Meg Anderson

Meet Minnesota Bathrobe Lady Sam Stroozas of MPR News | Minnesota Public Radio Earlier this week, an unexpected and fast-moving incident unfolded in St. Paul, Minnesota involving both federal and local law enforcement. As crowds gathered and questions mounted, one of our MPR New...

hello minnesota and beyond! thank you for your kind messages. it is very weird to be the news when you cover the news. i love this beautiful state and journalism, and i am hopeful for better days. but we will be forever changed bc of the last two months.

I'm pretty proud of this poem I made out of the euphemisms that companies used to describe the ICE occupation in corporate communications. Also read the whole story: racketmn.com/corporate-co...

Minneapolis activists press local leaders to respond to federal surge Minneapolis activists say state leaders have failed to act as federal agents arrest protesters and residents during an ongoing federal surge.

“All along the way, the community has stepped up with our whistles, with our cell phones and with our bodies to defend our neighbors,” Communities United Against Police Brutality president Michelle Gross said.

“But what do we see from our public officials? They have utterly failed us.”

‘He’s not the same’: Father of Liam Conejo Ramos says 5-year-old continues to suffer Some people thought they say the 5-year-old during the Super Bowl halftime show. But Liam is still in hiding with his family, after he and his father were detained and then released from a Texas deten...

Super Bowl viewers Sunday speculated that 5-year-old Liam Conejo Ramos appeared in the halftime show. In fact, he has been in hiding with his family.

“He can’t sleep well at night. He wakes up three or four times a night screaming, ‘Daddy, Daddy,’” Liam's father Adrian Conejo Arias, said.

BONUS RULING: Judge Thomas Johnston, a George W. Bush appoiintee in West Virginia, used a recent ruling to warn of the dangers of defying due process for immigrants because of what it could also mean for Americans. It's worth a read.

storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

The Kids Trump Sent to ICE’s Dilley Detention Center ProPublica went inside the immigrant detention center for families in Dilley, Texas. Children held there told us about the anguish of being ripped from their lives in the United States and the fear of...

Nine-year-old Maria Antonia Guerra, from Colombia, drew a portrait of herself and her mother wearing their detainee ID badges. A note on the side said, “I am not happy, please get me out of here.” www.propublica.org/article/life...

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Alberto Castañeda Mondragón says his memory was so jumbled after a beating by immigration officers that he initially could not remember he had a daughter and still struggles to recall treasured moments like the night he taught her to dance. But the violence he endured last month in Minnesota while being detained is seared into his battered brain. He remembers Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulling him from a friend’s car on Jan. 8 outside a St. Paul shopping center and throwing him to the ground, handcuffing him, then punching him and striking his head with a steel baton. He remembers being dragged into an SUV and taken to a detention facility, where he said he was beaten again. He also remembers the emergency room and the intense pain from eight skull fractures and five life-threatening brain hemorrhages.

ICE told nurses this Minneapolis man “purposefully ran headfirst into a brick wall.”

What actually happened is that they pulled him from a car, beat him so viciously with a steel baton that he had 8 skull fractures, 5 life-threatening brain hemorrhages, and couldn’t remember he had a daughter.

One reason Minneapolis remains in the world's eye is we have one of the most robust & independent media ecosystems remaining in the country. You all need this...and more! @mprnews.org @startribune.com @sahanjournal.bsky.social @minnesotareformer.com @minnpost.bsky.social @racketmn.com etc.

Two men charged with assaulting agents in ICE shooting released by a judge, re-detained by ICE • Minnesota Reformer Two Venezuelan men who were charged with assaulting a federal immigration agent were re-detained after a judge ordered them to be released on Tuesday. On Jan. 14, the two men allegedly assaulted an IC...

Two Venezuelan men who were charged with assaulting a federal immigration agent in the north Minneapolis ICE shooting last month were re-detained after a judge ordered them to be released on Tuesday.

ICE dragged me from my car after I told them I’m autistic. Exclusive Details: Aliya Rahman speaks to Eric Garcia about her ordeals — on the streets of Minneapolis, in a grim ICE detention center where she was mocked over her condition and through the public t...

Heartstopping @ericmgarcia.bsky.social interview with Minneapolis detainee Aliya Rahman, an #autistic woman with a traumatic brain injury.

Gets to the heart of how so many people here get labeled 'agitator' or 'domestic terrorist' for something as benign as turning onto the wrong street.

Pursued by federal agents, suburban ICE observers remain resolved After a frightening pursuit by federal agents, suburban ICE observers say fear hasn’t stopped them from protecting their communities.

“If I am killed doing this, throw my body at the White House, martyr the shit out of me & raise hell. Do not be sad. Do not think I would do anything differently. I would do it over & over again — this is too important to sit down & shut up and not do anything.” www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Additional context: There were ~2,000 immigration agents in Minnesota when Renee Good was killed.

A few days after, they added an ~1,000 agents.

So, a 700 drawdown is a de-escalation from an escalation, and leaves the state with a higher amount of federal officers than the original surge number.

The testimony was harrowing; you can watch it all here
www.youtube.com/watch?v=UagE...

Martinez: "[I] sat in federal court and watched from 20 feet away as the border patrol agent who attempted to kill me testified at a hearing. Agent Charles Exum—Charles Exum, my attempted executioner was Charles Exum—I hope the government does not consider my use of his name here to be...doxxing."

Minnesota citizens detained by ICE are left rattled, even weeks later The number of immigration agents in Minnesota may be reduced, but they'll leave leave behind a changed community, including many U.S. citizens questioned and detained in recent weeks.

I interviewed a man who ran out of his restaurant when ICE officers surrounded his wife, to show ICE their passports.

The officers told him: "Next time she should carry that all the time, because if she doesn't have proof of citizenship we're going to arrest her"

www.npr.org/2026/02/01/n...

St. Peter police chief intervenes, prevents federal agents from arresting resident The police chief of St. Peter intervened to prevent federal agents from taking a local resident who was observing ICE enforcement actions into custody. It is believed to the first time local police in...

"MPR News has learned that the police chief in the small southern Minnesota city of St. Peter intervened Thursday afternoon to prevent federal immigration agents from arresting a local resident" who had been observing federal agents. www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

Minneapolis Police Chief discusses his force's relationship with federal immigration agents Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O'Hara sees little attempts at de-escalation from the some 3,000 federal immigration agents — four times the number of sworn MPD officers — in the city.

Did a ride along this week with Minneapolis Police Chief Brian O’Hara.

It’s a bit unusual for us to do a story where we focus on one person, but the tension between local police and ICE is so central to what’s happening in the city, that it felt worth to sit with that.

www.npr.org/2026/01/31/n...

Minneapolis Residents Wear Their Passports, Desperate to Ward Off ICE

In Minneapolis, they are starting to *wear their passports at all times*
www.nytimes.com/2026/01/31/u...

Americans are worried about crime. Here’s how politicians leverage it : Code Switch "Fighting crime" is often used as a justification for many of the Trump administration's policies — from mass deportations to its actions in Venezuela to its crackdown in Minnesota — despite the fact ...

Really enjoyed chatting with @geedee215.bsky.social about how crime is often used as a justification for many of the Trump administration's policies, including the ICE operation here in Minnesota, despite the fact that crime nationwide is at a historic low.

www.npr.org/2026/01/31/n...

As I said on NPR this morning, @mprnews.org Minnesota Public Radio has done a fantastic job all month—has it only been a month?—covering the hardest of stories and often informing the whole country through reports heard on NPR.

Breaking on MS NOW:

Career DOJ prosecutors in both Minnesota and Los Angeles refused to be involved in charging Don Lemon and the other journalists who covered the Minneapolis church protests.

The prosecutors believe the evidence does not support the charges, per @carolleonnig.bsky.social.

‘ICE conveyor belt’ illegally detaining, moving Minnesota children to Texas faster than courts can respond ICE is pulling Minnesota immigrant families with legal status out of their driveways, homes and school commutes and sending them to Texas within hours — in at least two cases against a judge’s order. ...

An asylum seeker pulled into his driveway. ICE agents broke his window, pulled him and his 2-year-old out, drove them away. In under eight hours, they were enroute to Texas, even though a judge had ordered ICE to return the child.

Crucial reporting by @mprnews.org

www.mprnews.org/story/2026/0...

I grew up with Alex Pretti The kind-hearted ICU nurse shot by ICE agents was my childhood best friend.

I wrote about my childhood friend Alexi Pretti. Please read it and share it and remember him as a human being. @theverge.com

Every social theory undergirding Trumpism has been broken on the steel of Minnesotan resolve. The multiracial community in Minneapolis was supposed to shatter. It did not. It held until Bovino was forced out of the Twin Cities with his long coat between his legs. The secret fear of the morally depraved is that virtue is actually common, and that they’re the ones who are alone. In Minnesota, all of the ideological cornerstones of MAGA have been proved false at once. Minnesotans, not the armed thugs of ICE and the Border Patrol, are brave. Minnesotans have shown that their community is socially cohesive—because of its diversity and not in spite of it. Minnesotans have found and loved one another in a world atomized by social media, where empty men have tried to fill their lonely soul with lies about their own inherent superiority. Minnesotans have preserved everything worthwhile about “Western civilization,” while armed brutes try to tear it down by force.

Last week in Minnesota, I watched ordinary people risk their lives to protect their neighbors. In the process, they not only won a significant—though not final—victory against authoritarianism, they proved virtually every MAGA social theory wrong. (gift link) www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0...

It's not quite the most pressing issue at the moment, but the American people absolutely have a right to know the names of the federal officials who shot and killed a man peacefully protesting, who was on his knees, prone in the street when they shot him in the back.

Reporter's Notebook: Living and reporting from Minneapolis in crisis In Minneapolis, disruption has become part of daily life for nearly everyone, including for NPR reporter Meg Anderson. Many residents are living in fear and uncertainty.

People in Minneapolis have been living in a state of deep stress. That includes me.

I wrote about what it’s been like.

www.npr.org/2026/01/27/n...

Believe Your Eyes People are risking their lives to document agents in Minneapolis.

Pretti’s last seconds were "able to be seen and dissected online precisely because of the observers who were there to document it, who watched as federal agents piled atop Pretti and who did not drop their phones when the gunshots rang out."

www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...

Latest: Federal judge orders federal authorities to preserve evidence in Alex Pretti shooting Defendants include the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Border Patrol and their leadership, as well as U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi.

A federal judge has order federal officials to preserve the evidence related to the Saturday shooting of Alex Pretti by federal agents.

Chris Murphy: "This is really scary because what Bovino essentially told you is that if you just happen to be present when they are undertaking an operation, if you pull out your phone to record it, the use of force against you is justified. That is not true, it's not what the law says."

BOVINO: He was in the scene actively impeding and assaulting law enforceme--

BASH: But he wasn't impeding. He was filming, which is a legal thing to do in the United States

BOVINO: Dana, let's not free frame adjudicate this now