Getting outdoors is more difficult for Minnesotans wary of ICE

When Nasrieen Habib started her hiking club in 2022, her goal was to teach Muslim women new skills and expose them to new experiences that the Minnesota outdoors could offer.

The barriers for her members are real, said the north Minneapolis resident. In addition to the difficulties of learning new activities from scratch and dealing with harsh weather, the women also contend with fears that their traditional clothing would attract unwanted attention.

“And now this,” she said recently of Operation Metro Surge and accounts of racial profiling by federal agents who have been sweeping up citizens and legal residents in their immigration enforcement.

Safety concerns for the members of the hiking club and her more expansive organization Amanah Rec Project — which encourages 1,000 members with Somali, African and Middle Eastern roots to recreate — has led to cancelations.

Weekly hikes, snow tubing and a community bonfire have been scuttled, Habib said. She is hoping to keep plans for a group trip to a popular Minneapolis winter festival in February.

Habib’s organizations are among several groups whose missions to diversify the outdoors in Minnesota has been complicated by the recent federal actions. Some are faced with a difficult question: How to encourage people of color to get outdoors when being outside carries new and grave risks.

Twin Cities members of Native Women Running might reconsider having a team in upcoming road races in the metro in March and into spring, group founder Verna Volker said.

Volker, who lives near Winona after residing for years in Minneapolis, has been in a group chat with 25 to 30 group members in the metro. Some of them ran in last October’s Twin Cities Marathon and were looking forward to 2026 and more Twin Cities events like Hot Dash in March and Get in Gear in April.

Volker and her runners are focused on May, too, when they put on a 5-kilometer fun run and walk at Bde Maka Ska in Minneapolis to coincide with the annual National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Now, some of the women are fearful of getting out in Minneapolis to train and take part in races, she said.

“You love running and getting together. You love community,” Volker added. “I’m mad about this.”

Brook LaFloe, who lives in the east metro, has been a runner and group helper for about three years.

Native Women Running has been a positive force, added LaFloe, 32, a member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa in North Dakota, showing “Native women are powerful and can do these things, too.”

Volker’s message to LaFloe and others is to look to their history for grounding.

“We have to hold onto our stories of our ancestors and what they went through,” Volker said. “How they were resilient. We can do this. We can’t be afraid.”

Karl Erickson estimates as many as 2,000 children lost out on experiencing ice-fishing over the last three weeks over school closures and changes.

Classrooms had signed up for multiple events for the 10,000 Ice Anglers Project, organized by Erickson and Ray Ruiz. The number in the name matches their goal: getting thousands of kids to put a fishing line through the ice.

“The kids that need it the most are getting it the least this year,” he said.

The organizers still hope to fish with elementary and middle-school students Feb. 3-4 in Annandale, south of St. Cloud. Erickson also has talked with metro area teachers about remote ice-fishing sessions to accommodate a shift to online learning.

About 4,000 children and adults participated in 23 events during last year’s 10,000 Ice Anglers campaign, supported by various nonprofits and law enforcement agencies. Now, reaching 10,000 youth is farther away.

“We’ll have to see,” Erickson said of disruptions to months-long planning and partnerships. “We’d love to heal everyone on the lake in 2027. We are going to need a lot more support.”

A group skiers and snowboarders with the nonprofit Melanin in Motion started a Jan. 18 outing to Afton Alps with some anxiety, said founder Anthony Taylor.

Once on the snowy bluffs near the St. Croix River, the vibe got back to the group’s aim when it began almost 10 years ago: introducing a new activity to people who don’t ordinarily have the means or support to take part.

The scene was joyful and light, Taylor said.

“For the people clearly being targeted, it was love and peace and hot chocolate,” he added.

Taylor is determined to stick with MIM’s weekly programming.

Still, MIM has had to adjust.

The sense of peace and self-discovery that happens on the slopes may never be more important than now for the people who count on MIM, said Taylor.

“Us showing up, skiing together, loving our kids is that,” he said. “Black bodies in motion is freedom and it has never meant more to me than now.”

For now, Habib’s focus is connection, too. She is encouraging members of the Amanah Rec Project to gather indoors — in the basement of her north Minneapolis home. As many as 50 people will show up. There have been game nights, co-work days and gatherings to pack meals to deliver to sheltering families.

“Winter is isolating,” she said, “and community is so important right now.”

The togetherness gives her hope, Habib said. Different recreation centers, Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board members, and even strangers have reached out, too, to check on her and her community. She said they feel seen in a new way.