area.
While some businesses boarded up windows in 2020, Pow Wow Grounds stayed open. And during the current unrest, the café has again extended its hours, serving as a gathering spot for the Native American community. As of early February, he reported having served some 300 gallons of free soup.
“I’m just here to make sure people are fed,” says Mr. Rice, an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation. “I’m just a spoke on this wheel. And the wheel is the community.”
Patrols that began during the American Indian Movement have revived. Khaloni Freemont, an enrolled member of the Omaha Tribe of Nebraska, says she’s a fourth-generation AIM Patrol participant, now part of a group keeping watch for federal agents around businesses and schools.
“We try our best just to make sure everybody’s safe,” she says, standing outside the coffee shop with her red beret.
Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor
The 2020 riots made Vin Dionne, of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, realize how “disconnected we were,” he says.
“We used to be split up … and we would all fight and hate each other,” says the co-founder of the Indigenous Protector Movement. But amid the unrest six years ago, “we all came together in a greater purpose … as protectors and guardians of the community.”
As fellow patrollers reunite now, says Mr. Dionne, “We’re fighting with whistles.” That sound has signaled the presence of federal agents.
Local businesses are taking other precautions. Since the fatal shooting of Renee Good by a federal immigration officer on Jan. 7, Pow Wow Grounds has kept its door locked, even during business hours.
“We’re not going to allow ICE in our building,” says Mr. Rice, at least not without a warrant signed by a judge. Since last year, however, Immigration and Customs Enforcement has told some officers that those judicial warrants – long considered a constitutional protection – aren’t needed for forcibly entering homes, The Associated Press recently reported.
Fear of racial profiling by immigration officers has been rampant in the Twin Cities, including among Somali Americans who say they’ve been wrongfully detained. The concern about immigration enforcement extends nationwide, too, with many Americans carrying their U.S. passports when they leave the house.
Federal officials deny claims of racial profiling, saying some arrests result from people obstructing operations. The Supreme Court, in an emergency order last year, affirmed that characteristics like ethnicity, combined with other factors, could justify investigative stops.
“Our agents are properly trained to determine alienage and removability,” said Homeland Security Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin in a statement. “If and when we do encounter individuals subject to arrest, our law enforcement is trained to ask a series of well-determined questions.”
Still, fear of arrest has been leading Native locals to new precautions – like applying for tribal IDs.
Carrying tribal identification
One block east of the café, the Minneapolis American Indian Center also keeps its front door locked. Brian Joyce points out cameras throughout the community center and outside.
“Everybody who wants to come in, we take a look at them first,” says Mr. Joyce, a program director at the center and an enrolled member of the White Earth Nation. “We have reports of people getting kidnapped off the street, pulled into vans, harassed.”
Vicki Alberts, a Spirit Lake Tribe spokesperson, drove down from North Dakota last month to help people apply for tribal IDs. By the end of January, she said more than 80 ID applications had been collected. More than 600 Spirit Lake tribal members live in Minnesota.
“Our tribal nations and leaders are doing their best to help put their tribal members at ease, because it’s a really unprecedented time,” she says.
One day in January, Idalis Shaw, a warehouse worker, sits for his ID photo. Brown people like him are intimidated to go to the corner store, he says. “You’re scared a car is going to pull up in front of you, and masked men with guns are going to point them at you, and detain you.”
Sarah Matusek/The Christian Science Monitor
No federal law requires U.S. citizens to carry identification at all times. While IDs issued by sovereign tribal nations don’t always signify U.S. citizenship, they “should be enough” to rebut suspicion that the cardholder is here unlawfully, says Beth Margaret Wright, a senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, which provides legal assistance to Native Americans nationwide.
She recommends carrying identification and that tribal nations consult directly with the Department of Homeland Security, which includes ICE. Some tribal nations are already in those consultations, explaining what those cards look like and how they’re valid federal IDs, she adds.
Indigenous actor Elaine Miles told reporters last year that an ICE official in a Seattle suburb had called her ID “fake,” though it was issued by the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation in Oregon. Ms. McLaughlin of DHS says Ms. Miles wasn’t arrested while ICE encountered her during a targeted traffic stop, and said the claim that ICE questioned the tribal ID is false.
DHS also has “not been able to verify” claims of its law enforcement arresting or encountering members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, says Ms. McLaughlin. The tribal nation had amplified claims that some of its members were detained during the Minnesota surge.
President Donald Trump, in recent months, appeared to condition support for a tribe, at least in part, on its embrace of immigration enforcement. Mr. Trump, in December, vetoed a bill that would expand a reserved area for the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians of Florida and said the tribe had “sought to obstruct reasonable immigration policies.”
The tribe has protested “Alligator Alcatraz” – a controversial immigrant detention site in Florida – and joined a lawsuit against the state and federal government alleging a lack of environmental review for the site.
“People always come out for each other”
Back at the gallery, Zach Pint walks in with packages of toilet paper and boxed pasta. He says his 10-year-old son proudly bagged up the donations. A tech worker from south of Minneapolis who is not Native American, Mr. Pint says he was moved to help people he considers targeted by the “police state we’re living in.” In Minnesota, he says, “People always come out for each other.”
He hands off the goods to a smiling Ms. Torrez, who adds them to a pile. Outside, more locals with Indigenous roots stand around a fire pit. Smoke singes the ice-cold air.
“We’ve been fighting immigration since 1400,” one man says.
Victoria Hoffmann contributed research from Boston.
