Dana Ferguson

There are many of them.

I think there are not as many of the folks who are just standing in their neighborhoods kind of patrolling, trying to make sure that if ICE officers come into their community, that they're letting neighbors know they're

blowing their whistles or honking their horns.

Recently, a lot of this has filtered.

It's still Minneapolis-St.

Paul, but it's also enforcement out in the suburbs.

It's enforcement out in smaller towns around the state.

So folks that really weren't prepared for some of this because it's Operation Metro Surge are seeing ICE officers come to rural gas stations, ask people to see their papers and scaring folks out of going to work or different things.

And I think I don't know that folks nationally can feel just the sense of stress and the sense of anxiety that we have on the ground.

I'm a white woman.

This hasn't probably impacted me in the same way that I have colleagues who actively are carrying their passports to work every day or not driving by themselves because they're worried about getting pulled over and detained.

So it's just a very ever-present thing on folks' minds that it just feels very abnormal right now.

And a lot of folks are just wondering, when is this going to end?

And we haven't heard anything yet from the Trump administration that suggests that they're going to go anytime soon.

Yeah.

And obviously, over the last two weeks, we've seen this surge to Minnesota.

But for folks who aren't from here, this has been going on.

It started at the beginning of December when the Trump administration said it was going to crack down on immigration and fraud issues here in Minnesota.

So this has been a long term thing.

The presence on the ground now is much less.