As federal enforcement reshapes daily life in Minneapolis, The Fulcrum is publishing a firsthand account from Luke DeBoer, a South Minneapolis resident, offering a distinct vantage point on how national policy decisions reverberate through local communities.
I live in South Minneapolis.
Given recent events, I know a lot of you are trying to make sense of everything you're seeing on the news and social media.So, I want to take a moment to share about what it’s been like here, from the perspective of my daily life. Please settle in for a long, but important read. I want to add, I know that in our online and increasingly AI-filled world, it's hard to tell fact from fiction. In this post, I've tried to write only about things I can verify with at least one credible source (video or article) or have experienced first-hand. Where possible, I've included footnotes with video links in a Google Doc – I encourage you to watch these videos if you have time, as they add important context. You can (as always) reach your own conclusions.
The atmosphere here in the Twin Cities is... very tense. To say the least. When I ask people how they are feeling, the two words I keep hearing are: “Scary” and “Surreal.”
The presence of federal agents in our city is now just an unavoidable reality. Federal agents in the city now outnumber our local police force nearly 5-to-1.
Public schools were closed last week, after ICE conducted a raid while parents were picking up kids from school. Chemical agents were deployed on bystanders, including students, and several school staff were taken by ICE. While most schools are open again, most have added remote learning optional – others have still gone into lockdown mode due to ICE activity on or near school grounds. Classroom attendance across the district has dropped sharply (25-50%), especially for minority students who are afraid they or their parents will be targeted.
Everyone is just a little bit “on edge” when in public spaces.
If you go to Target or Walmart, you may see federal agents in the parking lots. You can often recognize them as groups of men wearing masks and carrying guns. Often, they are in trucks or SUVs, but sometimes they are spotted in more everyday vehicles like Honda Civics. Some have been seen in vans that look almost identical to Amazon delivery vans (only without the logo).Sometimes they will just be sitting in cars, watching people. Other times, they will wander around parking lots questioning people (mostly non-white people), asking to see papers to prove you are a US citizen.
Gas stations are another popular spot for stops, since people are forced to be outside their vehicles to pump gas. On Friday, federal agents tackled two young Hispanic Target employees while they were working at the Richfield store (one I shop at regularly). The young men were filming and making rude comments to the agents when suddenly the agents lunge at them and pin them to the ground. As this happens, you can hear the young men pleading repeatedly: "We're U.S. citizens," and "we work here". Bystanders are distressed, demanding to see a warrant. The agents ignore these pleas, handcuff the men, and load them into an unmarked SUV.
One of the young men was later found bloodied and shaken, dumped in a Walmart parking lot miles away. When a bystander approaches him and asks if he is okay, he says “no I’m not okay” and begins sobbing uncontrollably. He is a 17-year-old US citizen.
I encourage you to watch these videos. ]In another video, federal agents used a battering ram to break down a family's front door and arrested a man, despite having no warrant. A judge later ruled this was a clear violation of the 4th ammendment.
A 20-year-old US citizen was violently arrested with no warning after stepping outside for a lunch break. When he insisted he was a US citizen and that he had the ID to prove it, the officers said "That doesn't matter" and arrested him anyway. He was brought into custody, put in ankle shackles, and told he would be deported. He was forced to submit to a face scan and fingerprinting. He begged them to let them show his ID, and finally one guard allowed him to. He was later released.
The economic cost to Minneapolis has also been severe. Many businesses like restaurants, day cares, construction and roofing companies, house cleaning services, and other businesses that rely heavily on immigrant labor are unable to operate normally, causing lots of shortages and disruptions to businesses.
Many immigrants, even those who are legally documented, are afraid to leave their houses or go to work. Sherri from my co-working space works in home remodeling. She told me she went to a house recently to check if an appliance had been delivered, and she found one of the contractors hiding in a closet, trembling. He was afraid she was ICE. He couldn’t speak much English, but kept patting his chest and saying “heart hurts”, “heart hurts”.
The Minneapolis Police Department cannot keep up with calls, and has reported many instances of ICE agents breaking local laws and creating public safety risks. For example, ICE will apprehend people from their cars and take them away, leaving abandoned vehicles parked in the road, still running. In one instance, they actually left a car in drive after taking the owner, letting the vehicle roll down the road unattended. Other times, they take people from cars, leaving pets or children crying in the backseat… again, unattended.
Many people have also reported ICE damaging their property with no consequences -- ramming vehicles with their trucks, breaking car windows, and firing rubber bullets out of cars.
The aggressive, escalatory, and sometimes illegal manner in which ICE is operating is deeply concerning to many, to be sure. But what has been equally disturbing to me are some of the things ICE agents have been saying to Minneapolis residents.
A few examples: A pastor was peacefully protesting when ICE agents pepper-sprayed him and detained him in their car. After intimidating him, they eventually let him go, since he is a US citizen. As they released him, an agent said to him: "You're white anyway. You wouldn't be any fun."
In one video captured by a resident from their window, an ICE officer and a local man can be seen in a verbal argument in the street. The ICE officer can be heard saying: "I'll shoot you in front of your goddamn house."
An Uber driver who was surrounded by ICE agents asked why he was being interrogated. The agent replied (tellingly): "Because you have a different accent than me."
My acquaintance Patty was detained by ICE while legally observing. She was handcuffed and put into their SUV. She recounts that the officer told her: “You need to stop obstructing us, haven’t you learned your lesson yet? That’s why that lesbian b*tch is dead.” (referring to Renee Good). Patty also reported in a video interview with CBS that while in detention, ICE offered a bribe to her friend Brandon, saying they would grant US legal status to any undocumented family member in his life if he would share names of any undocumented people he knows or the names of the people organizing protests.
The youth group leader at my church told me that his friend in St. Paul said ICE agents were going door-to-door interrogating residents, asking “do any asian people live in your neighborhood,” and if so, to point out which houses. (Verified this claim in New Republic article.
ICE tracks license plates of people attending anti-ICE demonstrations or who are attempting to film them and will use the license plate data to look up where they live and then loiter outside their homes to intimidate them.
Of course, these are not representative of every interaction people have with ICE, to be sure. But they reveal an important pattern we are seeing…. There is a kind of moral emptiness – an inhumanity – behind this operation that is unlike anything I have seen before from law enforcement. There is a “might makes right” approach to enforcement, and a “guilty until proven innocent” application of law that is very troubling… to say the least. And it’s deeply scary. It’s scary because many people here feel these officers are untrained, aggressive recruits who have demonstrated over and over again that they are NOT operating with the safety of our community in mind. Rather, their goal seems to be inflicting a level of intimidation and trauma on people, simply because they have the power to.
I should also note: this is scary and dangerous for the agents themselves, who are also put in almost impossible situations. They are asked to go into tense, hostile scenes without proper training for civilian engagement. Additionally, these agents are under pressure to hit daily arrest quotas, causing them to move hastily and without time for proper de-escalation. (This is part of the reason many states ban police from using arrest quotas). Additionally, the systems of accountability you would expect from traditional law enforcement agencies that interact so heavily with civilian populations is also missing. Unlike police, these ICE agents are often masked, can carry rifles, and do not always wear body cameras. When a contentious incident happens, there is no external review system for officer misconduct, such as might be found in local police department with civilian “use of force” boards. And there is no video footage unless bystanders are recording it. Instead, their agency is walled off from any meaningful civilian oversight.
Minnesota’s requests for oversight and accountability have been denied.
For instance: The FBI is refusing to share evidence with state inspectors into the shooting of Reene Good, limiting our state from performing a proper investigation into the killing of its own citizen.
Minnesota state lawmakers went to an ICE detention facility to ask to inspect the facility where people are being taken by ICE. They have the legal right to inspect the facilities under law. They were denied access.
Our mayors, state representatives, and governor have all asked the federal government to withdraw or reduce ICE presence. In response, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem announced they would be sending 1000 more agents to Minneapolis - scaling up the already largest DHS operation in history to unprecedented levels.
On Tuesday morning, President Donald Trump posted about Minnesota: "THE DAY OF RECKONING AND RETRIBUTION IS COMING!"
This morning, he said he is considering invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy the US military into the streets of Minneapolis, an act not done in the US against the will of a state's Governor since 1965. He has since slightly backed down from this threat. DHS continues to insist that it is going after only "the worst criminals to keep our community safe." However, DHS’s own data shows that 73% of people detained by ICE nationally have NO criminal convictions at all, and only 5% have violent convictions.
In addition to this data, Minneapolis residents have already witnessed with our eyes over and over, our neighbors and friends being taken, questioned, and threatened -- these are people we KNOW are not "the worst of the worst"... in fact, many of them are some of the best of us. They are the family that owns our favorite local taqueria, members of our congregations at church, contractors and construction workers, bus drivers, nannies to our families, and kind, peaceful, and productive members of society.
Lastly, I want to end by sharing a story from last night: I am a youth group leader at my church, and last night during our group sharing time, we asked students how they were doing. Every single one of these 20 kids was struggling. Many looked on the verge of tears. And truthfully, all of us leaders were too. Students shared about how this is affecting their lives. One girl shared that her science class, which normally has 30-36 students in class only has about 10 students now. Another shared that her high school is located in a complex that shares common hallways with other public areas downtown and that it “makes her sad and scared to have to walk past masked men with guns to get to class”.
We reflected on how, in some ways, life was so “normal”... all the same things as a normal day. Breakfast, school, work. But then you notice how different things feel in the small ways: “NO ICE OR CBP PERMITTED” signs on business doors, whistles piercing the air from time to time, parents volunteering for shifts of “ICE watch duty” at school or daycare to protect the kids they are responsible for. Staff meetings before church events to rehearse the plan if ICE agents show up to church. Passing empty cars stopped in the road, windows smashed, still running -- a crowd of people gathered around. People walking around with numbers Sharpied on their arms (phone numbers of emergency contacts in case they are detained). It’s strange how life can feel so “normal” and so “not normal” all at the same time… Nearly every student expressed confusion about why this is happening.
- “What is the point of all this?”
- “How is this making us safer?”
- “Aren’t we technically all immigrants in this country?”
- “Isn't the government supposed to be protecting us, not threatening us?”
- “Why won’t they leave?”
One of our students, who is an immigrant (US citizen with a passport) shared that he is afraid every time he leaves the house. Later that night, his mom told me that he has a neckstrap passport holder and that he wears it around his neck everywhere he goes now. “Like a trendy necklace,” she joked, trying to laugh off the tension. But I could see the heartbreak in her eyes... Both she and her black, immigrant son knew full well why this was necessary in today’s America.
---Thank you for taking the time to read about what's happening in a state that's not your own. I'm not an expert; I'm just a regular person trying to share what life is like here now. If you are a person of faith, please pray for Minneapolis right now. Pray that we would know how to stand with wisdom, love, truth, justice, and solidarity with our neighbors and the way of Jesus. Pray for us to have leaders who will call us toward these virtues.
If you feel grief or anger over this version of America our leaders are attempting to normalize, make your voice heard – call your representatives (5calls.org) and vote in November. And if you do not want this to become the story of your city, make your voice heard now. Because if you wait until this arrives in your town... it is already too late.
Luke's message was posted on Facebook, you can read it HERE. It includes the videos he mentions, pictures, and other attribution to his testimony.
Luke DeBoer is a South Minneapolis resident and the founder of SetHero, a software company serving the film and television production industry. His work sits at the intersection of technology, media, and civic life, with a focus on how national policy decisions show up in real communities.
