Minneapolis resident Naley Abdulle was driving across town when she heard over the phone that her brother had been arrested outside the family’s home Tuesday morning.
Her brother, Omar Abdulle, had just left the snow-covered walk to his car when authorities rushed in and apprehended him.
Omar, a father of two young children, is one of several Minnesotans detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) this week as part of an immigration crackdown, following a series of social media posts and public statements by President Donald Trump attacking the state’s Somali community.
Family members and immigrant advocates report a series of actions across the Twin Cities, with federal agents appearing outside homes, showing up in cars with Uber stickers, knocking on doors in the immigrant-dense Cedar-Riverside towers in Minneapolis, and targeting local Somali malls and a Latino day laborer spot.
On Wednesday, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey signed an order prohibiting federal and local agencies from staging civil immigration operations from city-owned lots, ramps or garages.
“City parking lots need to be used for City purposes, which do not include civil immigration enforcement,” Frey said in a news release. “There’s no place in our Minneapolis for fear-based tactics or operations that undermine community trust.”
About a dozen elected officials gathered at the Brian Coyle Center in Cedar-Riverside, a community center in a hub for East African communities, to mobilize efforts in responding to ICE arrests and show support for the Somali community.
“He [Trump] can start with us, but it will not end with us,” state Sen. Zaynab Mohamed said. “We are a nation of immigrants and of rights, but only if we are brave enough to defend it.”
She also said that ICE is not notifying elected officials of arrests ahead of time. An ICE spokesperson said Wednesday that the agency had no further comment.
Several speakers, including state Rep. Aisha Gomez, Rep. Mohamud Noor, Sen. Omar Fateh and Minneapolis Council Member Jamal Osman highlighted the chaos of the past few days, as multiple calls and social media posts report ICE officers in vehicles making seemingly random arrests — including stopping two Somali U.S. citizens Tuesday.
The total number of arrests over the past few days is still unclear, said Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) member Erika Zurawski told Sahan Journal that their organization has heard of at least five individuals arrested Monday and Tuesday.
MIRAC also shared a video of federal agents arresting a group of day laborers at a well-known Minneapolis spot on Wednesday.
Minneapolis elected officials also emphasized the importance of sharing information about protecting the rights of immigrants and documenting ICE enforcement activity. More information to inform immigrants of their rights is available in Somali at the link here.
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Amiin Harun, an immigration attorney in Minneapolis, said the increased ICE presence in the Twin Cities doesn’t have a clear target and seems to be about more than normal immigration enforcement.
Only about 4,200 of the more than 80,000 Somalis living in Minnesota are not U.S. citizens, according to U.S. Census Bureau data. Many of those 4,200 are green-card holders.
Harun said he has heard of ICE targeting Somalis with pending asylum or Temporary Protected Status applications, or without any legal status. Those with pending applications are known to ICE and usually are required to routinely check in with immigration officials. If the administration has decided to deny those people status, it would be easy to bring them in, Harun said.
“What’s happening in Minneapolis seems to be more creating fear and creating chaos,” Harun said.
Members of the Somali community are calling his office for advice, he said. People are afraid of going out to shop, eat and worship. He spoke with a man who was approached by ICE as he left his apartment building for work this week.
“They seem to be targeting anybody who looks to them to be a Somali person,” Harun said.
For the small number of Somalis living in the United States with a final order of removal, it’s unclear where they would be deported. Conditions in Somalia remain bleak, Harun said, and families fear that relatives could be deported to a third country where they have no ties.
On Wednesday, elected officials and Somali immigrants crowded in a room at the St. Cloud Public Library in a news conference to stand together against the ICE operation.
“We feel we are targeted unfairly,” said Abdi Ibrahim, director of programs at the Center for African Immigrants and Refugees Organization that serves many Somali Minnesotans in St. Cloud.
A neighborhood under lockdown
In an interview with Sahan Journal, Amano Dube, the director of Pillsbury United Communities’ Brian Coyle Center, which oversees multiple programs, said he had received reports that Tuesday night, ICE agents entered the C Building at Cedar-Riverside. They knocked on doors, but no one answered.
“This is not about catching illegals or criminals, but about targeting an entire community. Somali people are resilient; they will come back from this stronger than before,” Dube said.
An employee at a nearby Somali restaurant, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal, said ICE agents detained one person in the F building parking lot this morning, but after learning he was a U.S. citizen, he was released.
The employee also said that another person was arrested in the same parking lot last night around 11 p.m.
Dube said that in the past 48 hours, since ICE agents were spotted in Cedar-Riverside, the entire neighborhood has been under lockdown due to fear of being detained.
ICE agents went to Waite House Cafe in the Phillips neighborhood, where Pillsbury United Communities distributes food, and began hanging out in the building’s parking lot, he said. As a result, everyone fled, the building was closed, and all programs at that location were canceled.
“The truth is, ICE said they are looking for Somali illegals and criminals, but they are snatching everyone, whether they are Somali, Ethiopian, Eritrean, or Oromo, because they don’t know the difference,” he said.
Dube said community members are afraid to leave their homes and go about their daily routines.
He said his organization helps educate the community about their rights and also partners with Legal Aid to provide legal representation for individuals detained by ICE.
He said that in the past two days at the Brian Coyle Center, the doors were closed to prevent federal agents from entering.
Bump in immigration enforcement
At a Tuesday afternoon news conference, Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara said Minneapolis police received increased reports of federal immigration enforcement actions over the weekend and into the week.
One such incident came Monday evening near the Somali 24 Mall in south Minneapolis. There, Kali Mohamed was among many who witnessed multiple ICE agents arrest a Latino man from his car.
Mohamed, a policy aide for Council Member Jamal Osman, said he witnessed the ICE arrest as he was on his way with a friend to 24 Mall, which has lived near for nearly two decades.
“I’m here literally every single day,” Mohamed said of 24 Mall. “I came home from work and was just trying to grab a cup of tea.”
As they were walking to the 24 Mall entrance, Mohamed and his friend heard a commotion. Mohamed’s friend took out his phone and started filming.
The video starts right after the officers detained the man. Mohamed said the officers identified themselves as ICE agents doing immigration enforcement.
At the start of the video, a girl is heard crying for her dad. Two armed law enforcement officers are walking in the middle of the street next to an abandoned sedan with the driver’s door open. One of the masked officers shines a flashlight near the person filming the video. Later on, one of the officers is seen entering a black SUV with a displayed Uber sign on the windshield.
ICE detained the man as he was driving his kids home, which is just steps from 24 Mall. After they detained him, the agents left the man’s car idling in the middle of the street. Mohamed said a bystander later parked the car.
Mohamed and his friend went into the family’s home and tried to console the mother and children. One of the kids was a baby who wasn’t more than 4 or 5 months old, Mohamed said.
Mohamed ended up calling Council Member Jason Chavez, who came over, interpreted for the family and helped connect them to legal resources.
“We said, ‘If ICE comes back, don’t open the door,’” Mohamed said.
‘Stop taking people’
From her south Minneapolis home on Wednesday afternoon, Naley filled in the picture of her younger brother, who is now in detention at Freeborn County Jail in Albert Lea.
Naley lives with her husband and their seven children. After the arrest, she said her children were afraid to attend school or go to work. She worries about her brother, she said, especially because he needs medication for high blood sugar.
Omar has a pregnant wife and a 6-month-old baby in Rochester, but he sometimes stays with her in Minneapolis because of his job. “My brother is a good man,” she said, “He is a hard worker and he came here to find peace.”
“Please Donald Trump, stop taking people,” she said. “Stop taking human beings like you. We needed to save our lives, and that’s why we’re here.”
