This article was first published on APTN News in North America.
The anxiety Jacque Wilson felt when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents increased their presence in the state, and in particular, the Twin Cities, came over her like a wave.
“I felt like they could be at any intersection as I was driving to work,” Wilson tells APTN News.
Wilson says her fear of ICE is part of blood memories of the state taking Indigenous people from their families. Wilson is from the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa in northern Minnesota.
“My mother was sent to boarding school. My dad was too,” she says. “Their identity was threatened, as well as ours.”
ICE is reviving this trauma.
Wilson is responsible for many, including grandchildren she helps raise. The fear of ICE has affected these children.
“My boys don’t go to school anymore,” says Wilson.
She says they instead attend school online because they’re too afraid to leave home.
“They’re little brown boys, or red or whatever you want to call them,” she says. “They don’t go anywhere unless we go with them.”
ICE has been arresting and detaining people across the country. Native Americans and other U.S. citizens have been scooped up in these operations. Wilson sees the impacts and fear created by these seizures stemming from loved ones outside of her family.
She’s the coordinator of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Community Centre in Southside Minneapolis. This is located in the area some call the Native corridor of Minneapolis. Wilson says she’s speaking to APTN on behalf of her own experiences, and not the community centre.
The community centre offers services for Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members, including food baskets. Wilson says the numbers of those coming to seek baskets has reduced since ICE increased its presence in Minneapolis.
“One day I was going to work, and I heard the whistles,” says Wilson. For many in Minnesota, whistles are used to alert others of the presence of ICE.
“Here I was going out the door and walking in one direction, and my neighbors were all coming out, walking in the other direction towards the whistles,” she says. “For me, I felt a little bit guilty because I wasn’t going in that direction to protect whatever was going on, but I also had this building and our people that come here.”
Wilson says approximately 500 to 600 tribal members are located in the seven-county area. Part of Wilson’s important work is being an ear to those in need and also providing material forms of support.
This includes offering Tribal identification.
Wilson says in one day alone, the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe Community Centre handed out 85 Tribal IDs. The centre works with Tribal Councils to offer those in need of a Tribal ID to obtain one through the centre, instead of having to commute hours to their Reservation.
Elder Tina Yellow says many Indigenous people are hiding to avoid being profiled and detained by ICE agents.
“They’re stalking areas where we are. They’ve taken Natives into custody, and they’ve refused to let them go,” she says. “And now they’re killing white people, that’s what it took to get national attention, a white man got killed.” Yellow is referring to the death of Alex Pretti, a 37-year-old American intensive care nurse for the United States Department of Veterans Affairs. Pretti was shot and killed by ICE agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 24.
Wilson is mentoring others through a work experience program, including Annalissa Medina. Medina’s brother-in-law was taken by ICE in December.
“His children suffered a lot, especially the first, the first month he was away,” says Medina. “The first son had tried to commit suicide, and then still struggled even to continue school.”
She says eventually all three of his children switched to online learning because it was too stressful for them to leave the house.
Her brother-in-law is Mexican. The children are mixed Mexican-Bois Forte Ojibwe.
“He was in [the detention centre] for two months, and the children just went without seeing him, even through a virtual call, which [ICE] usually would provide but didn’t,” says Medina. “The lawyers didn’t do anything for him.”
Finally, he received the support of lawyers. After two months, he was released in mid-February.
Wilson says intergenerational trauma, being brought up, looks like the fear being instilled in Indigenous people from ICE’s raids. But for Wade Keezer, who is White Earth and Leech Lake Ojibwe, trauma is seen in how the community is responding.
“There’s a lot of greed that’s going on, a lot of GoFundMes out there, send us supplies. But how is this helping our community overall?”
He says both Tribal Councils and non-Indigenous governance are not doing enough to make Indigenous people feel supported during this time.
“We’re not the ones who’ve ever decided what goes on in this country or up in Canada. Never,” he says. “We don’t have a seat at the table.”
“Maybe things would be different if they had actually honored and respected the people that were here first,” says Keezer. “But they haven’t.”
How does Wilson cope through the stress of ICE’s presence and its effects on her loved ones?
“I just pray a lot. It seems like I’m praying all the time,” Wilson says. “Praying for somebody, everybody. I’m proud of our strength because that’s what it takes, strength and courage.”
By Savanna Craig of APTN News.
