👮🏻 Amid surge, some Greater Minnesota sheriffs plan to continue cooperation with ICE. More than half a dozen Minnesota counties have signed agreements to assist ICE
to varying degrees, from detaining people in county jails to helping federal agents find and arrest people suspected of immigration violations or other crimes.
📰 MPR News will continue to bring you the latest on ICE in Minnesota. Follow along here for live updates.
At the Winter Olympics Thursday in Italy:
🏒 The U.S. women’s hockey team opened the Games with a 5-1 win over Czechia. There are six players from the PWHL's Minnesota Frost on Team USA. They play Finland on Saturday.
🥌 In mixed doubles curling, the U.S. team of Korey Dropkin and Cory Thiesse, both from Duluth, won both of their matches, beating Switzerland and Norway. They’ll continue round-robin play Friday with a tough test — taking on Canada.
Independent reporting you can count on
Our Winter Member Drive is coming up next week, and it’s going to sound a little different. You won’t hear interruptions to the essential news you rely on, but
your support is still needed. Protect MPR News with a donation today.
🌤️ Friday: Partly sunny in the morning then clearing. Chance of flurries in the morning. Highs in the 20s, except 9 to 15 near Lake Superior. Temperatures falling into the lower teens in the afternoon.
☁️ Friday night: Mostly clear. Lows zero to 6 above, except 9 below to 15 below zero near Lake Superior.
🌤️ Saturday: Partly sunny. Highs in the 20s, except 12 to 15 near Lake Superior.
The federal government has filed a motion seeking to end asylum claims for the family of Liam Conejo Ramos, according to the lawyer representing the family.
A new snow sculpture in Minneapolis features the face of Renee Macklin Good with a blindfold that says “ICE OUT,” and it references two snow sculptures that were disqualified from competitions last month for their references to ICE the surge.
NEWS ROUNDUP
💬 Minnesota parents look for ways to help kids cope and process ICE trauma and chaos. The aggressive, daily immigration enforcement actions in Minnesota have sent tremors of anxiety through many families across the state, leaving parents wondering how to help their children process what’s happening.
🗣️ ‘I saw everything’: Woman speaks out after ICE shot and detained her partner in north Minneapolis.
Indriany Mendoza Camacho
is speaking up after witnessing the incident that resulted in her partner being wounded and her roommates being held in detention centers.
⚖️ ICE attorney who told judge 'this job sucks' removed from her post. A government lawyer who told a judge that her job “sucks” during a court hearing stemming from the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota
has been removed from her Justice Department post.
🛑 Neighbors: Blockades are pop-up parties that also slow down ICE agents. They’ve already
earned the ire of border czar Tom Homan, who said during a press conference Wednesday that the blockades were illegal and wouldn’t deter his agents.
🌇
Investment fund announced for downtown St. Paul projects. The St. Paul Downtown Development Corporation says Securian Financial and the Bush Foundation have invested $30 million into the fund. It will support projects like office-to-residential conversions and pedestrian-focused street improvements.
🧊 ‘Prosecute ICE’ sculpture at Minn. Capitol destroyed; Jake Lang arrested.
A “Prosecute ICE’ sculpture commissioned by a veterans organization and staged Thursday on the steps of the Minnesota State Capitol was destroyed by a man pardoned for his participation in the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
🪴 Anoka opens Minnesota’s first government-run cannabis dispensary, one of few of its kind in country.
The city of Anoka is taking the plunge into Minnesota’s recreational cannabis market with the
opening of its new dispensary, making it one of the first municipal operations in the country and the first in the state.
🚓 Hennepin County sheriff says she’s had ‘healthy’ conversations with Homan on ICE drawdown. Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt says she has
had “healthy” conversations with Tom Homan
, the White House official in charge of the Minnesota immigration enforcement surge.
🎨 MN Shortlist: Systems under pressure, repetition and the art of consequence. From experimental theater that fractures a café ritual to legacy dance that still insists on urgency, these events ask what happens when we interrogate the structures we’ve inherited and decide whether they remain fit for purpose.
💻 Minneapolis man charged with threatening and cyberstalking ICE officers.
Federal prosecutors said in a statement that Kyle Wagner, 37, of Minneapolis, was charged by complaint, and that a decision to seek an indictment, which is necessary to take the case to trial, would be made soon.
🏠 Minneapolis allocates additional $1 million for rental assistance. After an hours-long discussion Thursday, the City Council
voted to allocate the money from its cash reserves to Hennepin County, which has an emergency rent assistance fund that residents can apply for.
🌨️ Finalists announced, voting opens for MnDOT's Name a Snowplow contest. K Pop Blizzard Hunter, Bob Chillin’ and Don’t Flurry, Be Happy: Those are three of the 30 finalists announced Thursday as
voting opened for the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s annual “Name a Snowplow” contest.
📊 Poll: Two-thirds of Americans say ICE has 'gone too far' in immigration enforcement. In addition to the two-thirds who said ICE has gone too far, 6 in 10 also said they disapprove of the job ICE is doing overall, and almost the same number
think the agency is making Americans less safe.
MUST LISTEN
🎧 Amid the ICE crackdown: How artists are responding to this moment. Artists are often among the first to give shape to emotions that can feel overwhelming or hard to name. MPR News host Angela Davis talks with a poet, a ceramic artist and a graphic artist about what they’re seeing, feeling and creating.
🎧 Minnesota Secretary of State responds to Trump’s pitch to ‘nationalize’ elections.
Trump thinks federalizing elections could fight what he calls corrupt state-run elections. Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon joined Cathy Wurzer on Morning Edition to talk about what this means ahead of the midterms.
🎧 Karen immigrants fled Myanmar's military. Now many are hiding from ICE.
Recently, federal immigration activities have caused fear and uncertainty among Karen people in Minnesota. One nonprofit leader said
the situation is bringing up trauma for people who fled violence and government threats in Myanmar.
🎧 Climate normals downplay just how fast Minnesota is warming. MPR News chief meteorologist Paul Huttner spoke with MPR News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to explain
how these normals can be misleading.
