My arrival in January coincided with the height of ‘Operation Metro Surge’ – just a few days after the murder of Renee Good and shortly before the death of Alex Pretti. Both were shot dead by ICE officers in the street. Minneapolis was in a state of emergency. There were 3,800 arrests by the immigration authorities. People were dragged out of their cars on the street; countless vehicles were left abandoned. ICE officers waited specifically outside schools, hospitals, community centres, supermarkets and restaurants to make arrests. Places that were supposed to guarantee care and safety became places of fear for many. Left behind were families without parents, babies without breast milk, households without an income.
For many residents, leaving the house became a risk. A certain appearance or an audible accent was enough to make someone a target – often regardless of citizenship or residency status. Schools switched to online lessons; many lost their jobs. Those particularly affected were people who work and live in precarious conditions, yet keep the city running every day as cleaners, care workers and childcare providers.
Solidarity and moral courage
Yet it was precisely in this situation that it became clear what sustains a city when people refuse to accept these forms of violence as the new normal: social solidarity and shared care became the collective response to institutional mechanisms of exclusion and state violence. Far-reaching and multi-layered support structures to assist the migrant population emerged.
Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota have a strong democratic majority, a long history of progressive social movements and strong community organising. The experiences of the uprisings following the murder of George Floyd in 2020 – not far from the places where Good and Pretti were killed – continue to have a profound impact on everyday political life and life in the city. In response to Operation Metro Surge and the extreme actions of ICE officers, many of the networks from that time were reactivated, and some were newly formed. Neighbourhoods organised “mutual aid”, self-organised support, for people who stayed at home. Patrols warned of raids across a wide area using whistles and via Signal groups.
Whistles became a symbol of this resistance. They were mass-produced using 3D printers and distributed free of charge in libraries, supermarkets and pharmacies. People documented ICE operations, stood in their way, blocked roads and risked their lives to protect neighbours. “We love our immigrant neighbours” is written on countless posters in windows and shop premises. This sense of belonging and the expression of social closeness directly challenges the US President’s rhetoric. Neighbourhood becomes a political practice of solidarity.
The protest is also making its mark on the city’s physical landscape: alongside countless “ICE OUT” posters catching the eye on every corner, roadblocks have been erected along central transport routes to slow down the agency’s vehicles and warn residents in good time. At the same time, spontaneous memorials have sprung up for Alex Pretti and Renee Good. Flowers, candles and letters fill sections of the streets. These places take on a new political significance: they serve as reminders of the violence, make grief public, and are tended by residents together with the families of those murdered. The city and its community are thus actively defended and collectively re-established.
Infrastructure of care
Building on my research into Caring Cities – including in the context of care for refugees in Western Europe – the dynamics in Minneapolis can be analysed as the formation of alternative infrastructures of care. Where state institutions create insecurity for sections of the population, informal social networks emerge to ensure everyday care and safety. These practices – ranging from warning systems, through medical care and collective childcare, to rent funds – go beyond individual neighbourhood assistance. From a feminist and care-ethical perspective, they constitute a ‘Caring-with’: a political practice of caring together, based on social bonds, trust and solidarity. This public form of care articulates a collective right to the city by defining security not through repression, but through the mutual material and emotional interdependence of residents.
These events thus illustrate a renegotiation of urban responsibility: care is organised here not as a private burden, but as a collective resource that counteracts the fragmenting intent of state power.