Did you know that Truthout is a nonprofit and independently funded by readers like you? If you value what we do, please support our work with a donation.

When Donald Trump made Minnesota an epicenter for his aggressive anti-immigrant assault, Minnesotans offered the nation a powerful and effective model of loving resistance and solidarity. Throughout the sustained resistance to Trump’s occupation of Minnesota, LGBTQ residents and activists have played a central role.

That role was thrown into sharp relief after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent Jonathan Ross killed Renee Nicole Good on January 7, 2026 — a turning point in the Minneapolis uprising against federal immigration agents. Good, who was survived by her wife and children, quickly became a target of right-wing extremists such as Matt Walsh who fixated on her gender and sexuality. The day after her killing, Walsh said on X, “This lesbian agitator gave her life to protect 68 IQ Somali scammers who couldn’t give less of a shit about her.” Minnesota is home to the largest Somali population in the nation.

Walsh’s virulently bigoted insult is symbolic of the way the right has combined its scapegoating of both immigrants and LGBTQ people in service of a white supremacist patriarchal vision demonizing anyone who isn’t a straight white cisgender man. As federal forces begin to draw down, solidarity between the immigrant and LGBTQ communities is stronger than ever, buttressed by a robust network of mutual aid efforts.

And indeed, there is real overlap between the communities. Minnesota is home to a significant queer Hmong community. And, news emerged in mid-February of a heartbreaking story of a Mexican couple, one of whom died of cancer after missing her medical appointments from fear of being ensnared by ICE. Her wife now plans to self-deport back to Mexico.

Shelby Chestnut — the executive director of the Transgender Law Center, which is leading a series of workshops called Beyond Borders and Boxes: Building LGBTQ and Migrant Solidarity — now lives in Pittsburgh but grew up in Minneapolis and returned to his hometown in early February to meet with local leaders in the movement against ICE and offer support. “The mutual aid networks that have been built in the city are like nothing I have ever seen before in my decades of organizing work,” Chestnut said.

Indigenous-Led Collectives Are Keeping Minnesotan Communities Safe From ICE

OutFront Minnesota, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy organization, cosponsored the January 23 general strike in Minneapolis that shut down the city and drew an estimated 50,000 people out to march through the frigid cold. The organization explicitly called on ICE agents to leave Minnesota and for a “full, fair, and complete investigation” into Good’s killing.

Kat Rohn, OutFront Minnesota’s executive director, said, “LGBTQ communities have been both deeply involved and deeply impacted by the federal occupation of our state through the current surge.” She cited the support for immigrants that her organization began galvanizing in early December 2025 through public statements of support for the Somali community, just as Trump’s racist and anti-immigrant rhetoric against Somali immigrants began ramping up. During Trump’s operation, OutFront also conducted street medic trainings for people new to protesting who “want to feel better prepared when common emergencies arise.”

“These aren’t new relationships of support,” said Rohn of the ties between........

© Truthout