How Much Does the U.S. Govt. Owe Minnesota? $300 Million and Counting.

Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.

New MN Fund Tracker Lets You Know How Much Trump Is Holding Back

So far the Trump administration has blocked $300 million in grants to Minnesota while placing an additional $56 million in funds at risk. Did I come up with these numbers using the magic of journalism? No, I looked at the new tracker that Gov. Tim Walz announced today, which will be updated daily. The tracker provides the big numbers as well as plenty of detail for the data-obsessed to dig into, and the stakes are high, since about one out of every three dollars the state spends comes from the feds. Though of course that federal funding is our money to begin with—it comes from that big check you’re gonna write the Treasury Department next week.

Keep in mind, the state tracker doesn’t include cuts to colleges, nonprofits, and other non-governmental organizations. For more on those slashed budgets, you can turn to Emma Nelson’s story today in the Star Tribune about the nearly $20 million in cuts from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Institute of Museum and Library Services to Minnesota orgs. (The NEH and the IMLS each have budgets of less than $300 million.) One defunded program: The Norwegian American Historical Association at St. Olaf College lost a $300,000 grant “to preserve and digitize records documenting Norwegian-Americans’ relief efforts for occupied Norway during World War II.”

What Foreign Students at the U Need to Know

It must be a terrifying time to be a foreign student in the U.S., what with the Secretary of State canceling student visas without notice for the sole purpose of sowing fear and confusion. So Grace Aigner’s in-depth interview with U law professor Nadia Anguiano for the Minnesota Daily is essential reading for those students, and their friends as well. For all Aigner’s sharp policy analysis, her big recommendations are practical: Carry color copies of all your immigration documents with you at all times and memorize the phone number of a personal contact. 

Meanwhile, Doğukan Günaydın, the first U of M student to be snatched up by ICE, appeared before immigration court this week. His case will be heard later this month, where DHS will argue that he should be deported because of a June 2023 DWI. Günaydın’s student visa has already been revoked and he’s currently being held in Sherburne County Jail. 

How Outstate Landlords Rent Unsafe Housing

If low-income housing isn’t always easy to find in the Twin Cities, try looking in some other Minnesota cities. And this dire shortage is allowing some landlords to skate by on repairs. (Yes, sorry, folks, this is gonna be one of those depressing Flyovers—blame the news, not me.) Ellie Roth of MPR News leads her look at this issue with the story of Bemidji’s Red Pine Estates apartments, where a water line burst in 2023. When city inspectors showed up, they found that the entire building was structurally unsafe.

So why did it take a burst pipe for inspectors to notice the buildings deficiencies? “Legal aid attorneys from around the state say many low-income rental buildings have serious problems that go unrepaired for long periods of time,” Roth writes. “And because of severe housing shortages in many areas of the state, city leaders are hesitant to hold those landlords accountable.” Adding to the problem: When it comes time to build new low-income rentals, the developers who are willing to work with the cities are often those same landlords who properties have been unsafe in the past. 

Good News for Street Vendors

OK, here’s something a little less dreary to finish up with today. The city of Minneapolis may have come up with a process to allow an influx of new food vendors to operate legally, reports Alfonzo Galvan for Sahan Journal. You know the folks we’re talking about: Many of them are undocumented Ecuadorans, they emerged a few years back selling fruit at parks and stop lights, and most of us were happy to see them even if we weren’t hungry for mango at the moment. A new, expanded licensing process, spearheaded by Council Members Aurin Chowdhury and Jason Chavez, has passed through committee and will receive a full council vote later this month. It all seems a bit opaque still, but it’s good to know that the city is working to provide avenues for these vendors to continue to operate. All I know is, nobody better hassle those folks who sell tamales at bars at night. Those people are lifesavers.