Rumors of mass immigration arrests contributing to ’campaign of fear’

NINA MOINI: The Trump administration's immigration policy promises are leading to rumors of mass immigration arrests in Minnesota as a push for more deportations reaches cities across the country. It's also sparked a flurry of misinformation shared online.

Social media posts alleging the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE agents, are detaining immigrants in Minnesota have circulated widely in the past few weeks, but many of these reports are unconfirmed. ICE officials do push back on the term raids. They have long said that their officers do not conduct raids, and that all arrests are either targeted to a specific person or are the result of encounters during targeted enforcement.

Joining me today to talk about the misinformation that is out there and its impact on immigrant communities is Ryan Perez, the organizing director of COPAL Minnesota. Thank you for being here, Ryan.

RYAN PEREZ: Thank you for having me.

NINA MOINI: So I mentioned off the top ICE pushing back on the term raids. The fear that is out there is about situations that have not been happening before. I'm curious, from your perspective, what do you consider to be a raid? Because the term is out there, of course. And what are you seeing that is of concern to you since the Trump administration has taken over and put forth these policies?

RYAN PEREZ: Yeah, so we know a few things to be true right off the bat. Minnesota was already home and is home to an ICE detention center in Shakopee, Minnesota, that detentions and deportations have been happening for years since the creation of ICE. I think there were over 1,200 people detained by ICE in Minnesota on average in the last few years per year.

We know that ICE operations have been happening and will continue happening, and last year was a historic year for detentions and deportations. And those are things that have happened, and they're not new under Donald Trump. And so people I think are acting and hearing and seeing real policy shifts, and then trying to track what's actually changing on the ground in Minnesota.

As far as what is a raid or what is a detention, yeah, the reality is the vast majority of detentions and deportations are targeted. They know who they're going after. But what we're seeing is a shift nationally where these big, high profile storms and raids are capturing a lot more people.

And so what we've seen in the case of New York, for example, is they set a week. They say, this week we're going into New York. We're going to try and round up and hit quotas of how many people to secure or to detain. And they're hitting historic numbers and they're averaging about half the people have no criminal record, have no violent crime. They're just people who are living and working in this country to make a better life. And those people are getting caught up in those raids. And so those are the things we're monitoring to see how the administration will target Minnesota.

NINA MOINI: What do you say to people who maybe they're looking on their Facebook or they're looking online, and I've seen it a lot in my feed. A raid is happening here, a raid is happening there. Tell me about what that does to people's just psyche and how they're feeling and what you might be trying to do to quell some of that misinformation, if you can.

RYAN PEREZ: Yeah, right now, there's a campaign of fear. And the idea of announcing mass deportations and the Trump administration signaling that they're going to be in communities and target immigrants, and they're going to have a historic number of deportations, and they even referenced the Eisenhower administration's efforts. Those were targeted, and those were intended to drive people into the shadows, get people to self-deport and divide families. And so people are reacting to that.

But we also know that these reactions happened the first time Trump was elected. And so people started spreading information. There's some bad actors who create false information just to create hysteria and cause fear. There's other people who might see a cop car or see something else happening. We had a situation, someone saw an FBI action taking place, and they mistook it for an ICE raid. And so what we don't want is sharing unverified information that ends up causing more fear, more panic, and sends the community into greater shock and fear.

And so the best thing we can do is monitor and check verified sources to make sure that what we're what we're sharing is actually factual information. And it can be well intentioned, but there's organizations on the ground like COPAL and many others that are, as we hear these situations, we're going to send people out and attempt to verify.

NINA MOINI: And aside from sending people out to attempt to verify, what are you doing as an organization to reach people? I know you've been doing this work a long time, but I imagine you've had to amp it up. How are you reaching people who need to be reached to give them the information that they do need?

RYAN PEREZ: Well, first and foremost, COPAL is a member based organization, and we have offices in Mankato and Rochester and the twin cities. Our members are across the state, and the first thing we need to do is train them on what to observe, how to report. We have a navigators hotline, which is a resource hotline for anyone who's dealing with problems like housing, health access. And they can call that line and they can call that line if they witness something like this taking place, or if they think they have information that they want to verify.

And one of the first things we have to do is educate ourselves on what is a raid? What does ICE look like? But also what are our human rights? What are our rights? A lot of folks think that-- even immigrants think they don't have rights because they're immigrants, when really there's a lot of basic protections afforded to people living and working in the United States. The right to remain silent, the right to seek legal counsel, the right not to open your door, the right to your personal possessions. So those are things that we want to reinforce and make sure people are trained and aware on so that we don't have negative situations escalating.

NINA MOINI: So just to clarify with you, you have not heard at this point of any mass arrests coming in with weapons, coming in on a group of people in Minnesota, correct?

RYAN PEREZ: Correct. And this is what the administration has said. They said we're going to pick three cities a week. We're going to target them. We're going to do mass raids. We're going to signal it out onto social media, create a lot of fear and panic, and we're going to no longer be prioritizing only violent offenders. We're going to basically say anyone who's undocumented is fair game. And that's what the administration has said.

And we can go through the list of cities they've already targeted. New York, Miami, Chicago, I think in Colorado and Texas and California, several cities. So we know Minneapolis is on the list somewhere. We should be ready for when this happens, even though it hasn't happened yet in that way.

NINA MOINI: Who are you working with? Who is being helpful to what you and COPAL is trying to accomplish? Some cities who are sanctuary cities have made statements. Law enforcement departments have made statements that they won't participate in certain areas based on what is legal and in the law. How are you working with other entities right now?

RYAN PEREZ: Well, first and foremost, there's amazing legal rights organizations in the state of Minnesota. Shout out to Mid-Minnesota Legal Aid, the ACLU, Immigrant Law Center. They're partners with us in making sure that people are aware of their rights and people are informed. We also have amazing grassroots partners like the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee and others who are organizing on the ground with us and also doing their own grassroots trainings.

And like you said, there's officials who have the best intentions and heart. I just had a conversation with a couple Saint Paul school board members who said, look, ICE may be saying they're allowed to come in the schools, but if they do and they try and traumatize our children, we're going to make sure there's a protocol in place to protect our kids. And that's really exciting and refreshing to hear.

And in some cases, there are policies that have been around and others they need to create new protocols, because ICE is changing and the administration is changing. It used to be that hospitals, churches, schools, places where children gather were off limits, but now they have revoked that internal policy, and now they're saying it's fair game to invade those places and do raids on those places. So we have to be vigilant.

NINA MOINI: Before I let you go, Ryan, I do want to just ask what is keeping you hopeful and going forward in your mission to serve people?

RYAN PEREZ: Yeah, there are so many people stepping up right now that care about keeping this country safe and this state safe for people who are living and working and contributing. And I encourage anyone listening to make sure you're involved with at least one of the amazing organizations or people's groups or entities that is fighting for human rights.

There's a lot of places to get involved. We've had teachers reach out from their school districts across the state. We've had people who never really said, oh, I don't get political. I don't touch things like this. But now are saying, oh, my family, my neighbor is impacted. I care now. I want to learn my rights. I want to participate. So I think you have to reach out and build relationships with other people. And we can do that in a way that brings us love and excitement.

Folks are going to be hearing about soon, we're working with partners to schedule a Valentine's Day action. And we're going to say it's Love Your Immigrant Neighbor Day and a way to inform ourselves about our rights and know that just because you're an immigrant doesn't mean you don't have rights. You have basic human rights, but you also have rights in this country.

NINA MOINI: Ryan, thank you so much for your time today. We really appreciate it.

RYAN PEREZ: Thank you so much.

NINA MOINI: That was Ryan Perez, the organizing director at COPAL Minnesota.