Last election cycle Yolanda Roth was overprepared. The organization she was working with had prepared a crisis plan that they did not need to use. But this election, the situation is more grim. Roth, who now works for the Black liberation organization Black Visions, is worried about targeted violence on Election Day.
“I would say now the danger, it just is,” Roth said. “Now it just feels like you can touch it, you can smell it, you can taste it — it is just there.” Depending on the outcome of the election, and its consequences, Roth knows the Black community will be able to rely on the network of mutual aid organizations Black Visions is connected to.
As the days tick down to the November 5 election, those involved in Twin Cities mutual aid and legal aid groups say they are witnessing anxiety in their communities. Activists are preparing for the day after, regardless who wins the presidency, to fill in gaps in access to resources and services.
“We are seeing the same horror movie again,” said Pablo Tapia referring to Donald Trump’s first presidency. Tapia founded the faith-based group Asamblea de Derechos Civiles (ADDC) 20 years ago and had organized the immigrant Latino community under the Trump administration. Once again, he is witnessing anxiety among his peers.
“It is hard to organize people when they are under fear,” Tapia said. “But it is a window to organize more effectively once you bring down the panic; sometimes you can bring something good out of it, which is the courage of the people, who stand in solidarity with each other and try to fight back and win.”
Stepped-up classes, legal help
Ahead of the election, ADDC has stepped up its driver’s license for all classes. If the DFL loses its majority in the Minnesota Legislature, the program could be overturned. The organization is also hoping to pass a bill to curb rent gouging and other unfair practices at mobile home parks, where many immigrants find housing.
If Trump wins and enacts his threat of mass deportations, ADDC will rely on strategies activists used in 2016. Tapia wants to set up rapid response teams in case of deportations by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), reach out to white churches for support and keep telling the story of immigrant communities in Minnesota.
Legal aid groups and immigration attorneys say they are seeing an increase in calls about asylum cases, temporary protected status, refugee cases, DACA, family-based green card petitions and other immigration issues that could leave people vulnerable to deportation.
Abigail Wahl, attorney and owner of Puerta Grande Law Firm, said business has been brisk and she’s noticed that clients are more nervous when coming in for consults.
“That’s something that happens more frequently in election years,” she said. “Especially because people already lived through four years of one Trump administration. So there’s definitely anxiety about that.”
During the Trump administration, Wahl said processing time for immigration cases was delayed. Consulates and embassies abroad were also shut down, so a return to normal took longer than expected after President Joe Biden was elected.
It wasn’t until 2023 that case processing times returned to a pre-Trump norm, Wahl said. Because of that, she said she’s concerned about what immigration policies could look under a Kamala Harris presidency.
“I wouldn’t say that Harris is the most progressive person on immigration,” Wahl said. But she added, “as an immigration attorney, I would much rather practice under the Harris administration.”
Wahl said she was hopeful that the Biden administration would approve a TPS designation for Ecuadorians, but she feels Harris could be more open to granting or extending TPS, which could benefit immigrant communities.
Other local organizations also plan to push for a TPS designation for Ecuadorians, if Democrats return to the White House. Erika Zurawski, co-founder of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC), wants to put pressure on Biden in the months before he leaves office.
“The vast majority of immigrants that we’ve seen coming to Minnesota have been from Ecuador,” she said. “This is a Minnesota question, not just a national question.”
At the state level, Zuraswki said she has never been more frustrated than by the last legislative session, when the DFL had a trifecta in the House, Senate and governor’s office, but failed to pass the North Star Act. The bill aimed to make Minnesota a sanctuary state for immigrants and prevent police from cooperating with ICE on deportations. This is already the practice in Minneapolis and St. Paul.
“If Trump wins and they [DFLers] don’t hold the trifecta,” said Zurawski, “they are personally responsible for every single immigrant who gets deported from Minnesota in that Trump presidency.”
Post-election outreach sessions
At Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, managing attorney Danielle Hendrickson said her staff is gearing up for what comes next.
Until the outcome of the election is clear, her attorneys are reviewing cases, seeing which ones could be affected by a new administration and “trying to assess what moves and actions we should take” before January.
Hendrickson said clients still have time after the election to consult with an immigration attorney.
“The law of the land stays the law of the land until there’s that new administration. And so the election happens in November, but that new president is not actually sworn in until January, so any new policy changes cannot happen until after that new president is in place,” she said.
Even after the new president is sworn in, policy changes can take time, she said.
Wahl also said some of her clients have been put at ease after consults when she tells them that even under removal proceedings they do have legal defenses.
“I don’t think that people need to be hysterical about mass deportations. I do take Trump’s threats seriously, but I don’t think that they would be able to put that into effect,” she said.
Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid along with other immigration legal services providers have already scheduled post-election outreach sessions in the community, Hendrickson said.
During these sessions community members will be able to learn more about how the president-elect’s policies could impact them. Hendrickson said these sessions will start on November 13 and at least one will focus on immigration court.
But Zurawski says some changes since Trump’s presidency have made immigrants more vulnerable. More immigrants have entered the country through legal ports of entry and were processed at the borders. Some also benefited from programs like the humanitarian parole, promoted by the Biden administration. Zurawski said that has helped identify and map newly arrived immigrants, making deportation easier for a future Republican administration.
She condemns both parties’ anti-immigrant rhetoric, but will organize differently depending on who is elected.
“Under a Democratic presidency we try to be more proactive in terms of proposing certain legislation that could benefit people,” Zurawski said. “But under a Trump presidency, we’re always reacting to the next bad thing that happens.”
Impact on other vulnerable communities
Even if Minnesota stays blue, activists fear the impact of a Trump presidency on the local level. Sean Lim, an organizer based in the Twin Cities, notes that the current climate and housing crisis, as well as the war in Gaza, has been happening under a Democratic administration. However, a Trump presidency comes with its own dangers.
“The danger of a Republican presidency is a right-wing supreme court,” Lim said. “And the court could be coming out with decisions criminalizing homelessness.” Federal rulings could also enable local municipalities to crack down on protesters, he fears.
Rae Rowe, co-founder of the Paper Lantern Project, which advocates for gender and reproductive justice, worries about the access to resources and services for members of the Asian American and Pacific Islander community, and the impact on their mental health.
“When you consider reproductive justice through a Minnesota lens, we are a trans refugee state, but those rights are being removed from all of our surrounding states,” said Rowe. “And at the same time clinics are losing their funding.” No matter who wins the presidency, Rowe feels it’s urgent to organize.
Red states might also feel emboldened to crack down on trans rights, independent of the outcome of the election, noted Andrea Coleman, one of the members of Twin Cities Trans Mutual Aid. And in Minnesota, there will still be a need after the election to provide financial support to trans people and continue organizing.
Whatever the landscape, activists say they have resilient networks that will allow them to keep pushing for justice and looking out for each other.
Mutual aid is “inherently anti-fascist,” Lim said. “It’s anti-authoritarian, it’s abolitionist, it’s effective, it’s powerful, and it’s beautiful. It allows for us, as neighbors, to come together in the absence of the state doing its job.”
