This article was first published by APTN News in North America.
Dakota-Boricua Minneapolis-based Tufawon is a musician by trade.
However, when federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, better known as ICE, moved into his city, he shifted his focus.
“A lot of natives, we just keep [sage] on our dash, it kinda gives us an extra layer of protection,” says Tufawon.
Tufawon patrols for ICE agents in the southside of Minneapolis. Patrollers don’t often go alone. This time he’s patrolling next to Oglala Lakota community member Ozuya Cikala.
Cikala says his name means little warrior in English. Patrollers like Cikala and Tufawon put themselves at the front lines. While they’re U.S.-born citizens, some Native Americans across the country have reported being detained and incarcerated by ICE.
“There is a little fear or anxiety that comes with pursuing ICE and just highlighting and following them, because they can hurt you physically, murder you in broad daylight, or arrest you–do whatever they want with no repercussions, no accountability,” says Chikala.
He says the highlight times of patrol are between 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. He says these are “the main times that ICE agents are out kidnapping people.”
Patrollers update suspicious cars or license plates to encrypted chats tracking ICE sightings in the neighbourhood.
“Sometimes they do get hacked,” says Chikala, “so they remake a chat and then some of them are verified, and verified just meaning, you know, the organisers verify each member personally. They know them so that they know they’re a real person that’s helping.”
“It’s normal and ok to be vulnerable and to feel any kind of fear,” Paul says, “but it’s about pushing through that fear and walking towards it and understanding that it’s bigger than us. it’s bigger than me as an individual.”
Minneapolis, combined with St. Paul to form the twin cities, is a medium sized U.S. city with a population of about 3.6 million people that sits at the southeastern edge of the state of Minnesota.
In January, agents with ICE moved in and with brute force, arrested hundreds of people suspected of being “illegal aliens” in the U.S. In the process, two people, Renee Good and Alex Pretti were shot and killed by agents. Some say murdered.
Despite the fact that ICE agents have largely left the area, people are still on edge.
From microphone to patrol car
Anishinaabe-Oneida Hiphop artist Tall Paul patrols school zones keeping an eye out for ICE agents.
“We’re policing federal agents and that shouldn’t be necessary,” he says.
As a father, Paul says he’s concerned about the impact on youth from what happened here.
Recent events have inspired Paul’s art.
“His brown skins a catalyst, the glass they smashed it in, slapped his tribal ID out his hand and tackled him, said it was a fake this doesn’t look like you. Got a US citizen bruised up back and blue,” he raps on the side of the road in downtown Minneapolis.
The subject is ICE.
“They took this native brother to the Whipple building,” he continues, “Likely wish they could kill him. Disappeared civilian. Knew his rights, Indigenous, but still did him vicious.”
This poetry is fresh and performed for APTN News that has a crew in Minneapolis, looking at how Native Americans are dealing with officers with ICE, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I just wrote this one. I don’t usually read my raps like that, but I ain’t ready, I ain’t got it memorised,” he says.
Patrols and other forms of resistance to the presence of ICE in Minneapolis have attracted activists outside of the state. That includes Arizona based Dine-Navajo actor and activist Che Jim.
“I’ve been a part of Standing Rock, I’ve been to Oak Flats, I’ve been to some of these other frontline camps, and one of the things that makes this one particularly interesting is the fact that it is being done in an urban environment,” says Jim. “It’s really the true mobilisation of an entire city.”
He says he uses his large online following to share resources on how to mobilise against ICE.
An influx of ICE agents came to Minneapolis in December under a federal directive called Operation Metro Surge. According to White House border czar, Tom Homan, the operation is coming to an end.
“I don’t want anybody, anybody under the impression that the end of this operation means ICE is leaving because they’re not–they’ve always been here,” he says.
Despite a reduction in federal agents, Chikala says up to 1,000 ICE patrols were circulating in Minneapolis this past Monday, February 16.
People like Chikala and Paul say they won’t stop until the community is safe.
By Savanna Craig of APTN News.
