Leave Us Alone
The 47th President of the United States and his administration is terrorizing my home state of Minnesota. ICE and Homeland Security need to leave now.
Minnesota, again, is at the center of another national tipping point after an ICE agent shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a poet, mother, wife, and U.S. citizen on January 7, 2026. Within one week, another ICE agent shot and wounded a man in north Minneapolis. At the start of the new year, Trump and Homeland Security sent a thousand agents to Minnesota because of the state’s “corrupt” immigrants, despite immigrants only making 1.5% of the state’s total population. Now, there are roughly 2,800 ICE agents here. That’s double the amount of 1,200 police officers of Minneapolis and Saint Paul combined.
Before 2020, Minnesota was overlooked on the national stage. A flyover state. “Nice.” When others asked me where I was from – Minnesota – a typical response was a “oh ja you betcha” and other lines from the film Fargo. As a Minnesotan filmmaker, I often complained that Fargo and The Mighty Ducks were our only representations, and how the mainstream media didn’t reflect the richness and diversity of my home. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot of white here and it’s not just the snow.
My family immigrated to Minnesota from South Korea via the Melania Trump way – my eldest aunt married an American G.I. from Minnesota after the Korean War. Through this marriage the rest of our family was able to immigrate. My father and uncles earned their citizenship through serving in the U.S. Army. After my parents married and discussed where they should raise their family, they chose to remain in Minnesota for its excellent public schools, solid health care system with the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, and affordable standard of living. My late grandmother lived in Building B at Cedar Riverside, the giant pastel colored public housing complexes near the University of Minnesota campus, alongside Somali and East African refugees and immigrants. I spent my childhood playing in the sand-filled playgrounds with Somali kids who shared their candy with me. We didn’t speak the same language. We didn’t need to. There was chocolate.
The public education I received rivaled the education from elite private schools in Los Angeles where I spent four years as a tutor. The films and art I’ve been able to create is partially supported by Minnesota’s designated funding stream through competitive granting. I swam in the clear, clean waters and felt the warm sunshine on my body as I floated in the lakes. I also came out of those lakes speckled with the worst mosquito bites, but that’s a small price you pay for a quality lake swim in August. Living in Minnesota felt like a best kept secret. If you know, you know. It’s now the target of Trump’s rage. This morning, he threatened to invoke the insurrection act to silence Minnesotans. He seeks to destroy our spirit and the very ideals that make us, us.
It was abnormally warm for Minnesota on Monday and Tuesday. The highs in the Twin Cities reached 40 degrees with sunny skies when it’s typically frigid, painful negative degree weather. When the weather warms, we Minnesotans rush outside, walking and enjoying this brief relief before the numbing cold returns. Five days after Renne’s murder, though, the parks in the Twin Cities were eerily quiet.
My walks with my dog have been quick. Dinners canceled. Meeting moved online. Doctor appointments rescheduled. Only quick errands to get groceries and gas. I carry two forms of identification on my body to prove my citizenship – my passport card and enhanced driver’s license. I’m scared but I know the Somali, Latino, and Southeast Asian communities are the biggest targets for the ICE raids. I have it easier.
Throughout Minneapolis and Saint Paul, agents knock door-to-door. White Minnesotans are stopped, asked to direct agents to their neighbors of color. Abandoned cars idle on the streets, gas stations, and parking lots, keys still in the ignition. People are trapped in their homes, terrified to leave, and worried how they will pay their rent and feed their families as temperatures begin to drop again.
Trump, MAGA, and the right chose Minnesota not because there’s an immigration or corruption problem. They want to corrupt us with fear. They want us to stop caring for our neighbors. They want us to stop supporting one another through our robust public programs. When they murdered Renee Nicole Good, a white woman in broad daylight, they used the state as ground zero to see if they can break all of us.
As this administration continues to test us with threats of military force, deploying more ICE agents, detaining more citizens, kidnapping children, assaulting our neighbors, we must stay strong. When they knock on our doors, ask you to identify non-white neighbors, we must refuse to answer. And we have. Our protests persist, our marches strong, our voices steady. We generously donate food, supplies, and cash to keep our neighbors fed and housed.
We cannot forget what happened to Renne and to the over 35 individuals who have been killed in ICE’s custody. We’re ready to meet this moment. Oh ja. You betcha.