Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Immigration Now Coming for the Children
Great news for people who think the focus of the federal government should be on ruining the lives of children: According to Katelyn Vue at Sahan Journal, Minnesota families in Windom, Worthington, St. Paul, and Minneapolis who care for undocumented minors are reporting that they’ve been visited by federal immigration agents. And in some cases, the minors have been taken into custody.
These so-called “wellness checks,” which did not exist under previous administrations, are framed as investigations into possible exploitation, per an ICE memo. But as with most immigration enforcement these days, they’re carried out in the shadiest possible manner. “[The checks] are typically conducted by plain-clothed ICE officers in unmarked vehicles—officers who only speak English and show up to homes unannounced,” immigration attorney Erin Schutte Wadzinski tells Sahan.
The experts Vue spoke with detailed the safest course of action when dealing with immigration agents: Do not open the door, do not sign anything before consulting a lawyer, and always carry valid immigration documents with you.
Reports: Nobody Likes Ken Martin
Former DFL Chair Ken Martin is not getting high marks for his tenure so far as DNC chair. It’s one thing to be the subject of one of those Politico “Dems in disarray” stories where your enemies are “granted anonymity to speak candidly” about you. It’s another when a well-sourced New York Times piece states bluntly that, “the Democratic National Committee’s financial situation has grown so bleak that top officials have discussed whether they might need to borrow money this year to keep paying the bills.”
Almost immediately after taking the new gig, Martin scuffled publicly with DNC Vice Chair James Hogg, who’d proposed primarying a few of the party’s more senescent officeholders. The saga concluded with Hogg exiting party leadership last week. Now the DNC has lost the support of two union leaders: Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers and AFSCME’s Lee Saunders. But the upshot is, the DNC is falling short of fundraising. “This is worse than some high school student council drama,” Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) tells the Times.
For his part, Martin calls the squabbles “inside baseball stuff” and touts the DNC’s increased investments in every state-level party. And, the Times story adds, “Almost no one questions Mr. Martin’s work ethic.” I guess that’s good?
Julius DeRoma Strikes Again
What do you do when your landlord is a right-wing jerk? That’s a problem too many Minneapolis businesses have had to address thanks to the significant real estate portfolio of Julius DeRoma.
In 2017, City Pages broke the news that DeRoma had made a campaign contribution to former KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, and the backlash resulted in the closure of his North Loop bar Clubhouse Jager. "Well, whatever... it's just free speech," a shirtless, defiant DeRoma told WCCO-TV when confronted at his home that summer. "I don't care to talk to a skank like you over the phone," he'd later tell Racket's old colleague, Mike Mullen of CP, when pressed on his political contributions.
But DeRoma is still de-roaming around. As the Longfellow Whatever reports, Buds Seed & Supply owners Kortney Widmark and Bobby Arndt didn’t learn about their landlord’s political past until after they rented a space from him on Lake Street. Now there’s a sign in the shop window at 3931 E. Lake St.: "Tired of racists & neo-Nazis? Us too. We're moving!" Widmark and Arndt say they "no longer feel safe operating our business in this building."
But there’s a happy ending. “The couple says they've been approved for a state license to sell cannabis and teased that they plan to reopen somewhere in the neighborhood soon,” according to the Whatever.
Wisconsin Is Stealing Our Sausage Secrets!
Is nothing sacred? According to a lawsuit filed by Hormel, a former employee of the Austin, Minnesota-based pig-product titan smuggled top-secret sausage recipes and market intel across the Wisconsin border to a new gig at Johnsonville, the Cogswell’s Cogs to Hormel’s Spacely Sprockets.
“The sausage market is increasingly competitive, and improper use of confidential, proprietary and trade-secret information, or wrongful competition or solicitation, could cause a manufacturer significant competitive economic disadvantage,” according to the suit.
Our take: Open the borders with Canada, but be very careful about who passes in and out of Wisconsin.
