IMMIGRATION
The border wall, DACA, the ‘Muslim ban’ and more: Biden starts to undo the Trump legacy on immigration
politics
A violent white mob and a Black woman vice president: In tumultuous two weeks, Twin Cities educators teach history in real time
With insurrection as one bookend and Biden inauguration as the other, teachers’ lessons are no longer just in books. They’re live on TV – and students have a lot to say about them
politics
‘I’m looking for unity’: Minnesota immigrants share hopes for new Biden administration on Inauguration Day.
New Americans look for new administration to help overcome COVID-19, end the Muslim ban, and control guns.
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Tentative contract agreement gives Minnesota home care workers a 15 percent raise.
Remembering Minnesotans lost to COVID-19
Brooklyn Park pastor who died of COVID-19 remembered as a caring mother and healthcare worker.
Grandchildren remember Elie Farhat as a quiet family man, former banker in Lebanon.
COVID-19 claims life of Hmong American leader and Secret War veteran.
Karen couple get rare, private naturalization ceremony in their St. Paul home.
Some Latino businesses in Minnesota call 2020 their worst year ever.
In an era of extraordinary tension, another challenge for state legislators of color: Personal security
The Biden administration is likely to reverse ‘public charge’ restrictions on aid to immigrants. Confusion over the rules will remain.
Even though a number of programs were exempt from limitations imposed by President Trump, immigrants worried about exposing themselves to deportation or other penalties.
Minneapolis teacher Mariam Mohamed thinks the emotional health of her students is more important this year than their multiplication tables.
The sixth-grade teacher and children’s author describes the challenges of moving school online: “The word that comes into my head when I think about this year—with COVID and teaching—is ‘struggle.’”
MSP Airport workers win $15-an-hour wage after four-year organizing fight
Employees who assist passengers and drive carts started as low as $7.25 a dozen years ago; 1,000 workers, including many immigrants, will receive new pay scale.
LATEST NEWS
The perfect COVID-19 restaurant is a tiny Mexican take-out kitchen in Minneapolis that provides real family meals twice a week.
As a teenager, Gustavo Romero crossed the border to the United States and started his journey in restaurants. With his own restaurant, Nixta, in Northeast Minneapolis, he’s looking back home.
Black protesters in Minneapolis have encountered tear gas, rubber bullets, and batons. White pro-Trump crowds took selfies with U.S. Capitol police.
‘We’re seen as the real threats to this nation’: Activists say being Black, Somali, and Muslim leads to hostile police response; white Trumpists don’t need to worry.
Vilified by Trump, Ilhan Omar turns the tables by filing new articles of impeachment after Trump supporters seize U.S. Capitol.
Trump has accused her of corruption and ‘hating’ America. But others in Congress are joining her in declaring that the president is the real danger to the country.
As a foreign correspondent, I watched Bosnia self-destruct based on toxic propaganda. I saw the same forces at work yesterday in Washington.
If you still believed in American exceptionalism, the assault on the U.S. Capitol was a jarring wakeup call. But as other divided nations learned long ago, this is what happens when politicians and media feed citizens a steady diet of lies.
‘I can’t believe this is happening to our country’: Minnesota immigrants watch with alarm as Trump insurrectionists attack U.S. Capitol.
They saw wars and coups in their home countries. America was supposed to be better than this, but immigrants see worrying similarities.
Minnesota media consultant, right-wing bloggers question Somali flag raising at Dolal Idd protest
Blois Olson, prominent local public relations strategist, later apologizes over gas station flag-protocol fuss.
Personal care assistants get $14 an hour in Minnesota to help people with disabilities. COVID-19 is making their jobs impossible.
Though 150,000 people are enrolled with the state as PCAs, only about 43,000 work in the field. A new state union contract could make the job competitive: ‘If McDonald’s is going to pay $15, they’re going to leave me,’ one caregiver/employer says.
‘Time to uproot systemic racism’: Case of Dolal Idd highlights disparities in fatal police shootings
Somali Americans live at the intersection of two criminalized identities, Black and Muslim, that often define their interactions with police.
Superfan and inventor of “Whacker Clapper” remembered for dedication to family—and sports.
John Castillo, most known for inventing a loud cheering device used at Timberwolves games, died of COVID-19 in September.
Police informant and dangerous gun bust led to fatal shooting of Dolal Idd, according to newly released search warrant.
Activists and legal experts question police conduct in the police stop and the late-night home raid that followed.
‘We will not wake up tomorrow and forget about this’: Minneapolis protesters demand answers about police killing of Dolal Idd
March is led by young people, who insist they will stay engaged in the issue because far too many young men and women are dying.
Bound wrists, crying kids, and an older man without a shirt: Politicians, activists condemn body-cam footage of sheriff’s raid on Somali family’s home.
After watching footage of the 2 a.m. raid in Eden Prairie, State Representative Hodan Hassan says, “I don’t see professionalism. I don’t see any respect for the family. I don’t see cultural sensitivity. And I don’t see compassion.”
Police raided the home of an older Somali couple, bound their wrists, and yelled at their small children. Then the police told them their son was shot dead.
Bayle Adod Gelle, a father of 11, described a harrowing police raid at the family home in Eden Prairie. It ended when officers informed him his 23-year-old son, Dolal Idd, had been fatally shot by police at a gas station in south Minneapolis.
Looking back at 2020: Read Sahan Journal’s best journalism about a tough year.
From COVID-19 to the killing of George Floyd, Sahan Journal’s reporters chronicled some of the biggest stories of 2020.
New Minnesota COVID-19 hotline for immigrants and refugees answers questions in 13 languages.
Launched by the Refugee Resettlement Network, the hotline offers guidance on health care, vaccines, food assistance, housing support. The new service joins other Minnesota COVID-19 hotlines for Latino, Karen, and African communities.
MORE STORIES
Power cannot be obtained through violence in Ethiopia. Now is the time for dialogue.
The refugee emergency in the Tigray region is the latest crisis on the road to reform. Ethiopians in Minnesota have a role to play in changing the country’s direction.
These doctors from immigrant families are some of the first Minnesotans to get a COVID-19 vaccine. Here’s what they want the rest of us to know.
Skeptical? Concerned about side effects? Prefer to wait a little longer? That’s how these doctors felt, too. Here’s why they got the vaccine anyway.
Death of Albasha Hume leaves void at St. Paul clinic and New Brighton Seventh Day Adventist community
Pastor and men’s health specialist Albasha Hume was remembered for destigmatizing men’s health issues.
Trump administration stymies immigrants with longer, more expensive citizenship test.
The new naturalization application doubles the test and raises the cost from $640 to $1,160. Two out of three lifelong Americans couldn’t pass the older, easier test.
St. Paul Public Schools data show the devastating effect of pandemic and distance learning on students of color.
More than 40 percent of grades registered for Hispanic, Black, and American Indian secondary students in the first quarter were F’s. Minneapolis data show a similar, but less extreme, trend.
A once-in-a-lifetime chance for Liberian immigrants has been “hamstrung” by COVID — and Trump’s dysfunctional immigration bureaucracy
Last year, Congress quietly passed a bill allowing thousands of Liberian immigrants to apply for green cards. But the Trump administration hardly made it easy, and now the application window is closing.
A Minneapolis cop told Somali American teens he was proud U.S. troops killed ‘you folk’ during Black Hawk Down. The police union fought to keep his job anyway.
The officer’s words—described as volatile, prejudiced, and horrific—remained a secret for five years. They highlight the Minneapolis Police Department’s troubled relationship with people of color, and especially the Somali community.
‘We need our own people to provide us with information:’ With COVID-19 hitting East St. Paul Somali community hard, a local nonprofit presses for awareness and testing.
Door-knocking campaign organized by Horn of Africa Community of USA leads to three days of testing this month at a neighborhood school.
Direct checks, grants, county aid programs and unemployment benefits: A guide to Minnesota’s new emergency COVID-19 package.
State officials see the program passed Monday as a stopgap measure until a new federal aid package is approved.
Nausheena Hussain cast one of Minnesota’s presidential votes for Biden. As she performed her electoral duty, she brought a special Qur’an and inspired her community.
Nausheena Hussain never really thought about the Electoral College, one of the stranger aspects of the American presidential elections, until 2016. This year, when the opportunity opened up, she decided to pursue it to learn more about the process—and show others how it works
