Hungry families, ICE and secret grocery networks in Minneapolis

MINNEAPOLIS – Students at Partnership Academy were expected back from Thanksgiving break on the same day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement began “Operation Metro Surge” in the Twin Cities.

As the weeks wore on, the number of empty desks at the school, where the student body is more than 90% Hispanic, shocked the staff. “Once we started to see ICE in our neighborhoods, there was a real blow to our attendance,” said MJ Johnson, Partnership’s executive director.

Located in Richfield, an inner-ring suburb of Minneapolis, Partnership is proud of attendance rates that consistently exceed the statewide average. Much of that success is because of incentives designed to enable learning and keep its 533 elementary and middle school students coming to school every day, Johnson said. Free hot breakfasts and lunches are essential to that approach.

But after Renee Good was shot and killed by ICE agents Jan. 7, more than 60% of students at Partnership started staying home, prompting the school to switch to fully remote learning. Beyond being deprived of in-person instruction, the students are also cut off from the meals they normally receive.

Fear of ICE agents – compounded by reports of law-abiding Minnesotans, including children, being taken into custody – has left thousands of local residents scared to leave their homes. Attendance is markedly down at several schools in the area.

“Right now, the color of your skin makes you a target,” said Jonathan Ceballos-Gonzalez, head of family and community engagement at Partnership.

A number of people working at hunger relief organizations and in education, who asked not to be identified for the record for fear of retribution, said the food instability and lack of access to social services are not simply a byproduct of the ICE crackdown but rather part of the agency’s strategy, essentially weaponizing food. Among other tactics, they said, the agency is tracking food delivery volunteers and staking out donation distribution centers.

Many of the affected families are simultaneously struggling with new restrictions to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program that went into effect nationwide Jan. 1.

“This administration has politicized hunger,” said Joe Walker, director of nutritional services for the Sanneh Foundation, a local youth charity.

ICE did not respond to a request for comment.

To feed the affected people, volunteers across the state are working feverishly, often in cooperation with local schools. For its part, Partnership Academy responded by converting its dormant cafeteria into a distribution hub for the roughly $90,000 worth of food, toiletries and other necessities that have poured in through donations and grants in the past month.

The complex effort to keep Minnesotans from going hungry includes institutions like schools, churches, restaurants and food banks but also less-expected sources like a barbershop and a sex shop. Residents have converted their living rooms, basements and garages into storage spaces.

“This has been a great advertisement that shows what ‘It Takes a Village’ really means,” Walker said. “And we couldn’t do this without teachers.”

Sanneh’s food distributions increased by 123% from December to January, Walker said. Second Harvest Heartland, the state’s largest food relief organization, estimates it will have sent out 50,000 boxes of food in January and February, according to Ethan Neal, the group’s director of partner operations.

Schools are central to hunger relief in Minnesota right now because their employees are often among the few people immigrant families trust who are in a position to help.

Minnesota educators also understand how much learning depends on nutrition. The state’s Free School Meals for Kids program, which provides free breakfast and lunch to all public school students, was routinely cited by Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz, during his 2024 campaign for vice president.

“I’ve got to be honest with you,” Walz said in a news conference last week addressing ICE’s continued presence, “I think it’s more chilling than it was last week because of the shift to schools, the shift to the children.”

ICE agents have been a common presence outside schools with large enrollments of students from immigrant families, even during the most charged moments of “Operation Metro Surge,” including the day that Good was killed. Local officials say ICE has only intensified its focus on schools.

Jason Kuhlman, principal of Valley View Elementary in Columbia Heights, said custodians last week persuaded seven ICE agents to leave the parking lot of the district’s high school on the same day his school was closed because of a bomb threat.

”We have 25 families right now that have either a mom or a dad that has been taken,” he said.

At least four of Valley View’s students had been sent to a detention center in Dilley, Texas, including Liam Ramos, the 5-year-old with the Spiderman backpack whose photo went viral in January.

The fear and grief have not deterred Valley View teachers from volunteering to deliver food to some 120 families every week. “I actually had to tell my staff, ‘Slow down,’” Kuhlman said. “I don’t need them burning out.”

According to hunger relief workers, ICE agents have been staking out food distribution sites. And the FBI is reportedly investigating group chats of volunteers and protesters on the Signal messaging app. Volunteers are trained in what to do should ICE agents follow them on home deliveries or pull them over, including eating the slips of paper that contain the addresses of aid recipients.

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Sergio Amezcua is a pastor at Dios Habla Hoy, a church in south Minneapolis that has become a sizable food distribution center. He said he had seen ICE agents circling the church, and last week he came across what he suspected were ICE agents posing as takeout deliverymen trying to enter an apartment building where he was dropping off food.

“We know they’re trying to impede us,” said Amezcua, who has said he regrets voting for President Donald Trump in 2024. “I think Trump has no idea how people are living in Minnesota. If he does, Lord have mercy on him.”

Wilson Quizhpi Cuzco spends 11 hours every day bundled up against the cold outside Mirasol Express, his family’s grocery store in northeast Minneapolis. From the corner where he stands, he can keep an eye on Thomas Edison High School and the Ecuadorian Consulate, both of which have been visited by ICE agents, according to Cuzco. He leaves the corner only when necessary, he said, to go wherever he thinks he can help mediate confrontations between ICE agents and residents.

“A lot of these ICE guys, they don’t even speak Spanish,” Cuzco said.

His presence on the corner assuages fears of Marisol Express customers. Many are neighbors who know he is a U.S. citizen who was born in Ecuador and a Marine Corps combat veteran, he said.

Cuzco used to go inside for a 30-minute lunch break. He said he stopped after a man who lived across the street was taken into custody by ICE agents while Cuzco was away from the corner.

“Now I eat here,” he said, standing outside the grocery on a snowy day last week. “My burrito gets cold.”

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Cuzco is part of a decentralized patchwork of volunteers assisting community members who may be too afraid to solicit help from institutions they know ICE agents are monitoring.

Jennifer, who asked that her last name be withheld for fear of being targeted by ICE, depends on this network for rides to work at a Twin Cities grocery store. She prefers to travel before sunrise and after sunset, and generally sits slouched in the back seat to avoid attracting the attention of ICE agents.

Born in Ecuador, she is in the country legally awaiting political asylum, she said, but must run the risk of being caught because her income covers her family’s expenses. She is also trying to maintain the appearance of life as usual for the benefit of her 9-year-old son.

“There’s an economic necessity, and then there’s also motherhood,” explained Gabriela, a volunteer who served as an interpreter.

Gabriela, who also asked that her last name be withheld, said she takes measures to evade ICE agents who she and many other relief workers believe are tracking the license plates of cars driven to demonstrations and food distribution sites.

“I try to stay away from those places,” she said. “I really want to keep driving people, and I want to bring them groceries. I just feel like, as a Spanish speaker, that’s my current best use.”

On a recent Sunday, Gabriela shopped at multiple grocery stores to buy items from a list entered into a Signal chat. Many of the other volunteers she knows only by pseudonyms.

Gabriela delivered the food, toiletries, diapers and a donated crib to a family of four that includes a girl who just celebrated her 10th birthday and a woman pregnant with twins. The pregnant woman said that she, her husband and older sister were in the country legally awaiting rulings on their asylum cases; all asked not to be identified. The older sister said she stopped going to work at a food processing facility targeted by ICE and that her family wouldn’t be able to survive without assistance.

“We’re so grateful,” she said through tears.

Volunteers like Gabriela navigate a landscape of resources that can change from day to day. She dropped off supplies at the home of another volunteer who was stockpiling food donations for Juntos Podemos, a mutual aid program run out of A & A Barber Studio.

The basement and office of the small business, which is near George Floyd Square, have been overstuffed with donations in the weeks since Adan Tepozteco Gavilan, the barbershop’s co-owner, and his sister, Anai Tepozteco Gavilan, started helping neighbors in danger of going hungry.

Demand for Juntos Podemos’ services continues to increase, Anai Tepozteco Gavilan said, even after ICE announced last week that it was reducing the number of agents in Minnesota.

Last week, A & A was filled with everything you’d expect to find at a grocery store: bags of tortillas and snack chips, canned beans and pasta, diapers and toothbrushes. Volunteers will pack supplies into boxes for home deliveries. Along with food, families with children will receive coloring books, puzzles and hockey paraphernalia.

One local store donated small paper bags filled with modeling clay. Messages of warmth and encouragement were handwritten on the bags. “You are important,” read one. “Spring will come,” read another.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.