With ICE surge spreading across state, rumors and anxiety grow in greater Minnesota

ROCHESTER – Wilber De La Rosa’s sales started dropping two weeks ago.

The Guatemalan native had opened a storefront last June to sell roasted chicken, tortillas made from locally sourced corn and other local goods.

But the threat of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Minnesota spooked many of the restaurants, grocers and other Latino-run businesses that are his customers. Some of those businesses shut down in Rochester over the weekend as ICE agents swept through Minnesota’s third-largest city.

“Our community is in crisis. We are in an emergency,” De La Rosa said. “This is like COVID with no government support.”

Department of Homeland Security officials did not respond to requests for information about ICE operations in Minnesota, but from Alexandria to Rochester, reports of ICE and Border Patrol activity have escalated. People have been detained from gas stations, outside stores and cafes and alongside roads in many greater Minnesota communities.

Many of the reports of immigration activity zipping through social media are difficult to confirm, but they are increasing anxiety in pockets big and small across the state.

On Monday, Jan. 12, in St. Cloud, after reports spread on social media that someone was detained outside a cafe at a Somali mall, hundreds of people descended on the location, with some blocking ICE vehicles in the parking lot. That, in turn, prompted upward of 50 federal agents to the scene.

“It’s a stressful moment, a really intense confrontation. It’s a reasonable response when you see this in your neighborhood,” said Minnesota state Sen. Aric Putnam, a Democrat, who at times placed himself between the crowd and federal agents on Monday.

In Mankato, an ICE contingent was spotted along busy Madison Avenue, near the exit for a Walmart and Sam’s Club on Saturday, and another group of ICE agents were spotted at a house near Mankato East High School. On Monday afternoon, two young women were sprayed with a chemical irritant by a uniformed man, according to video posted online.

In Alexandria on Saturday afternoon, multiple audience members attending a political rally for U.S. Senate candidate and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan received phone notifications calling them to be legal observers as ICE engaged in enforcement activity nearby.

“On the drive up here, we saw ICE agents that had pulled some folks over,” Flanagan said in a video posted to Instagram. “ICE was at a local restaurant and also at a construction site. This is not just happening in the Twin Cities. It’s happening across Minnesota, and it’s not okay.”

In west-central Minnesota, video showed a chaotic scene just outside the Kandiyohi County Office Building on Monday, in downtown Willmar, a town of 22,000 with a significant immigrant population.

The woman filming the video prayed directly in the face of an ICE agent: “Dios Santo,” she said — or “Holy God.”

State Rep. Andy Smith, DFL-Rochester, documented a detainment when he posted a video to social media late last week showing six ICE agents outside a northwest Rochester apartment complex.

In the video, Smith asked the agents what they were doing at the complex and whether they had warrants. “We don’t need a warrant!” an agent shouted, using expletives to tell Smith to leave.

In St. James, about 30 miles south of Mankato, Watonwan County chief deputy Mark Slater said Homeland Security officials presented their credentials last week but did not inform local law enforcement about the scope of their mission in the area or if they had any specific targets. He confirmed that someone had been detained near the courthouse.

“Tension is really high in our community; you can feel it everywhere you go,” said Nidia Zelaya, a St. James resident of Salvadoran descent who’s been acting as a legal observer.

“We’re a small town; if there’s a suspicious car with out-of-state plates, we’re going to notice,” Zelaya said.

A radio station in Alexandria reported that ICE also made stops over the weekend in Fergus Falls, Pelican Rapids and Waite Park. A man was detained by ICE in Detroit Lakes on Monday, according to a video of the encounter. Observers posted photos of ICE in Perham, Park Rapids and Callaway on Tuesday.

In St. Cloud, residents have captured and posted to social media a flurry of ICE activity. Residents trying to monitor ICE’s movements told the Star Tribune that agents seem increasingly aggressive. Two people said their vehicles were abruptly cut off, almost causing accidents, while they were driving this weekend.

St. Cloud resident Malik Stewart said agents swore at him and threatened to arrest him while he was in the parking lot behind Anytime Fitness in Waite Park trying to observe a detainment.

“He drove right at my car. He almost hit me and then immediately was just cussing me out,” Stewart said Saturday. “I have never been approached so aggressively from someone who my … tax dollars go to support.”

Even though she’s a citizen, she said she carries her birth certificate, passport, driver’s license, court order of her changed last name and Social Security card just to be safe.

“It’s insane having to carry all this around,” she said.

Unconfirmed rumors of ICE activity are also prompting fear and panic in some cases.

Smith, of Rochester, pointed to an incident last week in which an abandoned car on the side of a road prompted fears someone had been taken by ICE.

He and other local DFL lawmakers have condemned ICE’s actions, arguing they make communities unsafe in part because of the fear agents stoke. The lawmakers said they haven’t received information from ICE about the scope of the local enforcement campaign and are having difficulty confirming arrests made around the area.

Twin Ports Rapid Response, a volunteer immigration raid watch group based in Duluth, hasn’t confirmed any ICE arrests or detainments in the area since last week but has received “torrents” of calls to its hotline. Many of those calls have been fake, apparently designed to tie up the line, said Curt Leitz, a volunteer with the group.

The Duluth Police Department on Monday denied a rumor that immigration enforcement is working out of the city’s public safety building.

In Rochester, De La Rosa posted on Facebook last week that the crackdown has affected Latino businesses. His post went viral, prompting him to write another post Monday defending Latino residents in the area and their right to live in the community.

He said he was inspired to speak up in part after ICE detained a good friend at a gas station in town.

“He was a brother from the church,” De La Rosa said. “He was a hard-working guy. And the kids saw him get arrested.”

“There are more good people than bad people,” he said. “And the light is more bright when it gets bad.”