Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
More ICE Mayhem in Minneapolis and St. Paul
Hey, soooo, about that drawdown Gov. Tim Walz predicted Tuesday? Yeah, well, any day now would be great, because the feds are very much still actively terrorizing and endangering Minnesota communities.
On Tuesday around 11:45 a.m., there was an intense scene at Hennepin County Government Center in Minneapolis, where plain clothes federal agents chased, tackled, and arrested an 18-year-old who was making a 9 a.m. court appearance. The Star Tribune's Jeff Day reports on the "chaotic arrest."
Then, on Wednesday morning, there was a nasty incident in which federal agents pursued someone in a vehicle, leading to a multi-car crash at the intersection of Western Avenue North and Selby Avenue in St. Paul. MPR News reports that the person fleeing was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, but observers on the ground note that they were taken away on a stretcher, covered with a sheet. We don't know who the person is, and we certainly don't know if they'll get the medical care they need if detained.
“The incident today at Selby and Western underscores the fact that ICE is still present, causing chaos, and putting residents at risk,” St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her says in a statement.
Who Surveils the Surveillers?
Garrett Guntly—great name—had an idea when federal immigration agents started descending on the Twin Cities last year: What if he set up a bunch of neighbor-owned security cameras and pointed them toward public areas? For the Minnesota Reformer, recent RacketCast guest Madison McVan reports that Guntly's plan to surveil ICE back has been working. He's installed more than 20 cameras on the houses of willing neighbors so far, and says that, thanks to the network of cameras, they've helped stop "around a dozen" immigrant arrests.
“This is what I was really hoping for and validated and excited to see—they’re opening up these feeds and just keeping them on their third monitor, or a second monitor off to the side, so if something happens, they can catch it,” he tells the Reformer.
Health Care Fraud Leaves Woman Homeless
KARE 11 investigative reporter A.J. Lagoe says "I've never told a story that left me so disgusted" as this one, about a vulnerable woman who's paying the price for fraud. Sky, a person with autism, was evicted from her Minnetonka apartment "by no fault of her own." She was current on her rent, according to KARE; she paid it to her caregivers, American Home Health Care LLC. That company subleased the space to Sky, and it reportedly stopped paying her rent, leading to her eviction.
Sky lived there via a Medicaid-funded program called Integrated Community Supports (ICS), which is meant to help adults with disabilities live independently thanks to daily one-on-one assistance. But "KARE 11 investigations have documented how allegations of fraud in ICS settings played a role in a man’s death and left other Minnesotans with disabilities abandoned in their apartments, facing eviction," according to Lagoe & Co.'s report.
When it comes to American Home Health Care, no criminal charges have been filed against the company or its owner, Jama Mohamod, KARE reports. Eight months after her eviction, Sky is still homeless.
How To Help: Isuroon Food Shelf
Fifteen years ago, Fartun Weli founded Isuroon, an organization empowering Somali women in Minnesota via culturally sensitive programming and resources, including culturally specific foods.
As Weli, a first-generation Somali American, tells WCCO, food insecurities are only growing as many in the Muslim community are no longer leaving their homes due to Operation Metro Surge. "We're getting people driving from 40 minutes to come to our food shelf because halal is very kosher," she says.
Isuroon needs supplies as well as financial donations, especially as Ramadan is about to begin. You can learn more about their work and make a contribution here.
