Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

.nation-small__b{fill:#fff;}

Why The Nation Is Nominating Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize

Why “The Nation” Is Nominating Minneapolis for the Nobel Peace Prize

On this Fourth of July, Minneapolis reminds us of what American can be.

America approaches its 250th birthday with the national ideals of democracy, equality, and opportunity on alarmingly shaky ground.

Still, thousands remain committed to and engaged in making those ideals a reality. As evidence, just take the people of Minneapolis, nominated by The Nation for the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this year. Though its winter of violence and terror has thankfully ended, on this Independence Day the city remains an inspiring example of what love of country looks like when the country in question is careening off the rails.

In the wake of a cynically sensationalized welfare fraud scandal that fomented right-wing fury at Minnesota’s immigrant communities, Donald Trump’s Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Metro Surge in December of last year. Minneapolis was flooded with thousands of federal agents—many newly hired, poorly trained, and hastily vetted. Often in plainclothes, driving unmarked vehicles, and obscuring their faces with masks, they raided homes, workplaces, and even schools. Some 3,800 Minnesota residents were arrested by immigration officials; most had no criminal record.

Faced with an onslaught of unprecedented scale, locals banded together and took a “stand for this land and the stranger in our midst,” as Bruce Springsteen put it in his rousing protest song, “The Streets of Minneapolis.” Locals donated and delivered food to those too fearful to venture from their homes, drove strangers to work to help them elude federal agents, and organized neighborhood watches to monitor and document the actions of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Patrol agents.

Every one of them shouldered considerable risk. In January, ICE and CBP officers fatally shot Renée Good andAlex Pretti, killings that horrified the nation in their wholly unnecessary brutality. But officers also became violent in innumerable other encounters, dragging people out of cars, deploying tear gas, and, in one case, shooting a man through a residential front door as he attempted to flee into his home. Nearly a third of Minneapolis residents had at least one encounter with federal agents—and almost a quarter of those who did reported suffering physical assault.

Elected officials........

© The Nation