For several weeks, federal immigration police officers ICE have been spreading terror in Minneapolis, arresting, sometimes illegally, dozens of citizens and non-citizens. Result: the streets are empty, shopping centers remain closed.
In Minneapolis, residents seem to be doing their best to spend as little time outside as possible. But it is not because of winter temperatures and snowy weather that the streets have been deserted for some time: inside too, some public spaces such as the Somali shopping center are almost empty.
For almost two months, fear of sometimes arbitrary and illegal arrests by the federal immigration police (ICE) has reigned in this American city.
A particular target: the Somali community. At Karmel Mall, the Somali shopping center, shops are waiting for customers who are too afraid to leave their homes. Some stores are closed as owners have given up hope of selling their products again. Those who were used to seeing between 15 and 20 customers per hour now say they are lucky to have just one.
But the death of Renee Good, a 37-year-old American mother, shot dead by an ICE agent on January 7, turned things around. Although it marked a new step in the escalation of violence on the part of ICE, it also triggered a desire for resistance among certain groups of residents, who began to organize to disrupt the most possible ICE operations in the city.
