https://sahanjournal.com/feed

Aimee Bock is not going quietly.

The ringleader of the $400 million Feeding Our Future child food scheme, the largest pandemic fraud case in U.S. history, faces sentencing this Thursday.

But in a 45-minute interview with Sahan Journal last week, she defended at length her role leading the Minnesota nonprofit at the center of the case, blaming state regulators and two of her employees, even as she took some responsibility for the massive fraud that went on under her watch.

“Obviously, we missed it,” she told Sahan Journal in a phone interview from Sherburne County Jail, where she has been held since her conviction last year following a lengthy trial. “I mean, that’s just clear.” 

Bock said she wished she could “go back and do things differently” and that she regrets her participation in the fraud “more than anyone will ever know.” Still, Bock still maintained that she was innocent of the crimes of which she’s been convicted.

“There was no intentional bad acting on my part,” she said. “I really, really genuinely thought we were doing good work.”

Jurors rejected these lines of argument last spring, when Bock gave over three days of testimony during her trial. Federal prosecutors are asking that Bock, 45, be sentenced to 50 years in prison for her crimes.

“The ripple effects of her actions are profound, immeasurable, and will have lasting consequences for both Minnesota and the nation,” Minnesota U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen wrote in a recent sentencing memorandum in the case.

Bock’s attorney Kenneth Udoibok is asking for a little more than three years in prison for Bock.

During the six-week trial, prosecutors showed Bock’s signature on all checks and applications submitted by Feeding Our Future for participation in and payment from the federal child nutrition programs. They also showed how Bock clicked a checkmark on every meal claim that she submitted to the state on behalf of Feeding Our Future’s food sites. The checkmark certified that the numbers Bock submitted were accurate under penalty of perjury, according to copies of the meal claims shown in court.

Bock maintains that she tried to stop fraud from happening in the federal child nutrition programs, and that food sites she cracked down on instead went to other sponsor organizations to commit fraud. Prosecutors, however, accused Bock of targeting food sites that wouldn’t give her large kickbacks.

In her interview, Bock continued to pin blame for the fraud on the Minnesota Department of Education, the federal government, rival sponsor organizations that participated in the fraud but haven’t been charged in the case, and staffers at Feeding our Future who worked directly under her and allegedly deceived her. 

“I remain the only person in this state that identified fraud and said, ‘You know what? These invoices are fake. These claims are fraudulent.’ And I was ignored,” she said. 

Prosecutors excoriated this narrative during trial. 

“To all of that, I say this: Are you kidding me?” former Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Ebert said during closing arguments last year. “Are you kidding me? What complete and utter nonsense.”

Bock faces up to life in prison for her conviction of seven criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and federal programs bribery. Her sentencing hearing is scheduled Thursday at 9 a.m. in federal court in downtown Minneapolis. 

The fraud involved Feeding Our Future receiving federal funds through the Minnesota Department of Education. Feeding Our Future then distributed those funds to food vendors and food sites such as Safari, which were supposed to provide ready-to-eat meals to local children during the pandemic.

Working through Feeding Our Future, several organizations reported serving thousands more meals than they actually did, or never served any at all, in order to receive more federal reimbursement dollars. Prosecutors have charged 78 defendants in the case. Sixty-five have pleaded guilty or been convicted. Fifteen have been sentenced so far, with the harshest sentence totaling 28 years in prison. 

Jurors found Bock guilty of stealing $1.9 million in federal money for herself, less than many of the other defendants. But legal experts anticipate Bock will receive the harshest sentence in the case because of her role as a ringleader in the fraud. 

“If she’s the one who put the scam together and provided a vehicle through which other people could also commit significant fraud, then she’s a ringleader,” former Minnesota U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger told Sahan Journal last week.

Added former federal prosecutor Mark Osler: “I expect that the judge will be swayed most by the role she played in making everything happen.”

Bock said the last year in jail has been hard on her. Personal visits aren’t allowed, though she keeps in touch with family on phone and videochat. She said missed her son’s high school graduation, her grandfather’s funeral and her nephew’s birth. 

Apart from holding federal inmates waiting their sentences, Sherburne County Jail houses federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees. 

“You’re living through the worst moments of people’s lives,” she said of living with detainees. 

Sherburne Jail is holding other convicted Feeding Our Future defendants while they await their sentencing, but Bock said she hasn’t spoken to them or seen them, other than maybe passing them in the hallway a handful of times.

She’s hoping that U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel will sentence her to a Minnesota facility like the federal prison in Waseca so she can stay close to her family. 

Asked whether she believed the scandal that started with Feeding Our Future motivated Operation Metro Surge and President Donald Trump’s xenophobic rhetoric against Somalis, Bock said she thought so “in part.” 

“I think it played a role, but I do think on some level it would have happened [anyway] because of the animosity between our political leaders,” she said, referring to Gov. Tim Walz, the running mate of Trump rival Kamala Harris in 2024. 

Bock is white while most of the 78 Feeding Our Future defendants are Somali.

During her trial, one Somali defendant who enrolled her Rochester restaurant in the federal child nutrition programs through Feeding Our Future and scammed the government out of $5 million tearfully testified that Bock “destroyed us as a community.”

“That was a tough one to hear,” Bock said. “For the last 10 or 15 years of my career, I was dedicated to working with low-income communities, communities of color and immigrant refugee communities.”

She added: “Each and every person that committed fraud did so knowing they were committing fraud. To blame me for their choices is unfair.” 

At the same time, Bock said “it’s concerning” that the Feeding Our Future case and other recent federal fraud investigations “seem focused on one community.” 

“It’s interesting to me that it has only been the Somali community that has been indicted,” she said. “I think it’s interesting that I’m the only white person.”

Still, Bock put much of the blame for Feeding Our Future’s troubles on two Somali defendants who worked directly under her: Abdikerm Eidleh and Hadith Ahmed. She accused both of pushing back on guardrails she tried to put in place to prevent fraud in her organization. 

“Every time my developers or members of my management team would put a new protection in place, these guys would take that information and run out ahead of us and let the sites know, ‘OK, they’re going to now be looking for A, B and C, make sure that you have A, B, and C right,’” Bock said.

Eidleh, whom many government witnesses during Bock’s trial testified was the point person to recruit them into the fraud, is a fugitive whom prosecutors believe is in Kenya evading prosecution in the case. Ahmed was among the first defendants to plead guilty for his role and the scheme. He is also a cooperating witness in the case, testifying in a 2024 Feeding Our Future trial against seven defendants. 

During his 2024 trial testimony, Ahmed described himself as “Aimee Bock’s righthand man.” He testified that Bock knew about fake rosters of children submitted to Feeding Our Future for federal food money.

“She didn’t care,” he said. “We didn’t say anything. We just let it go.”

Ahmed also testified that Bock fired him after he refused to submit fake meal reports for a vendor. Bock and her then-attorney soon allegedly warned Ahmed not to go to the authorities. As for her own role in the fraud, Bock downplayed it. 

“Admittedly the program grew too fast,” she said. “The staff grew too fast, and it took some time for training and for staff to get a better understanding of what to look for.” 

She noted the Minnesota Department of Education initially said that it doesn’t have investigative authority or take positions on whether food sites were engaging in fraud. The federal government had also issued waivers allowing states to skip on-site visits to determine whether food sites were serving the number of meals they claimed to serve. 

“I was operating under those same parameters,” Bock said.

The post ‘We missed it’: Feeding Our Future head Aimee Bock acknowledges food aid fraud, says she tried to stop it appeared first on Sahan Journal.

Minnesota officials on Monday announced charges against a federal immigration agent who shot a Venezuelan man in north Minneapolis in January. 

U.S. Immigration and Customs (ICE) agent Christian Castro, 52, is charged with four counts of second-degree assault with a dangerous weapon and one count of falsely reporting a crime, Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty and Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced during a Monday news conference. 

There is also an active warrant out for Castro’s arrest.

On Jan. 14, ICE agents pursued Venezuelan national Alfredo Aljorna by vehicle then on foot to just outside his north Minneapolis home, where a struggle ensued between Aljorna and one of the agents. The agent, now identified as Castro, shot into the home’s front door, where the bullet hit Aljorna’s roommate, Julio Sosa-Celis, in the leg and then lodged in a closet in a child’s bedroom. 

“A violent crime did occur that night, but it was Mr. Castro who committed it,” Moriarty told reporters. “Mr. Castro is an ICE agent but his federal badge does not make him immune from state charges for his criminal conduct in Minnesota.”

According to the criminal complaint, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) arrived at the scene and interviewed one ICE agent before being blocked by the FBI from further investigating the incident. Hours later, BCA agents met Castro at the Cambridge Medical Center in Cambridge, where the agent underwent a medical examination and told state investigators that he had been assaulted.

However, video recovered by the BCA and later released by Minneapolis officials from a city traffic camera contradicted the account of Castro and the Department of Homeland Security, who called Sosa-Celis and two other Venezuelan men “attempted murders” and claimed the ICE agent fired defensively after the men beat the agent with brooms and a shovel.

Federal charges against Sosa-Celis and Aljorna were dismissed with prejudice in February following inconsistencies between the testimony of two ICE agents on the scene, one of which was Castro, and evidence reviewed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Shortly after that, the two agents were placed on administrative leave while they were investigated for lying under oath.

“Mr. Castro was not under any physical threat when he fired his weapon or even beforehand. He was not hit by a shovel or a broom, and in fact, he was not hit at all,” Moriarty said. “His own boss, ICE director Todd Lyons, acknowledged that two ICE agents lied in the aftermath of this incident. Mr. Castro was one of them.”

ICE did not immediately respond to requests for comment. 

The incident was the second of three shootings by federal agents during Operation Metro Surge earlier this year, which resulted in the deaths of Renee Macklin Good and Alex Pretti. Moriarty said her office is still gathering evidence in the killings of Good and Pretti, though the timelines on charging decisions remain unclear.

The prosecution of the case against Castro can begin as soon as the agent is in custody or makes a first appearance in court, Moriarty said. Second-degree assault with a gun carries a mandatory minimum sentence of three years.

Moriarty said it is likely the case could be removed to federal court but the case will still be prosecuted by her office under Minnesota statute, which would make Castro ineligible for a presidential pardon should he be convicted. Castro could also invoke the Supremacy Clause, which protects federal agents from state prosecution for actions performed as they are carrying out their duties, but it has to be decided by a judge, she said.

“It is not absolute immunity, it is a defense that a federal agent could raise,” she said. “If a judge decides that Supremacy Clause immunity is not appropriate in this case, then we continue to prosecute it.”

The post ICE agent charged in shooting of Venezuelan man in north Minneapolis appeared first on Sahan Journal.

Depending on where you are in your homeownership journey, refinancing your mortgage can be an effective strategy to help you meet your financial goals. Refinancing may help you save money over time or add money back to your monthly budget if you score a lower interest rate. And depending on the type of refinance you choose, you could also borrow against your home’s equity to pay down debt or make a major purchase.

Understanding when and why a refinance might make sense is the first step toward getting the most from this financial tool. There are also different types of refinances to consider, and one might work better for your goals than another.

What is refinancing?
Refinancing replaces your current mortgage with a new one—usually with a new rate and/or terms. It can often also come with a new set of closing costs. It may also come with a new lender.

So when does it make sense to refinance? You might want to consider a refinance if you want to:

• Change the loan length or lower your monthly payments.
• Secure a better or lower interest rate to save on monthly payments.
• Switch from an adjustable-rate mortgage to a fixed-rate one.
• Change the loan type to remove mortgage insurance costs.
• Access your home equity to fund home improvements, buying another property, or consolidate debt.

How does refinancing work?
Much like your original mortgage, the refinancing process involves a thorough review of your current financial status to determine if you qualify.

Here’s an example of what a lender may review:

• Credit score and history: Score requirements vary by lender and loan type; 620 is a general minimum for conventional mortgages. Lenders want to see responsible credit use, such as a positive payment history on your debt.
• Debt-to-income (DTI) ratio: This metric shows how much debt you have in relation to your income. To calculate your DTI, add up your monthly debt payments and divide by your gross monthly income. Then multiply by 100 to get a percentage. A low DTI lets lenders know you’ll likely be able to manage your monthly payments with minimal issues.
• Property value and equity: Many homeowners have built equity over time, and the real estate market can cause property values to appreciate as well. When refinancing, your current loan balance and market value of the property will help the lender calculate a loan-to-value (LTV)ratio. Refinancing qualifications usually prefer lower LTVs.

What are my refinancing options and how do I choose the right one?

Let’s break down a few commonly offered types of refinancing:

• Rate-and-term refinance: This option allows you to replace your current loan with a new one with a different interest rate, different term or both. The primary aim is to secure terms that better suit your current financial situation, while the principal balance remains the same.
• Cash-out refinance: A cash-out refinance allows you to replace your existing mortgage with a new loan for more than you currently owe, leveraging equity you’ve built up in your home. This type of mortgage refinance might be more suited for those who need funds for significant expenses, such as home renovations or debt consolidation.
• No closing cost refinance: A no closing cost refinance allows borrowers to refinance without paying the upfront fees usually required. The lender may charge a slightly higher interest rate or fold the closing costs into the total loan amount.

Understanding your current financial goals and needs can help you decide which option works best.

The bottom line
Refinancing can be a smart financial move for many people. You may be able to save money in the long term, and you also have options to take cash out if that’s what would support your goals. A qualified mortgage professional or home lending advisor can help clarify whether a mortgage refinance makes sense for you and ensure you’re on the right path to achieving your financial goals.

For more information, visit chase.com/afford.

For informational/educational purposes only: Views and strategies described in this article or provided via links may not be appropriate for everyone and are not intended as specific advice/recommendation for any business. Information has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable, but JPMorgan Chase & Co. or its affiliates and/or subsidiaries do not warrant its completeness or accuracy. The material is not intended to provide legal, tax, or financial advice or to indicate the availability or suitability of any JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. product or service. You should carefully consider your needs and objectives before making any decisions and consult the appropriate professional(s). Outlooks and past performance are not guarantees of future results. JPMorgan Chase & Co. and its affiliates are not responsible for, and do not provide or endorse third party products, services, or other content.

Deposit products provided by JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A. Member FDIC. Equal Opportunity Lender.

 © 2026 JPMorgan Chase & Co.

The post Refinancing readiness and navigating the process in today’s market appeared first on Sahan Journal.

The highly-anticipated sentencing for the leader behind the largest fraud in Minnesota history is set for later this week. 

Aimee Bock, 45, faces up to life in prison in the estimated $400 million federal food aid fraud that dominated Minnesota headlines for the past four years. Federal prosecutors, however, have not revealed publicly the amount of prison time they are asking a judge to impose on Bock. Their sentencing memorandum is currently under seal. 

U.S. Attorney Dan Rosen declined to comment on the case.

Bock is scheduled for sentencing at 9 a.m. Thursday in federal court in downtown Minneapolis.

“I’m nervous,” Bock’s attorney, Kenneth Udoibok, told Sahan Journal. “My paralegal is nervous. [Bock’s] nervous. It’s a big weight on our shoulders, collectively.”

The case started a chain reaction that brought heated national scrutiny to Minnesota, resulting in federal fraud investigations into other social services and eventually prompted a right wing influencer to create a viral video late last year that drew the attention of President Donald Trump.

On the guise of cracking down on fraud, the Trump administration sent federal immigration agents to Minnesota in late 2025 to investigate Somali residents, ramping up the effort into Operation Metro Surge, the largest immigration crackdown in U.S. history. The effort stretched into 2026, and saw federal immigration agents fatally shoot two U.S. citizens, racially profile residents and cause widespread fear.

“It is on account of this case that the president sent federal officers into Minnesota. Two people are dead. A slew of people are hurt. Many lives are overturned, and Minnesota is viewed as a state where fraud is prevalent,” Udoibok said.

Some now view the entire Somali community as synonymous with fraud, Udoibok added. Bock is white; most of the 78 defendants charged in the Feeding Our Future fraud are Somali.

The money in the Feeding Our Future case came from two federal programs used to feed children and adults in daycare and afterschool programs: the Child and Adult Care Program and the Summer Food Service Program. Feeding Our Future played gatekeeper to these dollars for hundreds of nonprofits. The nonprofits submitted meal counts to Feeding Our Future, which would then submit them to the federal government for reimbursement. 

The fraud was simple in its foundation: Some organizations allegedly reported serving more meals than they actually did in order to receive more federal money. Some never actually served meals.

“It’s very difficult to compartmentalize,” Udoibok said of the case’s outsized impact on Minnesota. “Bock felt long ago that if she had a way of undoing it, by reflection, she would have taken a different path.” 

Udoibok and Bock have maintained that she was innocent and tried to stop the fraud once she identified it; he said in a recent interview with Sahan Journal that they haven’t changed their positions. 

“She’s not and couldn’t have been the mastermind,” he said. 

Udoibok expects to file a sentencing memo Monday in which he’ll lay out his case for the prison term he believes Bock should receive. 

U.S. District Judge Nancy Brasel will determine a sentence after reviewing arguments from Udoibok and federal prosecutors.

Bock led the nonprofit, Feeding Our Future, throughout the COVID-19 pandemic as it siphoned hundreds of millions of dollars in federal money to several bogus nonprofits and existing nonprofits. 

A jury found Bock guilty last year of seven criminal counts, including conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy to commit federal programs bribery and federal programs bribery. 

Fifteen of the 64 defendants who have pleaded guilty or who were convicted at trial in the Feeding Our Future case have been sentenced. 

Abdiaziz Farah, who co-owned Shakopee-based Empire Cuisine, received the longest sentence so far — 28 years. The sentence for Abdiaziz, who also played a key role in a failed attempt to bribe a juror from his trial, is one of the longest prison sentences for any white collar criminal in Minnesota history. 

Three defendants have avoided prison time altogether, instead serving probation. Two of them were low-level players and one was a mid-level player who pleaded guilty, cooperated with the government’s investigation and testified at trial against Bock.

Legal experts expect Bock will get the highest sentence of any of the 78 defendants in the case.

“If the highest sentence in this series to date is 28 years, I would expect Bock will get more than that by a significant amount,” former Minnesota U.S. Attorney Tom Heffelfinger told Sahan Journal. 

This is because Bock played a leadership role in the fraud, he said. 

“If she’s the one who put the scam together and provided a vehicle through which other people could also commit significant fraud, then she’s a ringleader,” Heffelfinger said. 

Bock, however, has always argued that she was taken advantage of by bad actors working directly below her. Chief among them was Abdikerm Eidleh, a Feeding Our Future employee who actively recruited people to start or use their existing businesses to enroll in the federal food program, and to submit fake meal counts through Feeding Our Future, according to several witnesses at Bock’s trial.

Another argument frequently made by Bock and Udoibock is that the amount of money federal prosecutors accuse her of stealing for herself — $1.9 million — is small in comparison to what other defendants stole. 

“Where’s the money?” Udoibok asked, emphasizing that Bock has been broke since FBI agents raided her house in 2022. “If she embezzled so much, where did she keep it?”

Yet the fact that Bock didn’t take as much money as other defendants will not likely result in a lower sentence, according to Mark Osler, a former federal prosecutor and current law professor at the University of St. Thomas School of Law. 

“Usually, a sentence like this is going to be staked to the amount of a loss, not the amount gained,” Osler told Sahan Journal. 

Bock will be connected to most of the total loss because she was the head of Feeding Our Future, and because so much of the fraud went through her organization, Osler said. 

“The judge has a lot of discretion in sentencing a case like this,” Osler said. “I expect that the judge will be swayed most by the role she played in making everything happen.”

Bock took the stand during her trial, testifying for two days in her defense. Her statements on the stand could lead to a harsher prison sentence if the judge concludes that she lied under oath. 

“There’s a potential that she can get obstruction of justice for that,” Osler said. 

Long prison sentences for white collar crimes are rare in Minnesota. Tom Petters, the former investor convicted in the late 2000s for operating a $3.65 billion Ponzi scheme, received the longest sentence at 50 years. He is scheduled for release in 2052, when he’ll be 94.

The post Feeding Our Future leader Aimee Bock faces sentencing in $400 million fraud appeared first on Sahan Journal.

A donation-based cafe inspired by the chaikhanas, or tea houses, of Afghanistan. A menu inspired by the cultures along the Silk Road. A seating space surrounded by a climbing cave. A brand new playground and outdoor seating space. 

Against all odds, the Afghan Cultural Society (ACS) is expanding its space in the heart of Cedar-Riverside, and giving it a facelift by the end of this fall. 

After renting their current space above Mayday Books for almost four years, last June, ACS  purchased one of the buildings next door that had housed Midwest Mountaineering. The society will hold onto the rented space until it’s leased out to a new party, while it aims to finish work on its new location this year.  

The expansion comes at a time of heightened unpredictability in federal and state funding, and repeated attacks on the Afghan community and on refugee services in general. 

Nasreen Sajady, the organization’s executive director, believes this expansion is as much a result of community support as it is an act of “silent protest.” When she was looking for spaces to rent four years ago, landlords would only show her basements after they heard that the organization offered refugee services. “They didn’t want us in their neighborhoods,” she said. 

In the future, they will be housed in a historic Minneapolis neighborhood long known as an immigrant entrypoint and characterized by its diverse population. More recently, it was also heavily targeted by federal immigration activity and rightwing activists like Jake Lang during Operation Metro Surge. 

“I feel like the fact that we were able to purchase a building, [and] put roots down at a time when they’re trying to tear our roots apart so we can’t replant anywhere… It’s quite a protest, and it’s quite a show of strength amongst our community,” Sajady said.

The Afghan community is one of Minnesota’s fastest-growing immigrant groups. The number of Minnesotans born in Afghanistan held stable at around 300 for many years, but rose to more than 1,000 in 2022 following the return of the Taliban to power. More than 85% of Minnesota’s Afghan immigrants live in Hennepin and Ramsey counties. ACS was founded in 2018 to promote and preserve Afghan culture in Minnesota. Following the return of the Taliban, the society began resettlement services for Afghan refugees. 

The new building offers expanded space for community events, programming for community members, and for people, especially Muslim women to gather, something that young women in the neighborhood said they consider a public safety need. 

Buying a new building amid grant cuts for nonprofits serving refugees and immigrant communities meant putting together a patchwork of funding, and help from the community, even when it felt difficult to continue doing their work. “Since Trump’s got into office, I think many of us [nonprofit organizations] have felt like, ‘Oh, my God, this is it. We built all this, and he can take it away like that,’” Sajady  said. 

In the absence of federal grant support, Sajady hopes that the proceeds from the cafe will become one of the ways ACS will continue to serve refugees. “We are lucky that we have some pretty stable grants right now that will get us through mid-2027, at least. And so then it’s about what happens after that,” she said. 

The purchase of the building, and the remodeling work that will follow, is paid for through different funding sources, including a loan from Propel Nonprofits and $500,000 in federal Community Project Funding pushed through by U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.“As a fellow refugee and survivor of war, I know how hard it is to find solid footing while building a new life,” Omar said in a statement to Sahan Journal. 

“Thousands of Afghans helped our U.S. servicemembers during America’s longest war. After the Afghan government collapsed, many came to the United States seeking refuge after risking everything. They have experienced a level of trauma and loss that few people can understand. That’s why I was honored to secure $500,000 for the refugee hub — so Afghans in Minnesota have a place they can call their own to heal, rebuild, and thrive.”

When Khatera Herawie moved to Minnesota from Afghanistan in November 2021, ACS gave her a sense of “home, that you’re safe, and you’re with your own people.” She said she found friends through the society at a time when finding Afghan people and pieces of her culture in Minnesota was harder. Herawie said that with this expanded space, the society can host and help even more refugees. “Now, it’s not only for Afghan people, but also for other nationalities. Now they have a safe space for people to talk and for all the programming.” 

For Katayoun Amjadi, an Iranian-American visual artist, the society, where she holds art workshops, has served as a safe space, too. At the end of February, when the U.S. and Israel launched strikes on Iran, and Pakistan declared an “open war” on Afghanistan, Amjadi was scheduled to hold a workshop at the society. 

The news was so debilitating that she almost canceled it. But she did show up, and is glad she did. “It was beautiful for me and very heartwarming,” she said. She met an Afghan attendee who was worried about her relatives in Iran. “For me, [it has been] very rewarding over the past few years to be in a space with women who’re like my aunts and I feel like I’m immediately in a community that I feel safe and easy [in].”

To Huda Yusuf, a chemist and longtime volunteer with ACS, this new space is about permanence. “I was most surprised when I heard the word ‘bought’ instead of ‘rent,’” she said. “Especially coming from an immigrant community, hearing the word bought meant permanence to me. That’s why I had an overjoyed reaction, and like, a sense of security.”

She hopes that with this expanded space, which includes an outdoor playground, the society will resemble a grandma’s house, like back in Afghanistan. “So much of the reason why the community likes coming here is because they know their kids are safe, and they know that their kids can run around and be free and, we’re all community, and we’re all going to make sure that everybody is OK,” she said. “It’s like going to your mom’s house and dropping your kid off for a second and talking to your sisters.”

The new 6,000-square-foot space will preserve the interiors and the history of Midwest Mountaineering while bringing bits of home from Afghanistan. The exposed bricks will remain, but the windows and doors will be replaced. The climbing cave in the basement will remain, now surrounded by handed-down Afghan rugs and throw pillows on the ground. 

“Just like the Silk Road allowed this movement of ideas, culture, music, poetry, love, all of these things, we want to allow that type of flow in the space,” Sajady said. “It’s not just Afghana who built this; it’s a lot of [people] who put a little bit of their love into it. And so I want to make sure that we represent them, and let them know that this is their home too, not just ours.” 

Some of the units upstairs will offer a quieter, more private space for existing mental health, education, and art and culture programs and even for possible expansion as they continue to serve a heightened need for support from the community. 

“It felt important, because we were seeing the community need to come together,” Sajady said. “I knew that with the attention that we had, I had to keep moving. I had to build as fast as I could, because I knew that that would go away, and that’s how we were able to get funds to buy a building … We just had to keep moving. We had to keep building.”

The post After four years in Cedar-Riverside, Afghan Cultural Society expands into newly purchased building appeared first on Sahan Journal.

Contemporary Hmong music is still in its formative stage in Minnesota. While some young artists continue to perform traditional folk music and song poetry, others are channeling cultural pride into hip-hop, R&B and pop genres through spaces like DJ Saint Paul Studios.

“Too often, Asian rappers are overlooked or stereotyped,” said DJ Saint Paul, founder of the music studio. “We want the world to see that Hmong artists can create great music in English and compete with any mainstream artist.”

The studio, located at 1321 Rice St., has become a creative hub for Hmong musicians to record, collaborate and develop their sound. 

“At our studio, we try to help young people however we can,” DJ Saint Paul said. “I always tell them to stay focused, stay out of trouble and keep chasing their dreams. If they’re serious about music and school, I’m happy to record their music for free. Music is our passion but helping our community is just as important to us.” 

The studio’s artist collective, Hmong N Harmony, will headline at the Hmong American Day Festival on Saturday. The group is also preparing for a summer tour across Minnesota, Wisconsin and California. 

Keep reading to learn more about this year’s festival, plus a Thai New Year celebration in St. Louis Park and the artists of color participating in Art-A-Whirl this weekend. 

The second annual Hmong American Day Festival, hosted by One Family and The Rice Channel, honors Hmong American Day, a May 14 holiday officially recognized in Minnesota by former Gov. Mark Dayton in 2013. 

At the time, Minnesota’s Hmong population was estimated at 60,000. Today, more than 94,000 Hmong residents live in the state, making it home to one of the largest Hmong communities in the country. 

“With this month of May being Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) month, we wanted to dedicate a weekend to really celebrate our heritage and our culture,” said Gao Thao, a board member of One Family.

At Maplewood’s Pan Asian Center, festivalgoers can experience the creativity of Minnesota’s Hmong community through more than 35 traditional and contemporary music performances across two days, along with 18 food trucks, arts and crafts vendors, cornhole tournaments and a beer garden. 

“In Hmong, we say ‘ib tsev neeg’ and in English, it means ‘one family,’” Thao said. “It really just means that we are one and can build community together wherever we are.”

Date: Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17

Time: 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Saturday. 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Sunday. 

Location: Pan Asian Center, 3001 White Bear Ave., Maplewood

Cost: Free

For more information: Visit tinyurl.com/hmongamericanfest

Every April, crowds in Thailand take to the streets to splash water on one another as a way to mark the New Year and wash away the previous year’s misfortunes. This weekend the annual water festival, Songkran, will come to St. Louis Park at the Buddhist temple Wat Promwachirayan. 

Alongside returning favorites like Thai street food vendors, live music, blessing ceremonies, and a papaya salad-eating contest, this year’s celebration will also welcome six queens from the Princess of Asia royal court, a local youth leadership and beauty pageant program. 

Date: Saturday, May 16 and Sunday, May 17

Time: 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Saturday. 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday

Location: Wat Promwachirayan, 2544 Highway 100 S., St. Louis Park 

Cost: Free

For more information: Visit thaiculturemn.us 

More than 1,600 artists, galleries and businesses will open their doors this weekend for the annual three-day Art-A-Whirl festival. To make the most out of your weekend, start at Public Functionary on Friday evening with “Cinema Red,” a film installation by Minneapolis artists Wasima Farah and Tiff Tran that explores community care and resistance in the Twin Cities. 

On Saturday, spend the day at Eastside Food Co-Op for the “All Together Now” event, featuring local musicians, visual artists and food vendors. That evening, an independent art studio Marble Fae Creative Collective will host “Artlesque: A Dark Mythology Burlesque Show,” where performers of color will tell ancestral stories through performance. 

Date: Friday, May 15 through Sunday, May 17

Time: 5 to 10 p.m. on Friday. Noon to 8 p.m. on Saturday. Noon to 5 p.m. on Sunday.

Location: Various locations in Northeast Minneapolis

Cost: Prices vary by event

For more information: Visit nemaa.org/art-a-whirl 

The post Hmong American Day Festival spotlights a growing Hmong music scene in Minnesota appeared first on Sahan Journal.

Promise Sallis learned how to ride a bike in gym class. She practices boxing. She takes lots of walks. For 16-year-old Promise, it’s an essential part of her education.

“Gym gives me more energy to actually go on with the rest of the day,” she said.

But next year, Promise and her classmates at Longfellow Alternative High School may have to take gym class online. The budget cuts in Minneapolis Public Schools are slated to eliminate positions for her gym teacher, art teacher and four other positions at Longfellow.

“I feel like us not having a teacher in the room to help out with that type of activity is not going to give us all the education we need,” Promise said. “Computers just make you lose your train of thought.”

Raniya Williams, 19, recalls taking gym class online during the pandemic, which she said was not as much fun. In-person gym classes help students feel more connected to the activity and each other, she said. 

“It’s a way to let out whatever feelings you have,” she said. “Doing that online is not going to do that.”

For the third year in a row, Minneapolis Public Schools is facing extensive budget cuts, about $40 million in total this year. The original recommended budget proposed cutting $50 million, but administrators found an additional $10 million available for next year after discovering a coding error in the special education funding.

“I never thought we’d be happy about a $40 million deficit, but it’s better than $50 [million],” said school board chair Collin Beachy at a May 5 finance committee meeting.

Schools were able to use those additional funds to plug some gaps, but others remain. At Longfellow, a small alternative school that serves about 40 pregnant and parenting teen girls, the core content area teachers were originally slated to be cut to half-time positions — which would have moved even more classes online in subjects like English, math and science. 

With the new funds, most of those positions were restored to full-time or nearly full-time, so the students will be able to take their academic classes in person. But the current budget proposal still cuts Longfellow’s budget by nearly a third, from $1.8 million to $1.2 million. Students aren’t sure how it will work to take online classes in art and gym — state graduation requirements that also let them work off steam and express themselves.

“I was really happy that it keeps all of our classes, our teachers,” Rosa De Jesús Vasquez, a 17-year-old Longfellow student, said of the new budget proposal. But she noted that some staff members are still slated for cuts. “Our community is not fully healed.”

“The opportunity to move and to play in phy ed is really important for young moms in particular, as well as arts — the ability to have creative expression,” said Lindsay Walters, a Longfellow counselor.

“I feel like we’re at functional, which is a big improvement,” said Lauren Tolbert, Longfellow’s science teacher. “But we’re still losing six people, six positions, and it’s really hard to imagine how that can have the level of care and connection that we’ve always had which makes us successful.”

Raniya said learning about the budget cuts “broke my heart, to be honest.” Even with some positions restored, several of her favorite staff are slated to be cut — including two educational support professionals who are Black women like her. One in particular reminds her of her grandmother and provides advice she needs to hear.

“Districts already don’t have a lot of Black women,” she said. “Every time the budget cuts come, they’re the first ones to get cut off.”

The newly found money allowed the district to restore most funding for adult education, previously slated for large cuts, and provide more funds to elementary and secondary schools. 

The district originally had planned to cut about 250 full-time equivalent positions this year. After discovering the new money, about 150 positions will be cut. At the same time, the district will add some new teacher positions as it invests in smaller class sizes, a requirement of the teachers union contract ratified in November.

The budget cuts come as the district overhauls its finance department, where a district-commissioned report recently outlined widespread dysfunction, and several staffers faced disciplinary action after $3 million for an employee health account was diverted into another district account.

At the same time, Minneapolis Public Schools is preparing for what it has called a “transformation” process to identify how to best serve its current student population, which has declined significantly in the past two decades. The district has said that process could include school closures and consolidations.

In a May 12 school board meeting, South High School student Liv Mueller expressed frustration with the repeated budget cuts.

“Every year we’ve been forced to suffer more and more losses of our favorite teachers and classes,” she said. “More often than not, it seems that we, the students, must fight for our right to a strong education.”

Longfellow Alternative High School is a small program within Minneapolis Public Schools serving both teen moms and their young children. While the moms attend high school, their babies attend child care at the other end of the building. 

It’s a small high school, but the students need extensive services. About 30% of the teen moms are classified as homeless or highly mobile.

Geneva Dorsey, the dean of students, described a series of support systems for the students: an on-site health clinic, mental health services, mentorship, child care, curb-to-curb bus services and a post-graduation plan. 

“We need more resources than a bigger school, because of the population that we serve,” she said. “We’re not only just serving the students, we’re serving their babies too.”

Longfellow also hosts activities for the students, including a “mom prom.” Recently, Longfellow staff held a special graduation ceremony for a student returning to Ecuador with some family members who were being deported.

Dorsey has been at Longfellow’s teen mom program for more than a decade. She says she’s still in touch with many former students. Their message is consistent: “The school and this program motivated them to be more than what other people thought they were going to be and could do because of the fact that they had a child young.”

If not for Longfellow, Rosa said, she’d either attend online school “or probably drop out.”

When the initial budget proposal rolled out, with teaching positions reduced to half-time, Dorsey worried many students would quit.

“I​​ truly think a lot of the students would have [given] up and dropped out,” she said. “Some of them indicated that, in their own words, that I’m not going to come to school and do half in person and sit in a room and do the other half online. That’s not right, and that’s not fair, and that’s unjust. And why us?”

Several students told Sahan Journal they had trouble concentrating on online classes.

“You lose focus easier when it’s online,” Promise said. “Especially Longfellow, since we are moms, we already got a lot on our mind.”

Promise, who hopes to become an obstetrician and gynecologist, discovered she was six months pregnant as a middle-schooler in Texas.

“I couldn’t pay attention because a lot of students were talking about me, so I wasn’t really getting all the education that I need,” she said. “So I kind of just dropped out for a little bit.”

Promise gave birth to her daughter, N’kyma, at 14. She spent her ninth-grade year moving from one city to the next with her baby, unable to attend school until she landed in Minneapolis. Now she lives at a shelter with her daughter. She was thrilled to return to high school at the end of last school year — and loves her teachers at Longfellow.

After the additional funding was found, she was happy to see that some of her teachers’ positions had been restored. But she’s concerned that the slated cuts could still hurt her academically.

“I have worked my way up to getting all my credits in a lot of classes,” said Promise. “But I think I would really fall back and slow down with getting all that stuff if we’re missing a lot of teachers that actually help us understand our work.”

Tolbert said she worried the loss of her colleagues would weaken the support system for students and make it harder for her to do her job.

“I do tons of hands-on awesome science with students, but the reason I’m able to focus on that is because there’s support staff who are helping people when they’re overwhelmed by something going on outside of school, or just got some terrible news,” she said. “There’s just all these behind the scenes things that need to be in place for learning to happen.” Now, the school will be losing two-thirds of its support staff, she said.

In a statement, Minneapolis Public Schools said that the district provides more financial support for Longfellow than is generated by the student enrollment, though that support would decrease next year.

“MPS central office staff will work closely with Longfellow Alternative High School to provide support as the school navigates a reduced level of budget support,” the district said. “In the coming school year, students will also have access to an online platform that will provide them with all courses needed for graduation and expanded choices compared to what was offered in the past.”

Longfellow staff were deliberate about how they shared the news of the proposed budget cuts to their students.

“Most of our students are dealing with so much outside of school that to add a layer of stress that impacts what might be the most stable part of their current lives — we want to be mindful of when we did that,” said Walters. “So when we did it, it was also presenting them with this is where things are at right now and things are not final until the school board gives their seal of approval.”

The teachers did not ask any students to speak at the school board meeting, she said, but many volunteered to do so. Nine students — about a quarter of the student body — attended the April meeting, a production that involved intricate teacher logistical coordination of transportation, car seats and diapers. Promise attended with N’kyma. Though she isn’t a fan of public speaking, she said she wanted to speak on behalf of her teachers.

After the core teacher positions were restored, a handful of Longfellow students returned for the May 12 school board meeting to advocate for the rest of their school staff.

Rosa told the school board that gym and art class should not be moved online.

“Online classes cannot replace the support, connections and encouragement that we receive that we get face-to-face from caring teachers,” she said during public comments at the school board meeting Tuesday. “In schools like ours, that impact is even greater because we’re not just working hard for us, but for our children.”

Javonna Brown, a 15-year-old Longfellow student, also spoke.

“I’ve had a lot of problems with schools in my past, and I’ve never liked any school the way I like Longfellow,” she said. “Ever since I’ve been attending Longfellow, I’ve been showing up to school almost every day. This school is more than a school to us. This is the same place where us young moms can continue our education while also learning how to take care of our babies and build a future.” 

Without the security guard and associate educators slated to be cut, Javonna said, the students would not be able to accomplish their goals. “Cutting our staff may save money now, but it could cost students their education, stability and future opportunities.”

Tolbert, who attended the school board meeting with her students, said that engaging in the budget process “might be one of the most impactful learning activities of the year.”

Walters agreed. “Seeing them here and really using their voice to advocate for what they want — if we can teach them anything, it’s that,” she said. “Those are muscles they’re going to need the rest of their lives.”

The school board will vote on a final budget June 9.

The post For teen moms at Longfellow Alternative School, Minneapolis budget cuts have outsized impact appeared first on Sahan Journal.

This story was originally published by The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice. Sign up for The Imprint’s free newsletters here.

When Deddtrease Edwards ran away from foster care for the last time at age 17, she packed her few belongings the way she always had: in trash bags. By then, it felt normal.

The North Minneapolis teen, now 28, had already spent three years piling clothes, photos and crafts she made in group homes into plastic sacks. At times the bags would rip, leaving everything she owned scattered on the ground. 

“You just feel disposable and like nobody cares about you,” said Edwards, a contributor to this outlet’s Youth Voices Rising program.

Final votes could be cast this week that would protect other foster youth from this experience.

A bill to outlaw the practice pushed by multidenominational faith groups failed to progress this session. But the pending Minnesota Foster Youth Bill of Rights details a list of legal protections for young people in government care that includes the right to “appropriate travel bags.” 

Rep. Jess Hanson, who represents parts of Savage and Burnsville, introduced both legislative proposals. In a phone interview last month, she said wouldn’t send her children to summer camp with their stuff packed in garbage bags. So, she asked, why should foster children have to move between homes like that?

“I hate that I have to pass legislation to make sure that fosters are treated with the dignity and worth that they inherently have as children,” Hanson said in an interview.

If the Foster Youth Bill of Rights becomes law, Minnesota would join several other states — including New York, Oregon, Oklahoma and Maryland — that have recently passed legislation addressing the problem. 

Former south-central Minnesota foster youth Shane Read, 29, highlighted the indignity of being removed from home and then shuffled around with disposable bags. 

Read, who has also written opinion pieces for Youth Voices Rising, entered foster care at age 11. Living between temporary homes and facilities, he moved with garbage bags twice. 

“It was a 16-gallon,” he said. “And so I’m putting my four outfits and my one stuffed animal and the little bit of money that I had inside of it.”

The state’s Ombudsperson for Foster Youth Misty Coonce is pushing for the bill of rights to counter these far-too-common occurrences. The legislation — which could see a final floor vote this week — includes language to protect young people’s privacy and their rights to give input on healthcare decisions and participate in religious and cultural practices. 

At a legislative hearing in March, Coonce said the bill’s standards will ensure that kids are treated consistently by foster parents and social workers. “It’s not a fix for every problem in our system,” she said. “But it is a huge step forward and sends a message that we expect better for our foster youth.”

Leah Patton is a lobbyist heading the Joint Religious Legislative Committee, a group representing Catholic, Protestant and Jewish interests that brought the issue to Hanson’s office. Other legislative pushes focus on improving food security and affordable housing, gun violence prevention and efforts to limit online gambling.

Patton said her group’s focus on the need for luggage in foster care was inspired by a similar New York law that passed earlier this year. The bill would have clarified existing law in order to allow counties to accept donated luggage as long as it’s new or in good condition. It would also have required counties to submit annual reports to the Office of the Foster Youth Ombudsperson about compliance.

But the lobbying began too late in the legislative session for the bill to proceed this year, Patton said. In the meantime, she is reaching out to other lawmakers to gather support for next year.

“It’s upsetting that vulnerable kids are having to deal with that. It just seems like such a basic thing that should be intuitive, shouldn’t even be a question,” Patton said. “And it’s something that’s retraumatizing these kids — kids that already experience shame and embarrassment at being in foster care.”

Absent any current legal requirements in Minnesota, some local governments have come to rely on charities. Anita Olson, a foster parent who lives roughly an hour north of Minneapolis, runs a community closet that supplies luggage and other necessities to children in her state and neighboring Wisconsin.

Olson learned of such needs when she began taking in foster youth in 2013, and realized kids often arrived with nothing but what they were wearing. And the costs of basic necessities added up. 

So in 2017 she founded Safe Haven Foster Shoppe, which provides clothes, toiletries and toys, packed neatly in backpacks and duffle bags. She’s also helped social workers who’ve asked for luggage for foster youth moving between placements.

“It definitely has a long-lasting impact,” Olson said. “The earlier the intervention of removing that garbage bag and replacing it with something that makes them feel more valued and has substantial thought behind it is going to alleviate more trauma.”

Nashauna Johnson-Lenoir, who entered foster care in Chicago in the 1990s at age 4, said she moved between more than a dozen foster and group homes with garbage bags. Sometimes when she arrived at a new home, her foster parents made her empty out her bags on the porch and said she was only allowed to keep some things. Or they made her throw it all out.

Johnson-Lenoir now runs Journie, a Rochester, Minnesota-based nonprofit that prepares foster youth for adulthood and teaches them leadership skills. But the experience of moving with a garbage bag has stuck with her. When a foster parent finally gave her a suitcase with wheels, along with a carry-on and a duffle bag, she cried.

“I took a brown permanent marker, and I wrote my name on it,” she said. “I was excited because it was mine.”

The post The indignity of moving your stuff in trash bags: Foster youth in Minnesota deserve better, advocates say appeared first on Sahan Journal.

This story comes to you from MPR News through a partnership with Sahan Journal.

The federal government is seeking to revoke the citizenship of a Minnesota man who became a U.S. citizen nearly two decades ago, marking one of a small number of denaturalization cases pursued in federal court.

Last week, the Department of Justice filed a civil complaint in federal court against Salah Osman Ahmed, one of 12 foreign-born individuals currently targeted in similar proceedings.

According to court documents, Ahmed was naturalized as a U.S. citizen in August 2007. In 2009, he pleaded guilty to providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, specifically the Somali militant group al-Shabab, which is designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization. At the time, his defense attorney stated that Ahmed had traveled to Somalia in late 2007 to fight Ethiopian forces operating there.

The government argues that Ahmed’s actions shortly after becoming a citizen raise questions about whether he had a genuine commitment to U.S. constitutional principles at the time of naturalization.

In its filing, officials wrote that he “lacked the requisite attachment to the principles of the Constitution and dedication to the good order and happiness of the United States,” suggesting he may not have met the legal standard required for citizenship.

Denaturalization cases are uncommon and typically require the government to prove in federal court that citizenship was obtained illegally or through intentional misrepresentation.

Under U.S. immigration law, authorities must meet a high evidentiary threshold, showing “clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence” that an individual either lied during the naturalization process or was not eligible for citizenship at the time it was granted.

Officials say such cases are part of a broader effort to review past naturalizations where serious criminal activity or alleged fraud may be involved. Immigration enforcement has also expanded in other areas, including increased Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations, broader use of expedited removal procedures and heightened scrutiny of individuals with existing legal status, including refugees.

Advocates and immigration attorneys have raised concerns that recent policy changes are contributing to longer processing times, increased documentation requirements and greater uncertainty for immigrants navigating the system. They argue that these shifts may discourage people from seeking legal protections or cooperating with authorities.

The case against Ahmed will now proceed in federal court, where a judge will determine whether the government has met the legal standard required to revoke his citizenship.

The post Feds seeks to revoke citizenship of Minnesota man in denaturalization case appeared first on Sahan Journal.

Like many recent business school graduates, Ahmed Ali was looking for a start-up idea that catered to an unmet need. He found it in his Muslim and Somali community in Minnesota.

Ali, 23, was born in South Africa and raised in northeast Minneapolis. After graduating last year from the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, he brainstormed with his friend Badraddin Abdi, 25, about what service they could offer to the community that raised them — especially the mothers. 

Last September, Ali and Abdi co-founded Bundle Halal, the first grocery delivery service in the state that specifically caters to those seeking halal-certified meat and staples. 

Ali says that the concept and business model of Bundle Halal was initially inspired by a deep appreciation for mothers who are the heart of the community but quickly broadened to the whole family. 

“This is targeting everybody, the fathers that don’t have time and don’t have the energy to go outside, people [for whom] it’s tough for them to go outside, and even for the young generation that are just getting married and that want to make it easier to experience halal meat. We tailor it for everybody, but one of the core reasons we started is for the mothers,” Ali said. 

Customers place orders on the Bundle Halal website. Categories include oils, spices and seasonings, grains like basmati rice, sauces and dips, drinks and desserts, and a “Bundle Box” an assortment of meats prepped for cooking. 

There are more than 90 halal grocery stores in the state serving as many as 150,000 Muslim customers, according to a 2020 University of Minnesota study.

For most animal products to qualify as halal for Muslims, they must be raised, treated and slaughtered according to strict criteria that ensures the animal is treated with care and mercy. Animal products that are prohibited entirely include pork and its byproducts, blood and carrion. 

Halal grocery stores also tend to stock ingredients used in many African, Asian and Arab cuisines. 

Abdi, who lives in California, maintains the website and handles advertising, and marketing. Ali manages the day to day operations in the metro area. 

In the early days, Ali says, it took a while for orders to start coming in. He remembers checking his phone and hitting refresh a lot, wondering if there was something wrong with the system.

“Even getting a couple orders … was the hardest thing ever,” said Ali.“[Now] we get lots of orders every single day. There’s definitely a need and a want for it. Once people get comfortable and familiar, then things start going good.”

The entrepreneurs also faced a learning curve around the business’ marketing and the speed of deliveries. 

“When we first started, we were doing next-day orders, then we sped up to same-day orders, and then we sped up to one-hour delivery. That was a logistical nightmare because you have to tell each and every part of the business A to Z to work on going faster. For example, the people that prepare the meat and everything, they had to cut the meat faster and be ready, and the driver has to be on standby. And then marketing [another challenge] showing yourself out there and having people trust us with their online groceries,” Ali said. 

The decision to speed up deliveries came from both customer feedback and overall market demand, Ali says. 

“We noticed many customers wanted halal meat and groceries delivered faster and more conveniently, especially busy families, students and working professionals. One common thing we heard was that people wanted an easier way to access halal products without having to drive long distances or spend extra time shopping in-store. That pushed us to focus heavily on convenience and fast delivery.” 

Social media marketing has been a key component of Bundle Halal’s reach. The goal of being on platforms like Instagram and TikTok is to educate people about the convenience of halal grocery delivery and helping people discover that this type of service exists in Minnesota. 

Bundle Halal sources primarily from Plymouth Halal Market, which opened last year and serves the west metro. One of the most popular proteins from this site is the pre-diced chicken because of the convenience, Ali says. The market can serve orders within a 60-mile radius. 

In its first six months, Bundle Halal has expanded from a two-person team to nearly two dozen people, according to Ali. That includes the store staff that help package the order, vendors and drivers. It has delivered several thousand orders, the co-owners say.

Feedback from customers on the quality of the packaging and timing of the delivery has helped accelerate their growth. 

“It keeps everybody in check,” Ali said. “I think one of the biggest things is getting better, getting fresher, getting quicker, and also giving a good experience overall.” 

Ali says Bundle Halal can help businesses like Plymouth Halal, which may be too small for bigger online grocery platforms, to scale up. 

“These [halal market owners] are our uncles and aunts. Technology is getting so advanced that we would love for them to keep up with us too so they can keep growing,” he said. Bundle Halal also passes on whatever market trends they see to the grocery stores. “One thing we love to do is whenever something’s popular in the city, we also tell all the stores to carry it,” he said. One example of a trendy item Ali has noticed is the Milaf date cola, a soft drink made of date extract instead of added sugar and artificial sweeteners. 

Safiya Mohamud, co-owner of Plymouth Halal Market, says that the partnership with Bundle Halal has increased their sales because they are now tapping into a market of customers that would rather order online. In addition to seeing a positive impact on their sales, Mohamud also says the connection to the broader community has been strengthened. 

“We have a lot of diversity that comes here — Indian, Pakistani, Somali, Arabs — a lot of people who are looking for halal especially. We sell a lot of fresh goat meat, that is one of our biggest sales.” Mohamud said her customers live in western suburbs like Plymouth, Maple Grove, Eden Prairie and New Hope. 

Bundle Halal provides the businesses with the boxes, plastic and ice, and the staff in the store package the orders. The deliveries are carried out by drivers on the Bundle Halal team including Ali himself and third-party services. 

Seth Ketron, associate professor of marketing in the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas, says that Bundle Halal’s niche focus could take them far. 

“There’s a big market for it,” Ketron said. “Globally, Islam is the second largest religion and there might be other communities where there’s some overlap [in their need] for halal certified food. The fact that there’s really nothing that caters toward this need, like this service, it’s a great opportunity. If Bundle Halal does well, it could capture market share from established players such as DoorDash, Instacart and Uber Eats,” he said. 

The next big goal for the business is to expand their network of halal grocery suppliers and delivery areas in greater Minnesota.

“For example, [places like] Willmar, Mankato, we want to reach those areas. Halal stores in Minnesota are limited by the store’s reach, but when you add an online website to it, there’s no limit to it. Our ultimate goal is to make halal foods accessible in every area of Minnesota,” Ali said. 

The post Bundle Halal brings grocery delivery to Muslim families in Minnesota appeared first on Sahan Journal.

Four years after the Feeding Our Future scandal first rocked headlines, state lawmakers responded Monday by creating a new state agency focused exclusively on tackling fraud. 

Gov. Tim Walz is expected to sign the bill creating a new Minnesota Office of Inspector General after both state legislative chambers passed the proposal. The House passed the measure last week, and the Senate advanced the bill Monday. 

The bill will consolidate some existing inspector general positions in current state agencies into a separate, independent agency. 

“This new office is going to be a major tool to create a culture of accountability here in Minnesota,” state Sen. Michael Kreun, R-Blaine, said shortly before the chamb bvfrdew321`er voted Monday. “This independent agency will be the watchdog of taxpayers. This bill is a seismic change in state government.”

Kreun co-authored the bill.

The bill, championed in the Senate by Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, and in the House of Representatives by Rep. Matt Norris, DFL-Blaine, passed both chambers with near unanimous support. 

Years of fraud scandals, starting with Feeding Our Future and continuing with federal probes into alleged fraud with autism service providers and daycare providers, prompted the new office’s creation. 

Here’s what you need to know about the new state agency:

While the office won’t be operational until late 2027, it will cost Minnesota taxpayers money starting this June as state employees work towards launching it.

First, state lawmakers must make recommendations for candidates to lead the office. The bill gives them the rest of the year to do that. Then, the governor will nominate a leader from the list of candidates. 

That task will first fall on the Legislative Inspector General Advisory Commission, which will be composed of four state senators and four state representatives, picked by their respective majority and minority leaders. The commission will be split evenly between Republicans and Democrats. 

The eight-member commission will have until Jan. 1, 2027, to come up with a list of candidates to lead the new agency, which will be sent to the governor. Candidates must receive votes from at least five commissioners to advance to the governor.

The governor must select someone from that list and appoint them by February 1, 2027. The Senate must then approve the governor’s pick by a vote of at least three-fifths of the chamber. The term for inspector general lasts five years.

State Rep. Patti Anderson, R-Forest Lake, another co-sponsor of the legislation, told reporters last week that she estimated that an inspector general would be actively working by February or March 2027.

The inspector general must have an undergraduate college degree and 10 years of experience in “auditing, investigations, law enforcement, or a related area,” according to the legislation. The candidate must also be professionally certified by the Association of Inspectors General.

Those serving in state offices — including the governor, state legislators, state commissioners, agency heads and deputy agency heads — are barred from serving as inspector general until five years after ending their terms. 

People elected to all other public offices can’t serve as Inspector General until 10 years after ending their terms. 

The office is charged with conducting “inspections, evaluations, and investigations” of state agencies to identify fraud by using professional accounting standards. 

It will also publish findings of these investigations and make recommendations, including potentially referring findings for civil or criminal charges to its own in-house law enforcement agency. Each year, the inspector general will submit an annual report summarizing its work to the Legislative Inspector General Advisory Commission. 

The office will maintain an anonymous tip line that is open to the public. 

Lawmakers behind the legislation estimate that the Office of Inspector General will eventually employ around 40 full-time investigators. These include existing staffers in the state’s Department of Education, who will move over to the new office next year. 

Hiring for the new staffers is expected to occur sometime next spring, shortly after the new Inspector General is installed into office. 

A new law enforcement agency that is planned to open under the Office of Inspector General will require hiring additional employees separately from the 40 investigators.

Yes. This was a major sticking point in securing Republican support for the bill. Democrats argued that the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA) could provide the law enforcement personnel necessary to work with the Office of Inspector General on fraud cases. 

Republicans said the new agency needed an independent law enforcement agency — one separate from control of the governor’s office. They cited the fact that fraud occurred under Walz’s administration, and the fact that the BCA is an agency under the governor’s control, for their reasoning. 

Democrats, however, argued that creating a new law enforcement agency was a waste of resources. 

“I think we should keep the law enforcement section separate from the investigative functions,” state Sen. John Marty, DFL-Roseville, said Monday shortly before voting for the bill. “I’m supporting the bill despite that deep concern, but I really don’t think we should be wasting money on creating a separate law enforcement agency.”

Much of that is unknown as of now. The future inspector general will be tasked with deciding most of this, including how many licensed law enforcement officers to hire. 

“We don’t have a set number for them,” Gustafson told reporters last week.

The new law enforcement agency will be called the Inspector General Anti-Fraud and Waste Bureau. It is expected to be up and running in January 2028, Anderson said. Until then, the Office of Inspector General will work with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension for law enforcement needs. 

How much will the Office of Inspector General cost taxpayers?

The bill’s authors estimate that the office will cost roughly $11 to $12 million a year. 

The office’s first year, which starts this June and goes through June 2027, is estimated to cost between $3 to $6 million in its “launch phase,” Norris told reporters last week.

The state already employs inspector generals in several state agencies who investigate wrongdoing. 

The inspector generals in the state Department of Human Services; Department of Health; and Department of Children, Youth and Families will remain in place with their own agency. They investigate fraud in Medicaid; the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program; and child care assistance programs, respectively. 

The new Office of Inspector General, however, is not barred from investigating fraud allegations in any of those agencies.

Employees from the Department of Education’s inspector general division will transfer over to the new Office of Inspector General before the beginning of 2027.

The post What you need to know about the new office Minnesota lawmakers created to fight fraud appeared first on Sahan Journal.

The unmarked SUVs rolled through an Augsburg University parking lot on a chilly Saturday in early December, and masked federal agents with long guns poured out. 

Students watched in horror from nearby dorms as the agents pointed guns in the faces of their classmates and staff before detaining education major Jesus Saucedo Portillo.

The Dec. 6 scene, caught on video, reverberated throughout the diverse, tight-knit campus. It was the second arrest of an Augsburg student by immigration agents that semester and came just days into Operation Metro Surge.

Augsburg knew it faced unique risks when Donald Trump was elected for a second term. The school sits squarely in the middle of a neighborhood with a high population of immigrants. And it has the highest percentage of students of color of any private college in the state. 

By December, the Trump administration had already arrested international students around the country, including three in Minnesota, and revoked visas for many more. It had also cut funding for university grants that prioritized equity and inclusion — including an Augsburg program that provided funding for first-generation graduate students.

School officials had prepared for the possibility of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents coming to campus, and followed the protocol they’d developed, asking for a judicial warrant. But agents did not show a warrant and detained Saucedo Portillo anyway.

Ellie Olson, director of the university’s Center for Wellness and Counseling, recalled students feeling scared and confused, “reckoning with the feeling of, ‘we handled this according to our policies, and the bad thing still happened.’”

School officials braced for a drop in enrollment when the spring semester started in January, as Operation Metro Surge escalated all around Augsburg’s campus. They scrambled to provide personalized support to hundreds of students so they could continue their education — finding ways for them to take classes online, live on campus, or use underground tunnels to travel between classes.

In the end, despite the escalating ICE presence, the drop in enrollment never came. In fact, about 60 more students enrolled that semester than Augsburg had projected.

Saucedo Portillo’s arrest came just before the end of the fall semester. That night, the school sprang into action to support its students. The student government organized a pizza night where students could stop by to process their feelings. Counseling staff mobilized to campus on a Saturday to help triage student mental health needs.

The shift in the mood on campus was like “night and day,” said Aidan Wippich, the student government president. 

“It genuinely felt like someone really important on campus died,” he said. “The grief, the emotions — it was palpable in the air.” Wippich spent much of the last week of the semester strategizing more know-your-rights sessions and helping steer the university to make campus safer: for example, making all building doors accessible only via a fob.

At that point in the semester, just a week of classes remained before finals. Many professors allowed flexibility with assignments that last week, with some moving classes online. 

Amanda Lape, a political science major who had mutual friends with Saucedo Portillo, recalled a surge in text messages. “Everybody was checking in on everybody,” she said. “Everybody was texting their friends.”

She was alarmed to see ICE spreading lies about her classmate, claiming that he had a past drunk driving conviction and that he was a registered sex offender. Minnesota court records and both state and national sex offender registries do not show any such offenses for Saucedo Portillo.

“What is the school going to do about this?” Lape remembered thinking.

In the last two decades, under Pribbenow’s leadership, Augsburg has transformed over the from a predominantly white institution founded by Norwegian Lutherans into Minnesota’s most diverse private college.

Now, the school serves more than 3,200 students, including about 2,300 undergraduates. Two-thirds of the undergraduates are students of color, and more than half are the first generation in their family to attend college. 

Immediately after the 2024 election, Augsburg created a working group dedicated to studying Project 2025, a Heritage Foundation plan for the next Republican presidency.

“We believed that if that was the blueprint for what was going to happen, we had the potential to be a target for that, just because of who we are, what we care about, and who our students are,” Pribbenow said.

Months into Trump’s second term, Pribbenow’s fears began to come true. In August 2025, the first of three Augsburg students was detained by ICE. Kevin Murillo Lucero, then 19, was on his way to a job site when ICE pulled him over, looking for someone else with a deportation order. Murillo Lucero, who came to the United States at 14 as an unaccompanied minor, ultimately agreed to self-deport to Ecuador in hopes that would make it easier for him to return on a student visa.

But his student visa was denied, his godmother, Lidia Margarita Riera Alvarado, told Sahan Journal. Murillo Lucero remains in Ecuador.

Then in September, Augsburg received word that its McNair Scholars Program, designed to support graduate degrees for first-generation students, had been eliminated in federal grant cuts. The U.S. Department of Education told Augsburg that the grant’s priorities did not align with the current presidential administration — specifically mentioning anti-racism training Augsburg had previously offered faculty and staff.

By late November, Michael Grewe, the dean of students, began to hear stories from staff and students about being pulled over or detained by ICE. Trump had begun to escalate his rhetoric against Minnesota’s Somali community — many of whom live in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood where Augsburg is located.

In early December, Trump announced an increase in immigration activity in Minnesota, focused on the Somali community. Steve Peacock, Augsburg’s director of community relations, attended a neighborhood response meeting in early December. He expected a small gathering, but more than 100 people turned out, planning rapid response networks and the need to combat negative narratives about the Somali community.

“From there, things just accelerated very quickly,” he said. ICE agents began to patrol the neighborhood, “showing up in very visible, aggressive ways.” 

When Saucedo Portillo was arrested on campus, university administrators followed their protocol. 

“All of those protocols came into play immediately, and none of them worked, because they didn’t care about our protocols,” Pribbenow said. “We had to pivot.”

As January began, it became clear that the ICE operation was not winding down anytime soon. On Jan. 7, an ICE agent killed Renee Good, less than three miles from the Augsburg campus. By then, thousands more agents had been deployed. In mid-January, ICE detained a third Augsburg student, this time off campus. 

Augsburg declined to provide information about the three students detained, citing privacy concerns. David Wilson, a lawyer for Saucedo Portillo, said he secured his release through a habeas corpus petition.

Meanwhile, more than 3,000 other students were due to return to campus later in January.

“These students are here to get an education,” Pribbenow recalled thinking. “That’s what we do. What can we do to make it possible for them?”

Najeeba Syeed, an Augsburg professor, described high stakes for students — more than half of whom are the first generation in their families to attend college. 

“Once you obtain a college degree, it opens up a much more robust avenue to upward social mobility,” she said. “If students didn’t return or are not here for a semester, that derails their education in a really significant way.”

Grewe asked professors to refer students who had safety concerns to his care team. He heard from students who had been racially profiled by ICE, who had to take care of their siblings after their parents had been detained, whose family lost their income and faced eviction because they could not go to work during the ICE surge. Augsburg helped connect students with mental health and legal support as needed. Grewe did his best to connect their families with resources as well. 

“The first and foremost thing I think about is listening to our students and responding to our students’ needs,” Grewe said.

Over two weeks, the care team triaged concerns from about 350 students. Augsburg expanded the number of classes available online for the spring semester, which some students preferred. 

Wippich recalled some students pushing to move all classes online. He explained to them that not all students could take their classes online — for example, if their major required science labs, or their visa required in-person classes. 

Some students had safety concerns about commuting to and from campus. So Augsburg expanded a housing program typically meant for students experiencing housing instability to include students who didn’t feel safe commuting to campus. An additional 22 students signed up for the housing program after the school expanded it to these students, Grewe said, more than doubling the program’s participation.

Listening and responding to students’ needs was key, Grewe said. For example, some students reported concerns about going outside after ICE agents approached them on the public streets running through the campus. So Augsburg publicized its existing but often underutilized skyway and tunnel system, printing new signs and giving campus tours, to minimize the time students had to spend outside.

“They’ve done a really good job at highlighting some unknown ones,” said Devon Standingstrong, a history and religion major. “We could see them from outside, but it was just difficult to navigate inside the building.”

Some students had concerns about coming to campus at a particular time of day, so the care team worked with them to change their schedules. The student government implemented a buddy system so students could walk to their cars together.

Still, about 60 students opted for a leave of absence during the spring semester — nearly twice as many as last year.

Move-in weekend coincided with a planned Cedar-Riverside march led by Jake Lang, a right-wing activist known for his antisemitic and Islamophobic conspiracy theories who was indicted for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol before Trump pardoned him.

“There were staff that were scheduled off, but they all volunteered to be on campus to greet students and to communicate a presence of care and safety,” said Babette Chatman, director of campus ministry. 

Staff were carrying trauma, too, Chatman added. But they wanted to be present so that students didn’t have to face any potential chaos without them.

And they weren’t just protecting students — they were protecting their neighbors. Peacock recalled seeing people in fluorescent yellow vests — including volunteers from Augsburg — on every corner that day, watching to make sure their neighbors were safe.

As ICE escalated its tactics and agitators like Lang descended on the neighborhood, more and more Cedar-Riverside residents stayed home in fear. Augsburg stepped up its community response.

Peacock was in close communication with organizations throughout the neighborhood, and saw food access emerge as a major issue early on in the surge. Augsburg already partnered with neighborhood food shelves — but the ICE presence left many neighbors afraid to leave their homes. 

Peacock helped mobilize Augsburg students and staff as volunteers: escorting food shelf clients back to their apartments, delivering food to people’s homes, and watching for ICE outside of food distribution centers. He also organized an effort to support the local businesses that struggled as many customers and staff stayed home. And he worked with a neighborhood church and mosque to set up coffee and tea outside Friday prayers, providing a visible protective presence.

Dante Vancourt, a 34-year-old senior psychology major, wanted to support his classmates and neighbors as a “person of safety.” Vancourt, who is African American, felt confident he would not be profiled as an immigrant, and reached out to classmates he thought might need support. He drove around trying to identify ICE agents and began grocery shopping for his neighbors. He found it harder and harder to concentrate on his schoolwork.

“You could feel the tension, but also the sense of community,” he said.

Syeed shifted the community service learning program she leads, because it didn’t feel as safe to take students into the community as it had before. 

“If I don’t feel myself safe as a professor being in the neighborhood, it feels very difficult to ask my students to travel extra time and space outside of campus,” she said.

Some students told Sahan Journal they stayed in their rooms more than usual — and people from many ethnic backgrounds felt they could be a target for ICE. Megan Gwinn, who is white, realized she could be at risk after Renee Good and Alex Pretti were killed. Standingstrong avoided going outside after ICE arrests of Indigenous men.

Syeed arranged community service activities on campus that students could participate in safely, like making hygiene kits for unhoused people. Still, she noticed some students who did not feel targeted choosing to volunteer in the community.

Lape helped distribute food, despite her Filipino mother’s worries about her going too near an ICE agent.

“It felt like I could do something,” Lape said. “Everything that’s been happening really beats you down, because it feels like you are just such a small person in such a large system and that you can’t really do anything to actually help out. But these efforts to actually show up for everybody — I would honestly cry about it so often, because I was just so overwhelmingly proud of how the community came together.”

Over the last few months, Pribbenow has been sharing the story of Augsburg’s response to Operation Metro Surge — supporting both students and the larger community — with university presidents throughout the country.

“I’ve been very careful to say, we’re hoping you don’t have to face this,” Pribbenow said. “But there still are important lessons here about how a community can come together no matter what the challenge is.”

He noted that students came back at a time when it would have been easy to stay away, and the school was able to continue its mission of education.

“It’s not just what we did on campus, but it’s also how we embraced our neighbors,” he said. “It could have gone in very different directions if people had not been supported, or they were too frightened to be here.”

Standingstrong said he saw continuing his education during this time as a form of resistance.

“Even if we were hiding on campus, it was still so much more important for us to remain on campus,” he said. “I felt like it really allowed Minneapolis students who were fed up with ICE to just show we are here, we are educated, we know our rights, and there’s nothing that you can do about that — that you will not scare us into submission.”

The post Caught in the crosshairs: How Augsburg University mobilized to protect students during the ICE surge appeared first on Sahan Journal.

With the June 2025 vote to exclude undocumented adults from the state-run health care program, a reported 85% prenatal no-show rate at the peak of Operation Metro Surge, and the local safety net hospital in serious threat of closure, the status of health care in Hennepin County is dire. These structural and policy failings have reinforced the perception of health care as a zero-sum game where one’s gain is directly tied to another’s loss. 

What if deficit-based care were not the status quo in Minnesota? What if health care repaired harms inflicted from the legacies of exclusionary policy and medical racism? What if health care started with joy instead of pain? What if healing started with Black joy instead of Black pain? What would health care in Minnesota look like if we approached policy and clinical decisions this way? 

These are questions that the Healthcare Reparations Cooperative has been exploring in political education workshops and, more recently, at a Community Assembly for the Reparations Project. Through facilitation and arts-based practices, the cooperative works to address the crisis of the imagination that the status quo of health care must remain as is, and instead encourages us to dream into the reality that another world is possible and that health care can be fundamentally different. 

The status quo of health care in Minnesota is built on extracted land (Henry Mower Rice donated stolen land to establish the first hospital in Minnesota, Sisters of St. Joseph Hospital, in 1853) and sustained by the extracted labor of an underresourced workforce. Despite the liberal exterior, Minnesota’s health care landscape is one with sordid foundations, including historically deep roots in the eugenics movement and more recent dealings with nonconsensual experimentation. This scarred past is not unique to Hennepin County or Minnesota, but drives the Minnesota Paradox that set the stage for a status quo where the state is best in class for white Minnesotans, yet ranks among the worst for Black Minnesotans. 

The drivers of inequitable health outcomes and lasting implications were highlighted during the COVID-19 pandemic and echoed the longstanding truth that Black and brown people are disinvested and deprioritized in systems of health care and care more broadly. The consequences limit life chances and lower life expectancies. 

Yet even with this long-standing knowledge, the solutions remain reactive and lack reparative priorities, in turn maintaining the status of the status quo. 

If Black joy were a core driver of health care, what material conditions (labor, infrastructures, technologies) would need to shift? 

Basset and Galea make it clear, “There has not been a single year since the founding of the United States when Black people in this country have not been sicker and died younger than White people. A growing consensus highlights a structural basis for these preventable disparities — structural racism — clarifying the need for a structural solution.” Racism is still a public health crisis, and we need to treat it as such in our solutions. To be clear, actualizing Black joy in health means going beyond disparity mitigation, moving us toward the redistribution of resources and the equitable and collective access to them. 

Actualizing Black joy in health through reparative solutions means more than a check. It means catalyzing momentum to flip the paradox despite the current political attacks. 

If Black joy were an essential component of health care, from the interpersonal to the structural, we would shift from managing a disease to building a sustainable infrastructure that promotes health, wellness and abundance. The individuals and communities dynamically situated at the intersections of Blackness, Indigeneity, queerness, transness, immigration status and disability, those who are most impacted by health care harms, would be prioritized. Public health would focus on public healing as a form of disability justice that acknowledged temporary ability. 

Actualized Black joy in health would mean that statistical inference is not based on a white referent, so that one’s existence is not based on “despite of” and “compared to” statements. Actualized Black joy in health would mean health care systems and health-knowledge-producing institutions acknowledged, reckoned with, were accountable to, and redressed the legacies of medical racism and human rights violations in health. 

Actualized Black joy in health would mean care was an expansive term that integrated justice in a way that the social determinants of health were not a distinct priority area to be addressed, but a universally understood human reality — health cannot be separated from a community’s social and physical environment. Actualized Black joy in health would mean the elimination of medical debt and the uncoupling of health from racial capitalism. Actualized Black joy in health would mean everything would have to be fundamentally different, and that would be beautiful.

Yes, there are a million buts that could be thrown into all of this, and those arguments are what have maintained operations as usual. Arguments of “but, this is how it has always been done”; “but, there is a crisis”; “but, we don’t have enough votes”; “but, how will it actually happen”; “but, those people don’t deserve it”; “but, we don’t have the money”; “but, that will take away from me” but, but, but! 

Yes, dreaming is hard. But the power of building together and dreaming into something different is so worth the struggle. 

Olúfẹmi Táíwò names this common worry, “The ambitions of the worldmaking project recommended by the constructive view may make reparations appear beyond daunting. How can we possibly succeed at a task as immense and contested as building the just world?” 

He goes on to say, “The unjust world order we have is the outcome of five centuries of human action — it would be an incredible achievement to undo this evil in half that time.” But he calls us to embrace an ancestral approach to worldmaking, making the moment bigger and intergenerational, saying that “It often takes everything a generation has just to win the struggle immediately in front of them. But if they pass on the right things — and if we in the generations that follow pick up what they left for us — that can be enough.” 

One political education participant described the following: 

“In that space, there is no worry about impending debt from seeking medical care. There are affirmations, the wait times are reasonable, and there are people wishing health and wellness onto everyone waiting to receive care. Family can stop by and be sure that their loved ones matter to the care-providing team. The market does not dictate hospital logistics. No one is banking on these folks to die in order to collect any payouts from insurance companies. The waiting room feels like an extension of home, and relationship-centered care is the norm. The care providers are Black. The nurses are Black. They look like neighbors from the community who are just a little bit extra trained on how to keep people healthy.” 

The next time you are in a care space — be that a pharmacy, clinic, hospital, or dentist — imagine the care starting from a place of joy instead of pain. Imagine the expansive possibilities repair offers for strengthening relationships, not unlike the hard work of mending a relationship with that longtime friend. Imagine the structural changes beyond the clinical setting that pave the way for joy to be the new status quo. As you imagine, think of what it would look like, feel like, sound like, smell like and taste like. Let yourself dream into the reality that another world is possible and health care can be fundamentally different. 

The post Opinion: Can Black joy redefine Minnesota’s health care landscape? appeared first on Sahan Journal.

In an effort to keep the language of the Aztecs alive in Minnesota, a book series written in Nahuatl, Spanish and English debuts in St. Paul this Saturday. 

Twin Cities artists are also celebrating Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month this weekend at a south Minneapolis music and arts festival, while Hmong musicians head to Union Depot for the fifth annual Qeej and Hmong Arts Festival. 

If you’re feeling inspired, head to the Somali Museum to learn traditional Somali arts. 

For Minnesota’s Mexica-Nahua (Aztec) community, finding resources to learn their ancestral language can be challenging.

Alma Lora, a dancer with the Mexica-Nahua group Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli, is bridging that gap with a new children’s book series designed to introduce young readers to Nahuatl, an Indigenous language spoken by more than 1.5 million people in Mexico today. 

“Unfortunately, I can’t go to a local book store and get a Nahuatl book and learn,” Lora said. Instead, she pieced the language together through songs and the philosophical teachings of her mentors and Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli’s co-founders Mary Anne Quiroz and Sergio Quiroz.

Though Lora’s lineage traces back to the Otomí people of Hidalgo, Mexico, she felt disconnected from that part of her heritage while growing up on St. Paul’s West Side — a gap that only began to close when she joined the dance group at age 11. 

“I go to danza when I know I’m having a really hard day and I just want to take everything out,” Lora said. “That’s where I dug into my Indigeneity, reclaiming where my family’s from and the culture that I kind of missed out on growing up.”

It was through this rediscovery that she took on her Nahautl name, Tlahuitekpatcihuatzin, which translates to “honorable woman who carries the light within the obsidian knife.”

After Lora had her daughter in 2023, she knew she wanted things to be different for the next generation. She wanted Tlahuilli — whose name means “little light” in Nahuatl — to grow up knowing her ancestral language instead of having to search for it. 

Her first book, “Tlahuilli, Mi Nosiwapil” (Tlahuili, My Daughter), recounts Lora’s birth story and a vivid dream she had while pregnant. 

“Tlahuilli’s name actually came to me in a dream,” she said. “I was giving birth but I couldn’t see what the child looked like. It was just this huge beam of light, and they kept telling me: ‘push Tlahuilli out.’”

Now that her daughter is nearly 3 years old, Lora is looking ahead to the rest of their story. The series will explore motherhood, Indigenous culture and the important conversations parents have with their children.

“Everyone’s journey is completely different. Every birth story and every kid is unique,” Lora said. “I’m hoping my book sparks interest in kids learning more about themselves, where they come from and their history.”

The community is coming together at Indigenous Roots on Saturday to celebrate the book and Mother’s Day with performances from Kalpulli Yaocenoxtli, hip-hop artist Cuauhtli Day, and singers Maria Cervantes and Tearra Oso. 

Date: Saturday, May 9

Time: Noon to 4 p.m. 

Location: Indigenous Roots, 788 E. 7th St., St. Paul

Cost: Free

For more information: Visit instagram.com/tlahuitekpat/ 

The Asian American-owned south Minneapolis-based brewery Arbeiter Brewing will host its third annual Asian Phoenix Festival this Saturday. 

The event spotlights local Japanese taiko drummers, hip-hop breakdancers, and seven craft makers, including Hmong textile artist Tshab Her and poster-maker Sean Lim. 

A variety of local food and drink vendors will also set up shop at the brewery.

Date: Saturday, May 9

Time: Noon to 4 p.m.

Location: Arbeiter Brewing, 3038 Minnehaha Ave., Minneapolis

Cost: Free

For more information: Visit arbeiterbrewing.com/ 

Two workshops on Saturday will offer a closer look at traditional Somali art practices. At Mawadah Cafe, learn weaving techniques done without looms or frames. At the Somali Museum, learn the rhythms and movements of Somali cultural dances. 

Date: Saturday, May 9

Time: Weaving workshop from 2 to 4 p.m. Dance workshop from 5 to 7 p.m. 

Location: Weaving workshop at Mawadah Cafe, 505 Lake St., Minneapolis. Dance workshop at the Somali Museum, 2925 Chicago Ave., Suite C, Minneapolis

Cost: Free

For more information: Visit somalimuseum.org/events 

A bamboo pipe instrument, traditionally played in Hmong funeral ceremonies, will echo throughout Union Depot on Sunday for the Hmong Cultural Center’s fifth annual Qeej and Hmong Arts Festival. 

Master qeej (pronounced “geng”) players will perform throughout the day, alongside hip-hop breakdancing from Cypher Side, contemporary Hmong dance from Iny Asian Dance Theater, singing and more. Vendors will offer Hmong food and crafts. 

Date: Sunday, May 10

Time: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 

Location: Union Depot, 240 Kellogg Blvd., St. Paul 

Cost: Free

For more information: Visit uniondepot.org/event/2026-qeej-and-hmong-arts-festival/ 

The post A ‘little light’ for Nahuatl: Twin Cities author’s book series explores Indigenous motherhood appeared first on Sahan Journal.

Smoky skies are expected to return to Minnesota this summer, when climate change-fueled Canadian wildfires are likely to rekindle, according to state experts. 

Minnesotans can expect between 12 and 16 days of air quality alerts this summer due to smoke from northern wildfires, according to  the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. 

“It’s really being driven by climate change and wildfires in Canada, and wildfires here locally in Minnesota, and all that can be attributed back to climate change,”  state meteorologist Matt Taraldsen said. 

State environment and public health officials hosted a briefing Wednesday on this summer’s air quality forecast.

Wildfire smoke, largely descending into Minnesota from Canada, has been a regular feature of Twin Cities summers since 2018. Those waves of smoke often trigger air quality alerts, which are issued when the Environmental Protection Agency’s color-coded warning system rises to orange levels of pollution. 

The Twin Cities set a record for air quality alerts in 2023, when regulators issued warnings on 27 days. Last summer, large fires in Canada and in northeast Minnesota generated 25 air quality alert days in the metro. 

This year is bringing a strong El Niño weather pattern, Taraldsen said. El Niño conditions push Pacific Ocean warm water toward North and South America, creating warmer and dryer conditions in the northern United States and Canada, which can lead to drought conditions. 

Wildfire smoke carries microscopic drops of smoggy dust that contribute to a host of health problems when inhaled, according to Jessie Carr an epidemiologist with the Minnesota Department of Health. 

“It penetrates deep, deep into the lungs and it can pass into the blood stream,” Carr said. 

Smoky air can spark short term symptoms like coughing, shortness of breath and eye irritation. Exposure to unhealthy air exacerbates heart disease and asthma, and can lead to premature death. Smoke can also contribute to unhealthy levels of ozone pollution. 

Children, including teenagers, the elderly, pregnant women and people who work outdoors are the most at risk from unhealthy air, Carr said. 

Black and Native American children are more likely to have asthma than their white, Latino and Asian peers, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Health. Black and Native American Minnesotans visit emergency rooms and are hospitalized due to asthma at much higher rates than white residents.

Micah Niermann, a pediatric physician at Gillette Children’s, said air quality is a critical health concern. Tiny pollution particles from wildfire smoke cause inflammation in the lungs, and when it accumulates, fluid can build up, leading to further issues such as pneumonia. The particles can also carry toxic heavy metals, he said. 

“The smoke is putting a lot of people at risk,” Niermann said. 

Like all pollution, wildfire smoke impacts are cumulative. Being exposed multiple times over several days is damaging. And people who live near highways and industrial areas with elevated baseline pollution levels have increased risk. 

“We know that not every population in Minnesota is exposed to the same level of air pollution,” Taraldsen said. 

The Air Quality Index (AQI) is a system developed by the EPA to provide daily air quality measurements. The scale ranges from good, denoted with the color green, to hazardous, which is shown with a maroon color. Alerts are issued starting at the orange level. 

Minnesotans should check air quality like they check weather before leaving home or making plans, Carr said. Many smartphone weather apps have an option to show air quality. 

Information about air quality can be found at:

• Current Air Quality conditions on the MPCA website
• Interactive map from the EPA
• AirNow Mobile App
• Minnesotans can call the MPCA AQI hotline at 651-757-2766 (English only)

“Hearing about the number of days with heavy smoke is really daunting,” Carr said. 

But limiting outdoor time or wearing a protective N95 level mask during bad air days can make a big difference. 

The air in homes is also impacted by conditions outside, Taraldsen said. He recommends running a HEPA-grade air purifier inside during bad air quality days. A cheap alternative can be made by taping a furnace filter to the back of a box fan, he said. 

Minnesotans can chip in during bad air quality days by driving less and avoiding activities like bonfires. 

Climate change caused by the burning of fossil fuels is the primary driver of the increase in northern wildfires in recent years, experts say. 

The changing climate fuels periods of extremes, punctuated by weather with heavy “have” and “have not” spells, Taraldsen said. There are more weeks of intense rainfall and weeks of intense heat and drought. 

“That puts a lot of stress on vegetation,” he said. 

In 2023, a record year for air quality alerts in the Twin Cities, temperatures in the Canadian boreal forests hit 90 degrees in April, which set the state for an extreme fire season.

The post Smoky air expected to cloud Minnesota summer due to climate change, experts say appeared first on Sahan Journal.

This story was originally published by The Imprint, a national nonprofit news outlet covering child welfare and youth justice. Sign up for The Imprint’s free newsletters here.

A legal team that has repeatedly challenged the constitutionality of the 1978 Indian Child Welfare Act is again taking the issue to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

The petition was filed May 5 by Timothy Sandefur at the Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based conservative think tank, and Minnesota attorneys Mark Fiddler and Jeffrey M. Markowitz. It challenges the federal law known as ICWA and Minnesota’s Indian Family Preservation Act (MIFPA), both of which protect tribal children and families in child welfare cases.  

“Together, these laws impose a set of rules on child-welfare cases involving children who are biologically eligible for membership in an Indian tribe — rules that, amazingly, are less protective of Indian children than are the rules that apply to kids of other races,” the Goldwater Institute stated in its press release announcing the filing.

“And each day, children like those involved in this case are denied the possibility of safe, loving homes, solely because of the color of their skin,” the petition reads. 

Countering that argument, Indigenous rights scholars note ICWA has nothing to do with race because it is based on an agreement between the U.S. government and sovereign tribal nations. 

In March, the Minnesota Supreme Court ruled that two white foster parents represented by the Goldwater legal team do not have standing to argue that ICWA violated their constitutional equal protection rights. The case involves Red Lake Nation twins identified in court documents as Ki. K. and Kh. K. As medically fragile newborns, they were placed temporarily with Kellie and Nathan Reyelts, biological parents of seven children who have fostered dozens of other children since 2010. 

In accordance with ICWA, the children were later moved to be raised by relatives.

The Reyelts and their legal team argued that they were discriminated against when the siblings were removed from their home.

Shannon Smith, executive director of the ICWA Law Center in Minneapolis praised the ruling in March. “The Minnesota Supreme Court’s decision reflects the Court’s understanding that considering family and tribal connections is in the best interests of Indian children,” she told The Imprint.

The Reyelts’ case was first filed in 2023 district court, and worked its way through the court of appeals before reaching the Minnesota Supreme Court. The plaintiffs claimed that ICWA’s foster care placement preferences that prioritize kin and tribal members are “discriminatory,” and that the children in their home “were harmed by ICWA by being removed from a loving home where they were thriving and attached to their caregivers.” 

But in a 49-page subsequent ruling March 11, Minnesota Supreme Court Chief Justice Natalie Hudson wrote that lower courts had rightfully denied the Reyelts’ attempts to intervene in the case and to have the twins returned to their home. 

The Reyelts’ latest appeal to the nation’s highest court asks the justices to rule on whether ICWA and MIFPA “unconstitutionally deny equal protection to ‘Indian’ children and to non-‘Indian’ people who seek custody of them,” and whether the Minnesota Supreme Court’s ruling violated the petitioners’ First Amendment rights.

“Had the children been white, black, Hispanic, Jewish, or anything other than Native American, they would likely have remained with the Reyelts, who took great care of them and hoped to become their forever family,” the Goldwater Institute press release states.

Three years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of ICWA, ruling against plaintiffs in the Brackeen v. Haaland case who argued the federal statute was unconstitutional and denied non-Indigenous parents adoptive rights.

The latest appeal to the nation’s highest court may or may not be taken up, and there is no clear timeline about how long that decision might take.

The post U.S. Supreme Court is asked, again, to overturn ICWA as unconstitutional appeared first on Sahan Journal.

As a child, Sue Yang was told by her parents that her disability stemmed from a curse, or something wrong or bad she might have done. They had no direct experience of disability in their family and didn’t always know how to make her feel included in family and social events. So Yang had to educate herself about Turner syndrome, and advocate for herself both in her family and in the community. “They [were] hesitant, but they grew out of it because I taught them. I helped teach them that don’t be afraid, actually be more supportive,” Yang said of her parents.

“The stigma of [disability] is that we tend to not show our child with a disability, because of shame, afraid of being excluded, afraid of being judged,” Yang said. 

“Many Ways of Being: Hmong Disability Stories in Photos,” aims to cut through the stigma and highlight stories of resilience, joy and advocacy. 

The exhibit, created by the nonprofit United Hmong with Disabilities, highlights the stories of eight Hmong individuals of varying ages and with visible and invisible disabilities. It launched with a kickoff event in April at Hmong Village and is on display at the Walker Art Center for a second weekend on May 10.

“The idea of it is to showcase that all [people with] disabilities are just like ordinary people,” said Yang, who is the board president of the organization and a participant in the exhibit. 

Sahan Journal interviewed three of the eight individuals featured in the exhibit to learn more about their stories: 

Houa Moua did not embrace her disability for the first two decades of her life. The co-founder of United Hmong with Disabilities, who is also a comedian and an actor, said she lived in denial. “I just wanted to be a Hmong daughter,” she said. “But because of my disability, I didn’t have to do all the things that women feel oppressed by. It is so weird because I guess I’m being further oppressed.” 

Growing up, having to take special education classes in school didn’t help. “Being grouped with other kids with disabilities, it always made you feel othered,” Moua said. “A lot of the teaching for me were things that might have worked for white kids with disabilities. And it was to teach us how to sort of navigate America. But then I go home and I’m still just that girl in a wheelchair.” 

That changed when she was in her early 20s; she learned more about her disability, made friends with people with disabilities, especially Hmong women. 

Moua would go on to discover that she would need to constantly advocate for inclusion, both with her family and with strangers. “My disability meant I couldn’t participate in my family a lot, but they’re always insisting on doing things that they assure me I cannot do,” she said. 

This perspective on disability is ingrained in the Hmong language, which often describes disabilities as a loss, Moua said. “The vocabulary around disability is all very negative. It all surrounds the idea of having lost something, not being able to do something. If you’re deaf, or if you’re someone who’s on the autism spectrum, they might call you the word for ‘dumb.’” 

She also encountered accessibility barriers in the neighborhoods and community spaces she navigated. Moua recalled the time she went to get pho in Frogtown, got stuck in the snow in her wheelchair and had to call the fire department for help. Or, when she discovered all the food stalls at the annual Hmong International Freedom Festival in St. Paul were on the top of a hill with no wheelchair access. “The more POC there are in the neighborhood, the less accessible it seems,” she said. “It’s kind of hard to be a person of many intersections.”

Moua confronts the intersections of her identity every day, be it in the form of spaces she has access to, or how people often transgress her personal space to offer help she didn’t ask for. Like the time someone started pushing her wheelchair without her consent, scaring Moua. “I started screaming, and she backed off. And she just walked away, looking like literally the most horrified that [I’ve] ever seen a person be. And I’m like, “Oh, wow. Now I have to feel bad that she invaded my space!’”

Humor is one tool Moua uses to make sense of her lived experiences and debunk social notions around people with disabilities. “People expect you to be sad,” she said. “So many things happen to you and the darker it is, the more there’s always a funny side.” 

On Saturday, the first day of the Walker exhibit, Moua performed her new comedy set, “Living Inspirationally,” where she joked about how people with disabilities are called inspirational simply for existing. 

Moua said that the Hmong community in Minnesota has a long way to go to not only accept but also embrace people with disabilities. And the path towards that, Moua believes, is in radical change. “I feel like it’s at that point now where it’s not just small tweaks,” she said.

For Blong Moua, living with spina bifida is “quite boring.” Moua instead wants to be active, independent, hold a job and participate in family activities. But he said he often feels left out. 

On the day the exhibit kicked off at the Hmong Village with some of the participants, members of United Hmong with Disabilities and community members, Moua showed up alone, driven to the venue by a volunteer driver. He said he wished his family was there. “I don’t think they know that I’m even in this disability conference,” he said. 

Moua, 46, is the oldest of three brothers, and yet, growing up, and even now, he feels like he is treated as the youngest in his family because of his disability. “It kind of makes me upset,” Moua said. He said even before he can attempt to do something by himself, someone rushes in to help and do it for him. “In real life, I think the oldest kid with disability, the parents are supposed to treat them as an adult, as what they need to be treated. But in my situation, they treat the able-bodied first and then me last.”

Moua has been attending a day support program for 22 years and had a job for a private digital imagining company before the pandemic. But, he said the opportunities for individuals with disabilities have shrunk since then. His dream is a job translating Hmong where he won’t have to move around much. 

Asked what his ideal day would look like, Moua said, “if I were to do anything, I would try to be [as] independent as possible, not worry about what my parents are wanting me to do.”

“How do I translate Down syndrome to Hmong?” This was of the many questions Chue Xiong had to grapple with after she had her third child, Peyang Lee, aka Belle Lee. There was a lack of resources and information, and her family was nervous for her. “It was very, very challenging,” Xiong said. “I’m sure other Hmong people out there [who have] children with disability and who are even more scared than me, because I’m a health care worker, and I’m still like, ‘Oh my gosh, what happened? How do I process this? How do I go from here?’”

As a nurse, Xiong took it on herself to not only learn more about Down syndrome for her child, but also educate members of her family and the community at large. She knew it would be an uphill battle. 

“I know people, especially our community, they will look down [on] family who had children with disabilities as being a burden or being disadvantaged. So I said, ‘Okay, now it’s up to me to advocate for her, to make the best of her life, because beside me, there’s nobody that will advocate for her.’”

At the health care facilities she has worked in, Xiong said she made sure to be there for Hmong mothers with children who have Down syndrome. She would be in the room with them after they gave birth, to support them and share her journey bringing up Peyang. 

“When I see [a] family who had normal children or children without limitation and disability, I’m happy for them, but [when] I see family who had children or who had family member who had some kind of disability, it just touched my heart. I want to reach out to them. I want to tell them that I know how special your person is. I want to make that person feel good, and I want to say something positive to them,” Xiong said. 

Peyang, 17, is the third of four children. She loves music and drawing. In school, she is lovingly called the Queen of Color Markers because she loves to draw and has every color with her. “She also wants to dress like mom, and she loves being photographed,” Xiong said. 

She knows that many families tend to make their children with disabilities feel left out by not including them in their plans. But Xiong said that it is very important to her that Peyang is not only included in family and social events but also is welcomed and respected. “I include her all the time because I want to make sure that she’s never alone, or feels isolated,” she said. “I want [people] to have that level of respect that she is as normal as my other children.”

Peyang grew up around a doting mother and loving sisters who are her best friends and second moms. Xiong hopes Peyang will continue to live with them as long as she wants to, that she will grow up to be self-sufficient and be able to take care of herself, but more than anything, she wants Peyang to be happy. “I will make sure that she has a place to stay, where she’s happy, where she’s [loved].”

What: Sensory Friendly Sunday at the Walker

Time: Sunday, May 10, 8-11 a.m.

Location: 725 Vineland Place, Minneapolis

Details: instagram.com/p/DXKV6xqjIeo

The post Hmong photo exhibit at Walker Art Center reframes disability and identity appeared first on Sahan Journal.

A federal judge Wednesday denied a bid by two Minnesota school districts and the state’s largest educators union to keep immigration enforcement activity away from schools.

In her order denying a preliminary injunction, Judge Laura Provinzino said that plaintiffs — Fridley Public Schools, Duluth Public Schools, and Education Minnesota — had failed to prove that any harms to schools during Operation Metro Surge stemmed directly from the 2025 policy change they sought to challenge. 

The plaintiffs expressed their disappointment in a joint statement.

“The Trump-Vance administration’s decision to allow immigration enforcement at and around schools has disrupted classrooms, driven families away, and created an environment of fear that no child should have to endure,” they wrote. “While the court declined to immediately stop that activity, this is not the end of our fight.” 

Brenda Lewis, superintendent of Fridley Public Schools, said that her district’s concerns remained unchanged. “Since the rescission of longstanding sensitive locations protections, we have seen real impacts on children, families, attendance, and the overall sense of safety within our schools and community,” she said. “As educators, our responsibility is to protect children’s ability to learn.”

The plaintiffs said that while denying the preliminary injunction allowed immigration enforcement activities near schools for now, they would continue pushing forward with the case.

The Department of Homeland Security celebrated the ruling, calling it “a victory for the rule of law and common sense.”

A spokesperson said that the Trump administration would “not tie the hands” of law enforcement “and instead trusts them to use common sense.” ICE was not going into schools to arrest children, the spokesperson said. “If a dangerous illegal alien felon were to flee into a school, or a child sex offender is working as an employee, there may be a situation where an arrest is made to protect public safety.”

Starting in 1993, and most recently revised in 2021, agency policies discouraged immigration officers from conducting enforcement activity near schools. The Department of Homeland Security changed that policy on the first day of President Donald Trump’s second term in office. 

The districts and union argued that the process to change the policy had not followed the proper protocol, and cited numerous examples of immigration officers coming on school property during Operation Metro Surge. In some cases, parents were detained at school bus stops. In one incident, Border Patrol officers deployed chemical irritants on students and staff outside of Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis. The plaintiffs argued that these encounters near schools were the direct result of the change in agency guidance, and asked the court to restore the 2021 policy.

But Provinzino, an appointee of former President Joe Biden, noted that even under the previous policy, immigration enforcement near schools was never prohibited. She found that the change in policy did not cause the uptick in immigration activity near schools.

“The 2025 Guidance, in short, did not change DHS’s ability or authority to engage in enforcement activity at or near protected areas,” she wrote. “What has changed, evidently, is DHS’s willingness — not its authority — to conduct immigration enforcement activity at or near protected areas like schools.”

Provinzino continued: “Instead, the School Districts’ alleged harms flow directly from DHS’s enforcement activity during Operation Metro Surge at or near schools, which they do not squarely challenge here. And in any event, the relief they seek would not remedy those harms or make them less likely to occur in the future.”

Even if she reinstated the 2021 guidance, Provinzino said, she could not direct the Department of Homeland Security how to use its enforcement discretion or tell it to return to the priorities of previous administrations. 

Provinzino’s ruling echoed arguments from Department of Justice attorney Jessica Lundberg.

In an April 8 hearing, Lundberg said the government wanted to emphasize that “swapping out the 2025 memorandum for the 2021 memorandum will not have a meaningful impact on the immigration enforcement activity plaintiffs are complaining about today.”

Amanda Cialkowski, arguing for the plaintiffs, pushed back during that same hearing.

“If you see the myriad examples in the declaration, including [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] pulling up in front of an elementary school and blasting ‘Ice Ice Baby’ on their radio, there is no world in which that would have been permitted under the prior policy,” she said. “Yanking people out of their cars, including U.S. citizens with passports, that would not have been permitted under the prior policy.”

But though Provinzino appeared sympathetic to the “significant emotional toll” incurred by teachers as they helped students and parents through the surge, she found the government’s legal arguments more persuasive.

Provinzino found that the school districts were unlikely to prove they had standing to bring the lawsuit, citing a lack of injury recognized by the law. She said that federal agents’ incursion onto school property was not a trespassing violation under Minnesota law; decreased school attendance did not qualify as a legal injury because there is no federal Constitutional right to a public school education; and that districts’ financial expenditures incurred by responding to ICE activity were not required.

“In other words, the School Districts, for understandable and even admirable reasons, chose to implement these measures; the 2025 Guidance did not require them to do so,” she wrote.

She also found that the union, which had claimed harm both as an organization and on behalf of its individual members, was unlikely to show it had standing.

While the plaintiffs expressed disappointment, they stressed that the case was not over.

“While the court’s decision is not what we hoped for, we remain committed to this effort,” said Adelle Wellens, spokeswoman for Duluth Public Schools. “We will continue to work toward restoring protections to ensure that schools remain places of learning rather than fear.”

The post Judge rejects Minnesota effort to limit immigration enforcement near schools appeared first on Sahan Journal.

In 2022, Minneapolis Public Schools settled a three-week teacher strike with a key contract provision aimed at protecting teachers of color in the event of layoffs.

But that provision has never gone into effect, as the district has not laid off any teachers in the past four years, despite extensive budget cuts. And it may never take effect if the federal government has its way. 

A federal judge heard arguments Wednesday morning in a case brought by the U.S. Department of Justice, alleging the contract between the teachers union and the school district discriminates on the basis of race, color, sex and national origin. The Department of Justice filed the lawsuit in December. Wednesday’s hearing focused on Minneapolis Public Schools’ motion to dismiss the case.

Patrick Schiltz, the chief judge for the U.S. District of Minnesota, repeatedly used the word “tricky” to describe the case. He pressed Timothy Sullivan, an attorney for Minneapolis Public Schools, to explain the relevant contract language.

Typically, teachers receive layoffs and involuntary reassignments based on seniority. But this rule often privileges white teachers, because teachers of color are more likely to be new to the classroom. In the Minneapolis teacher contract adopted in March 2022, “underrepresented” teachers can retain their jobs out of seniority order.

Sullivan said that because the contract language “has never been used in any instance whatsoever,” it was not clear which characteristics might be “underrepresented” or how the district and union might interpret it in practice.

“It clearly applies to race though, would you agree?” Schiltz asked him.

“I would agree it would at least include race,” Sullivan said.

Schiltz puzzled out a theoretical scenario that if the least senior teacher at a school was a white woman, she would lose her job. But if the least senior teacher was an African American man, he would keep his job, and the next least senior teacher would be on the chopping block. Sullivan pushed back, saying it would depend on the actual demographics. 

Sullivan also argued that no one had been injured by the contract provision, and thus the government was unable to bring a lawsuit.

But Schiltz seemed to reject that argument.

“What the government is alleging here is basically right now, if I’m a white teacher in the Minneapolis school system, right now, today, because of this [collective bargaining agreement], I have weakened seniority rights compared to non-whites,” he said.

Under this system, Schiltz said, “the school system is contractually obliged to discriminate.”

Sullivan said it was an affirmative action plan, lawful under existing Supreme Court precedent, “in order to remedy past discrimination.”

Schiltz, though, also identified holes in the government’s arguments. In order to bring the anti-discrimination lawsuit, the Department of Justice needed to identify a pattern or practice. He mulled whether one contract agreement could constitute a pattern or practice.

Allen Huang, a Department of Justice attorney, argued that the collective bargaining agreement governed district behavior.

“I think the word practice can refer to one act that’s ongoing and that they’re currently engaged in,” Huang said. “They are engaged in the practice of classifying teachers by race.”

Schiltz said that in his view, the school district’s best legal argument was that the case could not proceed without including the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, a signatory to the disputed contract provisions. 

If Schiltz issued an injunction against the district without including the union, the district could face conflicting legal obligations to follow both the court order and the teacher contract. But the district also argued in a legal memorandum that the union could not be included, because it is a private employer and thus only the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission — not the Department of Justice — can bring claims against it.

Huang said that if this were the case, it would severely limit the government’s ability to enforce civil rights law.

“Pre-enforcement civil rights challenges would essentially not be allowed,” he said. 

He suggested that Schiltz could join the union to the lawsuit in a limited capacity, but Schiltz seemed skeptical.

“What makes this hard,” Schiltz said, is “on its face it seems the union is an indispensable party.” But, to hold that would “take a big chunk” out of the anti-discrimination law allowing the government to bring the lawsuit. “Any employer who wanted to engage in discrimination could just tuck it into a [collective bargaining agreement] with the union.”

Schiltz cautioned he would take his time to decide. “There’s a lot to research here and think about, so it will be a while before I get my order out,” he said.

The federal court challenge is the second lawsuit against the contested teacher contract provision. The Minnesota Supreme Court tossed out an earlier challenge in state court, citing a lack of standing. A Minneapolis taxpayer argued that her tax dollars were being illegally used to enforce this provision, but the Minnesota Supreme Court said she didn’t have the right to sue. In his January 2025 ruling, Justice Karl Procaccini said that the Supreme Court expressed no opinion on the merit of the taxpayer’s claims — merely that she did not have standing to challenge the contract. He noted that someone else might have standing to sue.

Minneapolis Public Schools declined to comment on the active litigation.

Marcia Howard, president of the teacher chapter of the Minneapolis Federation of Educators, said the union would continue to defend the contract agreement.

“I know our collective bargaining agreement between Minneapolis Public Schools and the Minneapolis Federation of Educators was hard-fought and hard-won,” she said. “We’ll continue to defend it because recruiting and retaining educators from underrepresented populations is critical to make sure that our students have a diverse cadre of teachers instructing them.”

Minneapolis Public Schools has faced extensive budget challenges in recent years, but has not laid off a teacher since 2010, when it cut a Japanese language instructor citing low enrollment in her classes.

In recent years, Minneapolis Public Schools has made budget cuts of non-tenured teachers, which don’t count as layoffs and have not triggered the contract provision. For example, in spring 2024, facing a massive budget deficit, Minneapolis Public Schools “excessed” 452 teachers, removing them from their positions with the right to apply for other jobs in the district. In the end, 50 lost their jobs altogether. 

Of those, 36% were teachers of color — in a district where the number was 22% overall. But because those teachers were not tenured, Minneapolis Public Schools said, the job losses did not count as layoffs and the contract provision did not apply.

Next school year, facing a $40 million deficit, Minneapolis Public Schools expects to eliminate 144 full-time positions, according to a Tuesday night presentation to the school board’s finance committee. Donnie Belcher, a Minneapolis Public Schools spokeswoman, said that 32 of these positions were within the teacher bargaining unit. She added that the number of laid off positions wouldn’t be clear until after teachers completed the reassignment process.

The post Federal judge hears lawsuit over Minneapolis protections for teachers of color appeared first on Sahan Journal.

Dorene Waubanewquay Day knows the birth stories of her 16 siblings by heart. 

For her mother’s first five children, she gave birth at home on the Bois Forte Reservation. She said her mother felt comfortable there and could take part in Indigenous birth ceremonies. 

“She was happy,” Day said. “She was well taken care of.”

But then traditional birth practices and home births were discouraged on reservations. The changes meant that Native women were pressured to give birth in hospitals.

For Day’s family, they were told to go to the Indian Health Service hospital two and a half hours away in Cloquet. Sometimes her mother went into labor and didn’t make it there. She gave birth to one of her sons prematurely in a blizzard. Day’s father placed him in a shoebox with blankets to keep him warm on the way to the hospital.

Her last pregnancy ended traumatically. She contracted a staph infection inside the hospital, which caused gangrene. Doctors performed an emergency hysterectomy to remove her uterus. She was in the hospital for three days and was told to finish recovering at home. 

Day’s mother survived all of her pregnancies. But many other Native women did not. 

“Luckily, she lived. But how many other women … How many of them lived?” Day said. 

A recent report from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) found that maternal mortality among Native American women is 12 times higher than the overall statewide rate. Researchers, health care workers and community members say the statistic reflects the ongoing impact of trauma, a lack of access to care and other systemic inequities. 

“The boarding schools, the relocation, the taking us off of our land, the smothering of our cultural ways, all of those things we continue to suffer from,” said Dr. Mary Owen, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center of American Indian and Minority Health. 

The report was put together by MDH’s Minnesota Maternal Mortality Review Committee, which analyzed the deaths of those who died during or within one year after the end of a pregnancy between 2017 and 2021 in Minnesota.

Of those 162 deaths, 59 were determined to be related to the pregnancy.

The report calculated a ratio, which adjusts the number of deaths to the number of births, meaning there were 17.9 pregnancy-related deaths for every 100,000 births.

When the ratio is broken down by race, significant disparities in the data are revealed. 

The pregnancy-related death ratio for Native American women was 12 times higher than the overall statewide rate, and nearly 22 times higher when compared to white women. 

For Black women, the ratio was more than two times higher than the statewide rate, and about four times higher when compared to white women.

Ratios could not be calculated for Asian and Hispanic women due to the small number of deaths in those groups. 

The report examined whether discrimination was a factor in the deaths, and found that Native women have the highest rates of discrimination, with more than 90% of deaths involving discrimination. For Black women it was nearly 70% of deaths. The committee can identify discrimination in documents such as medical records which can show bias, stereotyping or prejudice.

Jennifer Almanza, who served on the review committee for seven years and was co-chair when the report was released, said it’s important to note that the number of Native women who have died is likely higher, as many have detribalized and live in more urban areas.

The report also found that 95% of all the pregnancy-related deaths that occurred in Minnesota were preventable. While that finding can be troubling, Rachael McGraw, a women’s health consultant with the Minnesota Department of Health who coordinates the review committee, said it emphasizes that the state can work on solutions. 

“It’s so sad to think that someone died of a preventable cause, but it also tells us there’s so much we can do,” McGraw said. “There are changes that could improve outcomes in Minnesota, and I think that’s really hopeful.” 

This is the committee’s first report that has looked at five years worth of data, which McGraw said helps paint a bigger picture and allows the data to be broken down by racial groups. Because Native people make up a small population of Minnesota, publishing yearly data could make the people included in the data set identifiable, she said. There is also lag when data is released due to the time-consuming task of examining each death carefully and reviewing reports before publication.

Katy Backes Kozhimannil, a professor at the University of Minnesota and co-director of the school’s Rural Health Research Center, said she’d like to see the data released more quickly, emphasizing that each death leaves behind a child and a family. 

“We can’t be talking about children that are 5 years old now, that lost their moms in 2021, and the children that are 9 years old now,” Kozhimannil said.

For Native researchers, health care workers and community members, the findings in the study were dismaying, but not surprising. Many have heard anecdotally and through other research that Native women face high rates of maternal mortality. But they say Native people and the issues they face are frequently dismissed and overlooked.

“I’m disappointed,” said Lisa Skjefte, who serves on the Minnesota Maternal Mortality Review Committee and is the executive director of the Nawayee Center School. “I can’t help but feel that this is like a modern-day genocide, because preventable deaths should indicate effort and intention to stop …  I don’t think the state is paying enough attention. I don’t think local organizations like hospitals are paying attention.”

The reasons why Native women have higher rates of maternal mortality are not due to their genetic makeup. Instead, researchers and community members say it lies in systemic inequities that have impacted them for decades. 

“What’s happening here isn’t based in biology,” Kris Rhodes, the director of MDH’s Office of American Indian Health, said. “It’s not a Native woman problem, and it’s not based on personal choices, but it is the social determinants of health, the living conditions where we all live, work, play and pray together.”

Rhodes said factors like lack of access to stable housing, food and health care all play a part.

Many Native women don’t receive quality and culturally competent health care, and don’t trust the health systems that are in place.

“I think the reality of it is, we don’t really prioritize the health and well-being of families, even as kind of medically progressive as our state is, there’s obviously a big gap in how our Native women are experiencing care,” Almanza said. 

Dylan Daniels, who works as a nursing cultural care coordinator at the Indian Health Board Clinic in Minneapolis, said there is still mistrust among Native people toward the Indian Health Service. In the 1960s and 1970s, IHS sterilized thousands of Native women, many of them without their knowledge or consent. Many IHS locations are underfunded and underresourced, and the majority of Native people do not live near one. 

“Just because we’re a Native clinic doesn’t mean that trust is guaranteed,” Daniels said. “There’s a lot of work to be done to build that trust.”

Native women are also disproportionately impacted by substance use disorder which is higher in communities facing discrimination and poverty.

“When you take a group of people and you do terrible things to them over and over and over and never let them get their feet up under them, you’re going to get things like substance abuse,” Owen said.

McGraw said the majority of Minnesota’s pregnancy-related deaths occur postpartum and due to mental health factors. Oftentimes women stop using substances when they are pregnant to protect the health of their baby, but then encounter issues like postpartum depression and return to substance use.

“When someone returns to use postpartum, that’s a really, really dangerous time … That return to use is often related to coping or to manage mental health symptoms,” McGraw said. 

Women are often scared to get help for substance use, fearing they might be separated from their children. Minnesota law historically required health care providers to report suspected substance use during pregnancy to local welfare agencies, but laws have changed more recently. The Hennepin County Attorney’s Office announced in 2024 that it will no longer criminally charge people for drug use during pregnancy.

Health care visits also drop for women after they give birth. While their newborn child has frequent visits in their first weeks and months of life, women typically receive one checkup at six weeks postpartum.

“Parenting is hard. Being postpartum is hard. There are just so many additional stressors when you are bringing a child into the world and recovering from that,” said Dr. Cresta Jones, co-chair of the review committee and a high-risk pregnancy physician at the University of Minnesota. 

The report lists recommendations to improve outcomes, including having the government provide financial support for pregnant women and their families; improving the screening and assessment process for mental illness and substance use disorders; and having more follow-up with patients who are referred for mental health treatment or medication. 

It also recommends that communities provide more resources for Native and Black survivors of trauma, racism and violence and that government bodies like the Legislature invest in addressing the root causes of poverty. 

Those who study maternal mortality say the impacts on Native women are not discussed enough by leaders, the government or by the public in general. A small step is just getting people to talk about the issues facing Native women more. 

Kozhimannil said there has been a sentiment, particularly among non-Native people, that sharing statistics like these would harm and traumatize the community. But she argues that not speaking about it can be even more dangerous. 

“Silence is more traumatic, much more traumatic. It is so much worse to watch mothers die around you and then have reports come out that say Minnesota is a great place to give birth and raise a kid, or just not having statistics about your community,” she said. 

Sen. Mary Kunesh, DFL-New Brighton, the first Indigenous woman to serve in the Minnesota Senate, has been trying to get more funding for resources that help Native women. She also brought forward legislation to create the state’s Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives Office. 

She said when she brings these issues forward, there is still a lack of understanding about the disparities that Native people face. 

“If it was any other group, people would be up in arms, but there just aren’t enough people to bang that drum about what is happening, and why is it happening, and why does it continue to happen,” she said. 

The Birth Justice Collaborative, created in 2022, is a coalition of organizations hoping to improve outcomes for Black and Indigenous mothers. Kunesh helped to introduce a bill to give the group funding to build birth centers that would provide culturally competent care. 

Ruth Buffalo, who leads the Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center and is part of the collaborative, said the plan is still moving forward, but has been complex to plan. She said many Native women may not meet the criteria to have a home birth, which is primarily what birth centers offer. 

“We can’t lose sight of our target population, our most vulnerable who need help the most,” she said. 

Those who work at hospitals and clinics are trying to build trust with Native communities, and encourage people to come and get help if they need it. 

M Health Fairview created a Birth Justice Initiative to address racial disparities in maternal mortality. Last year, Fairview held a summit to focus on culturally rooted doula care for Native communities. 

Heather Fahey works as a clinical pharmacist at Fairview and has been leading the organization’s Native health equity work. She said it’s important to show up in the community and try to let people know that they can come in for care. That includes attending powwows and meetings and connecting with tribal liaisons. 

“We can make all these changes internally, but if people don’t trust Fairview, they’re not going to come here,” she said. “We’re continually showing up in the spaces.”

The Indian Health Board of Minneapolis clinic has been trying to improve the continuity of care for pregnant women by checking in on those who miss appointments, offering counseling and providing supplies they might need after giving birth. Clinic staff have also been offering cultural workshops like cradleboard-making to engage the community. Looking forward, the clinic is considering expanding its postpartum care. 

“I think for us, it’s a call to action, really, the numbers in the report,” said Monica Streater, a certified nurse midwife at the clinic. 

Day, who saw the health care system fail her own mother, is now a traditional midwife and healer. She has devoted her work to improving pregnancy outcomes for Native women and keeping Indigenous birthing ceremonies alive. She said the report shows that the state still has a long way to go. 

But the community is resilient, and she and others are working to look after each other as best they can.

“We’re still at the bottom of the pole,” she said. “But it doesn’t matter, because we have our own pole, and we’re climbing up very gently and carefully taking care of ourselves.”

The post A silent crisis: Native mothers face the highest rates of maternal mortality in Minnesota appeared first on Sahan Journal.