Stepping up for ICE detainees who need winter coats

The call for help went out on social media: People were walking out of ICE detention in Minneapolis in subzero cold without coats.

Send coats.

An avalanche of outerwear poured in. Coats in every size and style. Men’s coats. Women’s coats. Cuddly puffer coats for the children being swept into ICE custody. At donation sites like American Pie Pizza in Richfield and Relish in Minneapolis, customers and staff navigated around bags stuffed with items. A new call went out: Thank you for the coats; please stop sending coats.

“We accidentally acquired every single coat in the state of Minnesota,” Sade Young said with a laugh, standing in a downtown Minneapolis storage space piled high with donations that she and a dozen friends were carefully sorting by size.

Young is a content creator, and until about a month ago, her Instagram was a joyful scroll of Twin Cities food, fashion and fun. Now, it’s more donation drives and scenes of grief.

“A couple of weeks ago, I was at Whipple, seeing if there was anything I could do,” said Rachel Gerdes, whose Instagram account now directs her 40,000 followers to Haven Watch and other mutual aid groups who are raising funds and supplies for people who are too afraid to leave their homes to shop, work or go to school.

Suddenly, she said, “They released someone in front of the Whipple Building in no winter clothes. It was freezing cold. She was just out in the cold.”

“I gave her what I had on me. My gloves, everything,” Gerdes said. “That’s when I realized there was this immense need for warm clothes. A safe ride home, but also a place to warm up, something to wear.”

So in between the protesters waving signs and chanting at ICE headquarters, groups of volunteers stand watch at Whipple. They never know when someone will be released, Gerdes said, so they wait, with piles of donated coats in the back seats of their cars.

The Minnesota Star Tribune asked representatives of ICE, the Department of Homeland Security and the White House whether people released from Whipple are offered a safe way home in subzero cold. The White House directed queries to DHS. None of the agencies replied.

Observers say they’ve seen people walk out of the barricaded building with injuries, with children and with tales of being whisked out of state, then returned without their belongings. Recently, Gerdes said, a woman and two children, ages 2 and 6, left Whipple without coats.

“These kids are traumatized. They’re out in the cold. They’re shaking, crying. They just went through something so horrible,” she said. “These kids that I was driving home last week had been detained in a facility with 8,000 people in Texas. Just horrible conditions.”

As satisfying as it can be to donate a warm winter coat or a bag full of groceries, most groups say that what they really need now is money. You don’t need warehouse space for Venmo donations or Visa gift cards.

But Young said all those warm coats will be put to good use at Whipple, at shelters and even in a few special deliveries she plans to make herself.

After her coat donation post went viral, a few who couldn’t afford a warm winter coat reached out, wondering if she had one to spare. Now those followers have Young as their own personal shopper.

“I’m going to make sure they get the best coat out of the bunch,” she said, “and they’re ready for the rest of the winter.”

For more information about Haven Watch, visit their Facebook page.