This Is America?
A parent’s account of fear, cruelty, and community under ICE in the Twin Cities
I’ve spent most of my adult life thinking about what security actually means. I often come back to the phrase “sense of security,” which really just means: I feel safe.
So, what happens when the institutions meant to keep us safe become a source of fear instead?
The piece below was written by a friend who lives in the Twin Cities—the same suburb I grew up in. She is a parent. A neighbor. A member of a community that, on paper, looks like it should be insulated from this kind of harm. It isn’t.
What she describes is not happening “somewhere else.” It is happening on school buses, in parking lots, outside kids’ lessons, and at kitchen tables where parents are trying to explain the unimaginable to their children.
I’m sharing her words because silence normalizes cruelty, and these days, often even worse.
Please read. And then decide what kind of country you’re willing to accept.
This note is for those of you not in a heavily ICE-patrolled area. This inhumanity and cruelty is actually happening.
Keep in mind that I live in a fairly high-resourced, predominantly white suburb of St. Paul, and this is still our reality now. School buses in our district are being followed by ICE, and there are nearby reports of school buses being boarded by ICE agents with guns while kids are on them.
So, I have to talk to my kids about what to do, what to document, and how to keep our friends and ourselves safe if this happens on their buses.
Regular people are being stopped in Target parking lots and demanded to show their passports. The other day, ICE profiled a brown man at our local Target who then pulled out his TSA ID. No joke. A federal employee. It’s pure racism.
Folks are cancelling needed medical appointments or keeping kids home from school out of fear. People will die. Kids will fall behind. Black and brown people are afraid to leave their houses, despite being citizens or permanent residents. They can’t make it to grocery stores without feeling unsafe, so we try to find community groups to deliver groceries and help out.
Community members—mamas, sisters, brothers, daddios—many U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents—are being taken and detained. This recently happened to a staff member’s wife at a nearby school. They have children. How do you explain a mom’s absence to your kids? How is kidnapping someone’s mother improving our community?
I have had conversations with my 11-year-old about what to record and document if he sees ICE approach anyone. I have described to him what our rights are. These are not conversations to have with an 11-year-old.
My 9-year-old’s tennis class was dismissed early tonight because it’s next to the federal building where ICE is headquartered, and there was fear for public safety.
I had to snuggle my 9-year-old to sleep tonight because she understands enough to know that things are very wrong right now.
Our teachers have to patrol parking lots at school dismissal to ensure kids are safe. Communities are arranging systems to walk kids—even high schoolers—home from bus stops or schools.
These actions create generational trauma. And this is still the beginning of this attack on our city.
It’s cruel and inhumane how people are being treated—pulling their pants down and dragging them along sidewalks, throwing them face-first into icy snow, or shooting them through a car window as they’re driving away.
No one feels safe.
Taxpayers are spending billions so good people can be harassed and taken from their families, and so kids can live in fear.
This is not okay.
This is a pledge for all of us to stand up strong for the democracy we believe in—where we appreciate the melting pot we are. Those of us who are privileged to have white skin: now is the time, if there ever was one. Show up for your neighbors.
We in the Twin Cities—we are one. They should know by now that acts of violence and humiliation against our people only fuel our unity.
If this unsettles you, it should.
Do not look away. Talk about it. Share this with people who believe this “can’t be happening here.” Support local mutual-aid groups, immigrant legal defense funds, and school communities doing the work to keep families safe. And demand accountability from anyone who claims this cruelty is necessary—or normal.
When Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said, “To ICE: get the fuck out of Minneapolis,” he echoed a sentiment that should be shared across this nation. It is up to us to make sure that clarion call rings everywhere.
No one should feel unsafe in everyday life in America. The color of your skin or the depth of your American ancestry should not factor into whether you can move through the world without fear.
Democracy does not defend itself.
We do.
Watch out for one another.
I am so mad I can barely process it, and this has been almost a year straight of it. My cardiac health is suffering; my doctor cautions me to “limit stress”… lol what? Thank you for sharing, and I will share this account.
They aren’t listening? Make them listen. In a capitalist society, moral arguments carry little weight. Bring the chaos to them. A general strike to shut the economy down even for a day - with the promise to repeat if nothing changes. This is your country, not Trump’s, not Miller’s. These are your streets. Your neighbours. They won’t listen until they have to listen. Remind them who makes the country run. Trump is replaceable. Miller is replaceable. Musk is replaceable. Bezos is replaceable. Zuckerberg is replaceable. But you, the citizens, are not replaceable. You are America. America is nothing without you. They’re not holding up their end of the bargain. They’re making your lives miserable, not better. They’re hoarding wealth. They’re cheating, lying, robbing, behaving like entitled brats while you’re working, paying your fair share, trying to do right by others, asking for no more than your fair share. You’re raising tomorrow’s Americans - and you’re paying a lot for it. It’s your data they’re selling. It’s your vote they’re buying. It’s your rent cheque, your mortgage, your taxes, etc. etc. It’s not communism; it’s not socialism to demand that your investment brings stability, security, freedom from worry, from hate, from undue suffering. It’s called a social contract. So shut it down. They are nothing without you. But you will carry on and keep carrying on long after they’re gone. Be like Bartleby the Scrivener. For one day say I prefer not to. Then say it again the following week. And again the week after that. I prefer not to.
Take your country back. You are too big to fail. The free world needs you.