Brehm: Instead of striking, support Minneapolis by spending money there

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The porous nature of our borders during the Biden administration cannot be overstated. Millions of migrants flowed freely into this country — without background checks or legal status.

When Donald Trump took office, it was understood that deportations would be used to return many of these millions of new illegal migrants back to their home countries. Even Democratic presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama had no qualms doing the same during their terms in office. Humane and constitutional deportation has long been a part of U.S. immigration enforcement and an important tool to deter illegal border crossings. Americans need not apologize for protecting our sovereignty.

But Operation Metro Surge was an abomination. Conservative or liberal, no one should be comfortable with the inhumanity, lack of due process and federal overreach we witnessed here in Minnesota this winter. And hopefully Border Patrol commander Greg Bovino never steps foot in the state again unless to issue an apology.

I understand why so many of my friends and neighbors showed up last month to protest ICE’s overzealous Minnesota presence in sub-zero weather, and I have respect for those who did so legally, peacefully and respectfully, and without violence or vulgarity. They made a beautiful display of the power of the First Amendment.

But one strategy of dissent still doesn’t make much sense to me — the move to shut down businesses for two full Fridays in January. How did stifling our own already shaky local economy send a message to the Department of Homeland Security? My guess is Kristi Noem didn’t notice or care. But local businesses surely did.

Recently, I was talking with the owner of one of my favorite small businesses in Minneapolis — Mill City Running — who shared with me how the federal government’s draconian presence has hurt his bottom line and that of every other retail shop and restaurant in the neighborhood he knows. To me, the right response felt like buying something from his store and encouraging my friends and family to do the same, which I did. A good way to support our rattled community is for each of us to help replenish the commerce that’s been taken out of it this winter.

All of that got me thinking. Instead of more protests, shop closures, roadblocks and signs painted with profanities, how about dedicating a weekend in the Twin Cities this spring to supporting Minneapolis businesses? It could be a time when residents across the metro region make a conscious choice to shop, eat, meet and spend in the city.

If you live in the suburbs like me, try grocery shopping at Midtown Global Market that weekend. Take a date to a Linden Hills eatery. And enhance your wardrobe at a North Loop clothier rather than at one of the Dales. All of this would bring an infusion of needed dollars back to Minneapolis at the modest cost of simply changing up some Twin Citians’ routines for just a weekend.

The effort would help bring our Twin Cities community closer together, too. It would be good for Minneapolitans — some of whom tend to be politically intolerant — to acknowledge that, to thrive, the city’s economy needs participation from more than just its own population and those of the same progressive political persuasion. And how healthy it would be for those Minnesotans who have written off Minneapolis as a no-go zone to challenge their own mindsets, at least for a weekend, and re-engage with Minnesota’s largest city, which, like it or not, remains the economic engine of the region. Skeptics may just find, as I have, that in spite of its less-than-ideal political climate, Minneapolis is still a beautiful place.

A weekend centered on stimulating Minneapolis commerce would also refocus Minnesotans on a topic we have been too inattentive to in recent years: business. Without the lifeblood of a healthy free market economy, our cities cannot prosper at any level. And when our cities falter, the entire state suffers.

As Adam Platt, editor of Twin Cities Business, recently wrote: “Minnesota’s national reputation is in the toilet right now, unless you’re a leftist activist. We’re viewed as an unstable place to move, to invest, to take jobs, to raise a family … . Unless Minnesota can moderate its excesses, on both sides, this place is going to find itself in secular decline.”

With Operation Metro Surge winding down, now is not the time for more mid-workday marches. The moment is ripe instead for the serious work of restoring Minneapolis’ economic vibrancy. That will improve the lives of its residents far more than another strike.