Kamal Yusuf doesn\u2019t<\/span> speak English. That hasn\u2019t stopped him from getting involved as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents flood his immigrant-heavy Minneapolis neighborhood.<\/p>\n For the last two weeks, he has been on the streets actively looking out for any ICE presence.<\/p>\n From 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., Yusuf travels through the Cedar Riverside neighborhood, popularly known as West Bank, on foot in biting cold and on slippery ice. The instant he spots ICE agents, he immediately informs a Signal chat and whistles for several minutes without pause.<\/p>\n Yusuf, with his neon orange vest and black beanie that says \u201cFUCK ICE,\u201d is not an inconspicuous presence.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I am a citizen. I need to do this for my community,\u201d he said, speaking to The Intercept on Sunday, through a friend who translated.<\/p>\n \u201cWe realized we can\u2019t fight the federal government. But we can come together and patrol the neighborhood, keep ICE out.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n The only breaks Yusuf takes are at mosques or the West Bank Diner, a restaurant that gives free tea and sambusas, a savory Somali pastry, to anyone who is part of the patrol.<\/p>\n Creating new ICE watch patrols and rapid response networks, fearing going to work or leaving home, watching their shared community spaces grow desolate and their shops sit empty \u2014 these are the experiences of Somali residents of the Twin Cities who spoke with The Intercept about being under siege in their own hometowns. <\/p>\n While many of the state\u2019s residents are being impacted by President Donald Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown, Somalis in particular know they are targets of the administration and the thousands of federal immigration agents deployed to Minnesota.<\/p>\n Yusuf\u2019s Signal chat includes eight Somali founding members among the hundreds of volunteers belonging to a patrol group created last month after Trump\u2019s surge of force began<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen ICE started showing up in our neighborhoods,\u201d said Abdi Rahman, a 28-year-old founding member of the West Bank neighborhood patrol, \u201cwe realized we can\u2019t fight the federal government. But we can come together and patrol the neighborhood, keep ICE out, deescalate, keep some of these right-wing lunatics out of our neighborhood.\u201d<\/p>\n The Somali community in the Twin Cities is putting up a resistance against ICE, pooling resources, and trying to protect its more vulnerable members from arrest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe buy groceries for them and drop them off at their homes.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In the past two weeks, videos of U.S. citizens of Somali heritage confronting ICE<\/a> have spread online. Most Somali people in the Twin Cities are citizens or permanent residents, but the many who are not find themselves vulnerable to the vagaries of the federal government.<\/p>\n \u201cThe non-citizens have stopped stepping out entirely. We buy groceries for them and drop them off at their homes,\u201d Rahman said.<\/p>\n The current moment is reminiscent of the unrest that swept Minneapolis in 2020, Rahman said, after police murdered George Floyd. \u201cThe Somali community came together back then too, and it really helped keep us safe.\u201d<\/p>\n Rahman had just ended his own patrol on a 35-degree day \u2014 balmy by the standards of January in Minneapolis. A resident of the West Bank, walking around the neighborhood of over 10,000 families instilled Rahman with a sense of belonging.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s why I hate that Trump questions whether we belong here or not,\u201d he said. \u201cI am a true Minnesotan. This is not even what I consider cold!\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI am a true Minnesotan. This is not even what I consider cold!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n For many Somali residents of the Twin Cities, the Trump administration\u2019s racist tirades and crackdown aren\u2019t the first adversity they\u2019ve experienced \u2014 and not the first time they\u2019ve set their sights on persevering.<\/p>\n Mahmoud Hasan, a community activist whom everyone refers to as BBC, was in a refugee camp after fleeing civil strife in Somalia in the 1990s. He earned his moniker because, living in the camp, he learned English strictly by watching the BBC and would practice by speaking like a news anchor.<\/p>\n \u201cWe fled a civil war,\u201d Hasan said. \u201cWe are more resilient than they think.\u201d<\/p>\n The Somalis of Minnesota have been under near-constant attack from the highest levels of the Trump administration for months. In December, right-wing media began focusing on a long-running scandal <\/a>involving day care centers accused of defrauding the government. Many of the claims made by right-wing YouTuber Nick Shirley \u2014 who has an anti-immigrant history<\/a> and relied on a source who has made anti-Muslim remarks<\/a> \u2014 have been debunked.<\/p>\n \u201cTheir country stinks, and we don\u2019t want them in our country,\u201d Trump said in a tirade that was bigoted even by the president\u2019s standard. \u201cWe\u2019re going to go the wrong way if we keep taking in garbage into our country.\u201d<\/p>\n On December 17, as ICE and other federal agents were flooding into Minnesota, a group of Somali leaders came together to form SALT, the Somali American Leadership Table, an acronym chosen as a nod to melting ice. The group was brought together because the founders saw the assault on their fellow Minnesotans as a risk to the entire community.<\/p>\n \u201cThis moment in America is reminding us again of the Somali civil war.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cThe armed men and women, with their faces covered, roaming our streets and profiling us,\u201d said Imam Yusuf Abdulle, a SALT co-founder. \u201cWe thought we had left all that behind, but now this moment in America is reminding us again of the Somali civil war.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cBut we are fighting,\u201d said Abdulle, who is also director of the Islamic Association of North America, which includes close to 40 Islamic centers across the country. \u201cWe didn\u2019t come this far, make our lives here, to again be targeted and abused like this.\u201d<\/p>\n When Renee Nicole Good<\/a> was shot and killed<\/a> by ICE agent Jonathan Ross <\/a>last week, SALT leaders organized a protest where elderly Somali women handed out tea and homemade sambusas.<\/p>\n \u201cRenee died for us, she died protecting us,\u201d said Jamal Osman, a Somali American and the vice president of the Minneapolis City Council. \u201cTrump is singling us out, but our allies here are doing everything they can to protect us.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Somalis in Minnesota are overwhelmingly citizens. Nearly 58 percent of them were born in the U.S., the Census Bureau reports. Of the foreign-born Somalis in the state, 87 percent are naturalized U.S. citizens, according to CNN<\/a>.<\/p>\n ICE\u2019s aggressive targeting, though, has meant even citizens have been afraid to venture out. Saadia Saman, a citizen employed at a Minneapolis warehouse, hadn\u2019t gone to work for three days after ICE operations ramped up in the early days of the new year.<\/p>\n Hours after Good was killed, federal agents swarmed outside a nearby high school and violently seized a Spanish-language translator. One of Saman\u2019s daughters, a 10th grader, was there and came home crying.<\/p>\n The following night, Saman, clad in a yellow bib, was distributing free food and hot chocolate at a vigil near the site of Good\u2019s fatal shooting.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are not garbage. We are good people. We\u2019re Somali,\u201d Saman told The Intercept at the memorial. \u201cYou see that we are helping the Minneapolis community?\u201d<\/p>\n Though out of the house now, Saman said she has been traveling with her U.S. passport<\/a> and Social Security card.<\/p>\n \u201cIn case of ICE\u2026\u201d she said, trailing off.<\/p>\n Saman is not the only one. In the Twin Cities, many Somali citizens and permanent residents have taken to carrying their papers \u2014 especially cab drivers, whose jobs keep them in public.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have started carrying our passports at all times, for fear of when an ICE agent will pull us over, even those of us who are citizens,\u201d said Mustafa Mohamed Abdile, a board member of the Minnesota Uber\/Lyft Drivers Association. \u201cWe are worried about ICE, and we are also worried about passengers who might support ICE.\u201d<\/p>\n One driver, Abdi, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of retribution, was asked by an elderly white customer where he was \u201coriginally\u201d from \u2014 and repeated invective from the viral right-wing YouTube videos upon learning Abdi was Somali. \u201c\u2018Somalis are lining their pockets with millions by using government welfare money,\u2019\u201d Abdi recalled the man saying.<\/p>\n Abdi chuckled.<\/p>\n \u201cIf that were the case,\u201d he told the man, \u201cI would not be driving you 10 miles on these slippery roads late on this cold night for just $15.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n <\/p>\n In southern Minneapolis, the Karmel Mall \u2014 known informally as the Somali mall \u2014 would usually have a bustling crowd. On Saturday evening, however, the mall bore a deserted look, as it has for the past month.<\/p>\n \u201cWe open our shops everyday but people hardly come,\u201d said Abdul, a shopkeeper who sells perfumes and asked The Intercept to withhold his last name for fear of retribution. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have had time to speak to you if you came here a few months ago, I\u2019d be that busy with customers. Now, it\u2019s all barren.\u201d<\/p>\n A co-owner of a Somali cafe in a racially diverse neighborhood in south Minneapolis, Duniya Omar has noticed immigrant-run stores and restaurants locking their doors and closing their shutters. At her cafe too, the flow of customers is down to a trickle.<\/p>\n \u201cIt makes a huge financial difference,\u201d said Omar, who has lived in Minneapolis since she was five. \u201cOur business has been affected, 100 percent.\u201d<\/p>\n Local Somalis have organized to drum up business for their community.<\/p>\n Abdi Mohamed, a Somali American filmmaker, said, \u201cThere was an event that we had, where we invited people to come to the Somali mall and patron our businesses, eat from our restaurants \u2014 to have not only that solidarity but also that economic support, because people were suffering after the harassment campaign and the \u2018garbage\u2019 insult from the president.\u201d<\/p>\n Reinvigorating public life for the Somali community may prove a tall order. With even citizens fearful, those non-citizens among Minnesota\u2019s Somalis are continuing to be aggressively targeted by Trump administration policies.<\/p>\n On Tuesday, the administration announced that it will end<\/a> Temporary Protected Status<\/a>, or TPS, for Somalis in March, effectively forcing thousands of Somalis out of the country unless a court pauses the revocation of their protected status.<\/p>\n Somalis were just the new target group for anti-immigrant rhetoric, said another Somali cab driver, who asked to not be identified by name due to fear of retaliation.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, it was \u2018Haitian people eating cats and dogs<\/a>.\u2019 It was \u2018Mexicans are all rapists, all criminals<\/a>.\u2019 Now, it\u2019s us,\u201d the driver said. \u201cTomorrow, who\u2019s it gonna be?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n #Minneapolis #Somali #Community #Patrols #ICE<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Kamal Yusuf doesn\u2019t speak Engl… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13191,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[246],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13190"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13190\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/microvibenews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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