For those not in the Twin Cities, please check out www.standwithminnesota.com

For those in the Twin Cities, please keep standing with our neighbors anyway you can: marching in protest, organizing food drives, working as legal observers documenting the abuses, or eating at immigrant restaurants.

So many people are helping but the need and the fear is so great. I want to wake up some morning and not find hundreds of chat messages about ICE agents circling school bus stops.

Someday I may write a story with what I’ve experienced, but for now, I just want my neighbors to be safe.

While dropping off more 3D printed whistles, the coffeeshop staff wouldn’t allow me to leave until I had accepted a free hot beverage before returning to patrolling the area in single-digit weather.

I brought a cowbell and rubber chicken to a peaceful noise demonstration at a hotel where ICE agents were staying. We saw a Fuck Ice sign in the window two stories above an Ice agent flipping us off.

I’ve called in an unmarked ICE agent parked illegally with a broken taillight creeping on the school bus stops and gleefully learned that the local PD had pulled them over.

I’ve stood watch outside a mosque in subzero weather, greeting my neighbors for Friday prayers, and receiving hugs, tea, sambusas, jalepino pizza and other hospitality that could not be refused.

I tried to relax at a coffeeshop with a friend but when I thought I heard whistles, I couldn’t sit still until I went outside to check if it was a raid - it was just the coffee steamer squeaking. I can’t stop scanning cars for suspicious details, like out-of-state plates or tinted windows.

I’ve listened to a grade school teacher explain why she left her class with a sub, so she could help a student whose father had been kidnapped.

I’ve stared down agents who pulled up next to us and joked if we had any questions. When we asked where they were going next, they pretended not to be able to hear us and drove off.

I’ve followed a platoon of thirty plus stolen valor commandos, decked out in full tactical gear with guns, tasers, and pepper spray, stomping past a public library and up to the traffic court to detain only two men. One of the ICE cowards shoved me from behind while saying “stop touching me.”

Southwest Metro:
Black Sea Deli - two locations
Sambusa Halal

Get your whistles, find your neighbors, follow the out-of-state plated cars and shun them out of town.