Friday, January 30, 2026

First Americans Fear ICE Presence

 

It's not only Hispanic, Somali, and Haitian community members that are in peril of being harassed, profiled, detained and arrested by the paramilitary ICE thugs.  It's indigenous Americans who are experiencing fear of ICE in Minneapolis and nationally, when, in the most cruel of ironies, they have to prove citizenship.  From the Associated Press:

"As Native Americans around the country rush to secure documents proving their right to live in the United States, many see a bitter irony.

'As the first people of this land, there’s no reason why Native Americans should have their citizenship questioned,' said Jaqueline De León, a senior staff attorney with the nonprofit Native American Rights Fund and member of Isleta Pueblo. [snip]

About 70% of Native Americans today live in urban areas, including tens of thousands in the Twin Cities, one of the largest urban Native populations in the country.

There, in early January, a top ICE official announced the 'largest immigration operation ever.'

Masked, heavily armed agents traveling in convoys of unmarked SUVs became commonplace in some neighborhoods. By this week, more than 3,400 people had been arrested, according to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At least 2,000 ICE officers and 1,000 Border Patrol officers were on the ground.

Representatives from at least 10 tribes traveled hundreds of miles to Minneapolis — the birthplace of the American Indian Movement — to accept ID applications from members there. Among them were the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Ojibwe of Wisconsin, the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate of South Dakota and the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa of North Dakota.

Turtle Mountain citizen Faron Houle renewed his tribal ID card and got his young adult son’s and his daughter’s first ones.

'You just get nervous, Houle said. 'I think (ICE agents are) more or less racial profiling people, including me.'"  (our emphasis) 

It's no coincidence that this immigration enforcement thuggery is happening during an election year.  Intimidation of Dem population areas -- LA, Chicago, Portland, Charlotte, Minneapolis-St. Paul -- is seen by many to be a dry run for large scale harassment during the November elections.  The Malignant Fascist's growing attempts to undermine the 2026 mid-term elections, where MAGAt are predicted to lose badly in Federal and state elections, includes redrawing of Congressional districts to benefit his candidates, suggestions that his intimidating ICE thug army will be at polling places ostensibly to check on citizenship, and an effort in the House of Representatives to create problems with mail-in voting, ID requirements (despite a history of discrimination against the elderly and poor), and other means to skew the vote his way. 

 

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