On Jan. 23, the Twin Cities are planning a general strike: a day without people going to work or spending money, in protest of ICE’s actions in the state. This is after weeks of federal agents surging through the city, going door-to-door, arresting immigrants and U.S. citizens. So, how do you report on something like this?
Katelyn Vue is an immigration reporter at the Sahan Journal, an outlet in the Twin Cities that covers immigration populations. She talked with WUWM’s Jimmy Gutierrez about what she’s been hearing from residents.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Jimmy Gutierrez: Your outlet, the Sahan Journal, started up six years ago or so, in 2019. It covers immigrant communities, diverse communities within the Twin Cities, and as the newsroom's immigration reporter you have a direct line to communities of color and immigrant communities. What are you hearing from people in the Twin Cities now?
Katelyn Vue: I've been hearing mostly fear from immigrants right now. Folks who aren't going to work, folks who are staying home — and that's causing a lot of problems. A lot of businesses, their employees aren't showing up. And these families have children and they are afraid to go to school.
But I've also been hearing from folks, mostly U.S. citizens, talk about how the organizing that they were so committed to when the murder of George Floyd happened in Minneapolis, that they're revamping those efforts again to organize. So there's been a lot of fear, but there's also been a lot of neighbors coming together to try to hold strong, to help support folks that are at risk.
There have been so many stories from the Twin Cities that the nation has been following. Obviously, [the killing of] Renee Nicole Good, the use of chemical irritants on high school students, and recently, the story of ChongLy “Scott” Thao, a U.S. citizen and grandfather with no arrest record. What about his story and arrest stood out to you after getting to know him and sitting down with his family?
When I spoke with him it was literally the day after he was arrested. So he was still processing. But I remember one thing he said that kind of stuck with me was that he wanted everyone to know what happened to him.
I mean, I feel like anyone would feel embarrassed being shown on social media half naked, but ChongLy was telling me about how he wanted everyone to know what agents did to him because he wanted others to protect themselves and learn about their rights. And he wanted that to be the main message.
It's these moments when I think people really appreciate independent outlets like Sahan that are covering immigrant communities and have these deep ties and connections to community members. There’s also these kinds of informal networks of information sharing that have been popping up all over the place at this time. One story that showed this off was the “Mamas of Cedar” story, and this kind of rapid response network that organically popped up between mothers. Can you tell us about them and the work that they're doing?
Yeah, well, Binta, she's a reporter that works with us and she wrote that story and did a really good job. Cedar-Riverside has a dense immigrant population and a lot of Somali folks live there, who are right now being targeted by the Trump administration. But Binta was able to write about why they were motivated to take it upon themselves to keep their neighbors safe.
And there's a lot of organizations that do really good work, but I think this moment seems to be a moment where a lot of people are feeling the call to protect each other. “Mamas of Cedar” is a really good example of something like that.
On the other side of this, you have the federal government threatening the invocation of the Insurrection Act. There's active U.S. military troops standing by for deployment into your state. What are you expecting, If you even can know what to expect from the federal government and ICE?
I listened to CBP (U.S. Customs and Border Protection) Commander Greg Bovino talk at a press conference and he emphasized that they're going to continue to arrest as many people as they can, and continue to be out in the community. There doesn't seem to be any stopping anytime soon. And a lot of the focus right now is just to walk up to people in the street and ask them about their citizenship. That's been happening all over Minnesota.
I think everyone sort of has found themselves devastated after the shooting that killed Renee [Nicole Good] and I think everyone is still thinking about what this moment means for us in Minnesota. But there's been a lot of pressure on our elected officials to help ICE make these arrests, and our elected officials are still headstrong about their values of helping Minnesotans deal through this massive force on Minnesota. But I used to think I knew what was happening in Minnesota, but I'm just expecting anything at this point.
As a newsroom, how do you plan for what's coming next? Obviously, a lot of your reporting in the past month and a half has shifted to rapid response reporting. So how is the newsroom thinking about what comes next?
I think you said it — like, rapid response is really how it's felt over the past few months, it's all hands on deck. Like I feel like everyone has had a hand that has touched the coverage of immigration. It's not just me. We're all just sort of activated now, we have our separate beats, our own areas of coverage. But immigration enforcement is affecting every industry right now. And everyone is seeing it happen to their neighborhood. So that's been kind of how it's felt.
I think a lot of people in the Midwest have fear that they could be next. There have been a lot of conversations in Milwaukee with leaders, immigrant rights organizations, also journalists and media outlets saying, "OK, how do we cover this?" And for someone who's in the middle of this right now, do you have any advice for people in places like Milwaukee or other Midwest cities? And to go along with that, how do people support organizations like Sahan if they want to do that?
Well, I think going back to the story I wrote about ChongLy, he didn't expect what happened to him to happen, but it did. And a piece of advice that I would have is to think about what to do in a situation where federal agents are going door-to-door, knocking, and understanding what your rights are at that moment. You have your First Amendment rights, your Fourth Amendment rights and you have the right to record so that everyone can actually see what happened.
I'd say that to support Sahan helps us to be able to tell stories that reflect how immigrants' experiences are right now. It's always been a big value of Sahan where we don't just cover what's happening, but we cover who it’s happening to. That's something I take away with me in every story — is that we're looking for who's impacted, who's a face that can show the real effect of a nationwide policy or headline.
