The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE and Border Patrol, is using a broad web of surveillance tools to monitor, apprehend and intimidate the people it seeks to deport and the U.S. citizens critical of its policies. n.pr/4sig14N
The artists started “Landscapes of Grief,” a project to create altars where federal agents have killed or taken Minnesotans... Anyone is welcome to leave a written or audio offering sharing a memory or story “to honor what, and who, we’ve lost..." www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
Reported a story with Kat Lonsdorf and @jjoffeblock.bsky.social, laying out the ways in which ICE and DHS are using a broad set of tech tools to monitor, apprehend and intimidate both the people it seeks to deport and the U.S. citizens critical of its policies.
www.npr.org/2026/03/04/n...
The use of a chemical irritant by Greg Bovino is among 17 instances of “potential unlawful behavior” by federal agents in Minnesota currently being investigated for criminal charges, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said.
After a surge in December and January, ICE and Border Patrol have rapidly drawn down the number of federal agents, with fewer than 1,000 left in Minnesota, according to new court filings.
By Andrew Hazzard
"In Chicago, of 92 people arrested for assaulting or impeding officers last fall, 74 cases have resulted in no charges; in 13 cases, charges were filed and dismissed; and five charged cases were still pending. . . there have been no convictions.
www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
Dozens of people in the Twin Cities have been told by immigration agents they are commiting a federal crime by observing them. They're not.
www.npr.org/2026/02/18/n...
hello minnesota and beyond! thank you for your kind messages. it is very weird to be the news when you cover the news. i love this beautiful state and journalism, and i am hopeful for better days. but we will be forever changed bc of the last two months.
I'm pretty proud of this poem I made out of the euphemisms that companies used to describe the ICE occupation in corporate communications. Also read the whole story: racketmn.com/corporate-co...
“All along the way, the community has stepped up with our whistles, with our cell phones and with our bodies to defend our neighbors,” Communities United Against Police Brutality president Michelle Gross said.
“But what do we see from our public officials? They have utterly failed us.”
Super Bowl viewers Sunday speculated that 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos appeared in the halftime show. In fact, he has been in hiding with his family.
“He can’t sleep well at night. He wakes up three or four times a night screaming, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’” Liam's father Adrian Conejo Arias, said.
BONUS RULING: Judge Thomas Johnston, a George W. Bush appoiintee in West Virginia, used a recent ruling to warn of the dangers of defying due process for immigrants because of what it could also mean for Americans. It's worth a read.
storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Nine-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra, from Colombia, drew a portrait of herself and her mother wearing their detainee ID badges. A note on the side said, “I am not happy, please get me out of here.” www.propublica.org/article/life...
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so jumbled after a beating by immigration officers that he initially could not remember he had a daughter and still struggles to recall treasured moments like the night he taught her to dance. But the violence he endured last month in Minnesota while being detained is seared into his battered brain. He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again. He also remembers the emergency room and the intense pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.
ICE told nurses this Minneapolis man “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.”
What actually happened is that they pulled him from a car, beat him so viciously with a steel baton that he had 8 skull fractures, 5 life-threatening brain hemorrhages, and couldn’t remember he had a daughter.
One reason Minneapolis remains in the world's eye is we have one of the most robust & independent media ecosystems remaining in the country. You all need this...and more! @mprnews.org @startribune.com @sahanjournal.bsky.social @minnesotareformer.com @minnpost.bsky.social @racketmn.com etc.
Two Venezuelan men who were charged with assaulting a federal immigration agent in the north Minneapolis ICE shooting last month were re-detained after a judge ordered them to be released on Tuesday.
Heartstopping @ericmgarcia.bsky.social interview with Minneapolis detainee Aliya Rahman, an #autistic woman with a traumatic brain injury.
Gets to the heart of how so many people here get labeled 'agitator' or 'domestic terrorist' for something as benign as turning onto the wrong street.
“If I am killed doing this, throw my body at the White House, martyr the shit out of me & raise hell. Do not be sad. Do not think I would do anything differently. I would do it over & over again — this is too important to sit down & shut up and not do anything.” www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
Additional context: There were ~2,000 immigration agents in Minnesota when Renee Good was killed.
A few days after, they added an ~1,000 agents.
So, a 700 drawdown is a de-escalation from an escalation, and leaves the state with a higher amount of federal officers than the original surge number.
The testimony was harrowing; you can watch it all here
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UagE...
Martinez: "[I] sat in federal court and watched from 20 feet away as the border patrol agent who attempted to kill me testified at a hearing. Agent Charles Exum—Charles Exum, my attempted executioner was Charles Exum—I hope the government does not consider my use of his name here to be...doxxing."
I interviewed a man who ran out of his restaurant when ICE officers surrounded his wife, to show ICE their passports.
The officers told him: "Next time she should carry that all the time, because if she doesn't have proof of citizenship we're going to arrest her"
www.npr.org/2026/02/01/n...
"MPR News has learned that the police chief in the small southern Minnesota city of St. Peter intervened Thursday afternoon to prevent federal immigration agents from arresting a local resident" who had been observing federal agents. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
Did a ride along this week with Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.
It’s a bit unusual for us to do a story where we focus on one person, but the tension between local police and ICE is so central to what’s happening in the city, that it felt worth to sit with that.
www.npr.org/2026/01/31/n...
In Minneapolis, they are starting to *wear their passports at all times*
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/u...
Really enjoyed chatting with @geedee215.bsky.social about how crime is often used as a justification for many of the Trump administration's policies, including the ICE operation here in Minnesota, despite the fact that crime nationwide is at a historic low.
www.npr.org/2026/01/31/n...
As I said on NPR this morning, @mprnews.org Minnesota Public Radio has done a fantastic job all month—has it only been a month?—covering the hardest of stories and often informing the whole country through reports heard on NPR.
Breaking on MS NOW:
Career DOJ prosecutors in both Minnesota and Los Angeles refused to be involved in charging Don Lemon and the other journalists who covered the Minneapolis church protests.
The prosecutors believe the evidence does not support the charges, per @carolleonnig.bsky.social.
An asylum seeker pulled into his driveway. ICE agents broke his window, pulled him and his 2-year-old out, drove them away. In under eight hours, they were enroute to Texas, even though a judge had ordered ICE to return the child.
Crucial reporting by @mprnews.org
www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...
