Bulwark Takes - Trump’s Minneapolis Raids Are Crushing Peoples’ Lives

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

Adrian Carrasquillo spent several days on the ground in Minneapolis as immigration operations intensified across the city. Drawing on firsthand reporting and eyewitness testimony, the conversation documents how immigration enforcement tactics have reshaped daily life for residents, workers, and small business owners.Segundo Balboa, co-owner of Galapagos Bar & Grill: A small-business describes ICE arriving in December, families becoming afraid to leave their homes, and neighborhood commerce collapsing as fear spread. He explains the impossible choice between staying safe and continuing to work to pay bills.Carolina Ortiz, associate executive director of Communities Organizing Latine Power and Action (COPAL): A community organizer and on-the-ground responder, who provides detailed eyewitness accounts of ICE tactics across Minneapolis—agents positioned on nearly every block, unmarked vehicles, covered faces, and arrests carried out through intimidation.Daniel Hernandez, owner of Colonial Market & Restaurant: He explains sales dropping by nearly 90 percent, the loss of the holiday season, and his efforts to support families through food delivery, recovery of impounded vehicles, and coordination with city officials to keep aid inside the community.These interviews show how immigration policy is playing out in real time: fear as a tool, force as a default, and an entire community caught in the middle.Read more about Adrian's experience in Minneapolis:Portraits of the Minneapolis Resistance: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/portraits-of-the-minneapolis-resistance-dhs-cbp-ice-protests-minnesota24 Hours Alongside an ICE Protester in Minneapolis: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/24-hours-alongside-an-ice-protester-minneapolis

Hey, everybody. It's me, Sam Stein, managing editor at the Bullwark. I am joined by by Buddy Adrian, who's just back from Minneapolis. Adrian, you were on the ground there. I just want to caution people. This was before the Alex Preti shooting. You left like a day or two before, but you were there for about four days in the thicket of this intense situation between ice and people in the city. You saw a lot. You followed around a lot of people, and you followed two great newsletters. people should subscribe to huddled masses. It's the best immigration policy news led in the business. But tell us about what you saw.

I was on the ground for four days in Minneapolis before the shooting. But even before the shooting, you could tell that activists and just people in the community were truly fighting back and truly as brave as what we've seen in the folks in the general strike protest after and the Ice Watch people that are showing up and confronting these agents, as we heard from Renegode's widow, they have whistles. Those agents have guns. So it's as brave as it looks like. I mean, I spoke to business owners who are trying to survive whose business is down 90%.

I spoke to people who are trying to protect kids from being taken and handing out food and doing delivery groceries. And I spoke to an activist who is just doing some really strong work with helping folks in terms of rent assistance and in terms of helping people with the things that they need in these moment, in this moment where Minneapolis has been under siege. I think you guys will really enjoy the video. I hope you check it out. So the agents started coming in December and obviously in January we have this horrible shooting. Can you just repeat to me what you were telling me in Spanish about what you thought when you saw the video and how it made you feel? The shoot of the René who could be avoided and many other shootings as well as can be avoided. I think so there was like unprofessional.

Some people like they don't have like enough training for this kind of situation how to handle it and then they just trying to create the wars for the Spanish community to get afraid and get scared I think and like we saw one of videos that the way how they trade the Spanish even American citizens to get like basically because they get taken away, they know, they go nowhere, and then it's very sad to see this, to come up until this situation that people get killed and it's not worth it. How do you feel as a US citizen, if they could do that to a white one? Well, I feel every, every day scared to vote

because like you guys saw many cases, they just get stopped and they just, they don't give you And basically they take away a freedom speech. And then they just like open the cars, put hands cups, and they're just like four or six agents, they just take you over like and just throw into the back of their cars. Do you have family? Yes, I do. Wife kids.

Yeah, I have my two kids and my older baby. And they're not going out. So they're staying at home because afraid because you'll never know what they were. going to do to the kids. I think it's obvious, but do you have to work for them? That's why you have to keep going out? Yes, yes, because other ways there's no, like you said, the business is low,

but still try to make up something after, to cover the bills, to put food on the table. So that's our every day going out, risk in life. It was stay home alone. Nobody's going to pay the bill for us. You said there was really no Christmas or New Year's here. You said that basically in December, they started coming.

Can you talk about that? The beginning in the December, I started hurting the economic over here because people are afraid going out and there was no Christmas or New York for the Spanish community because everybody is scared or scared, afraid to go out because the way how is the situation. How much has your business dropped? I'm curious from maybe December 1st of what it usually would be to now. Since that start, we're like 90% dropped out the business. We just barely making enough to cover bills.

But it's- Did you see the business has dropped like 90%? Yes, because we basically received like a Spanish community almost. Right now we're in support for American community. That's why we're just staying off for a little bit. But it's just like, it's crazy how these things are going on. some of the business is ready close. I was speaking to somebody earlier,

and he didn't seem like a bad person, but he seemed like a Trump supporter that was supportive of what's going on, even though he's lived here his whole night, a white man. And I guess what would you say to someone like him, what would you say to people who support Trump's policies either in Minnesota or in the country

about what this is doing to businesses like yours and to American citizens like you? This is not like doing something good for the people or the community that it's the most like political, I feel like it's just damaging the whole country. Like they should be like more professional to do this kind of job to go just go after the whoever's

like criminals, like special criminals, you know, like this latter, I've done that. They're not doing that. They're just most doing like the family, the working classes, going out to work and just basically taking away a kidnapping, you know, taking the freedom, the speech, everything. Can you talk about

what you saw going on here, ice here, ice on every block, and then you going out, and you get recording, whistles, all that. Right. Outside, we're located by Longfellow Market. A lot of the neighbors go there, groceries, small items. And we were sitting here. I was having a meeting, and we started seeing people run out of the store. that was last week on Wednesday. And at that point, I mean, those of us that were here went outside to try and figure out what was happening. And you could hear that the people were saying, it's ice, lock your doors.

They started running all the way. It's like a block and a half into those small businesses here. And people there were able to close the door, get everything locked up. We locked up this building here. Part of the team stayed here just to observe, talk to the neighbors, talk with the people that were in Longfellow Market. And then three of us went in the car to see if there was more ice presence on Lake Street or just trying to figure out, you know, what they were trying to do. And as soon as we started driving down Lake Street, we were able to observe that there were ice vehicles at every single block.

and they were you know one of them was parked in the McDonald's one of them was parked at cbs some of them were hard to tell that it was ice you really had to get close to see you know the uniform and the covered faces there many some of them were in pickup trucks other others were in vans others were in smaller cars so it was it wasn't like you could easily identify but we could see it because we were driving down to figure out what was happening as people started noticing and they were intentionally waiting for people to come out to you know as people started noticing people started honking their cars people started using the whistles alerting people that ice was here one of the team members was driving I was in the back recording and it got to a point where we were hearing the whistles and the honking every single direction and it did feel um very frustrating just to see that it was intentional that they were doing it on purpose, getting people off guard, and making several arrests that day.

The folks that were here in the building that stayed behind were able to record an arrest that got violent, where they used tear gas and they were also becoming very, very aggressive and just their words and their physical actions. So that day in particular was just a reminder, right, that they're using different tactics. They're strategizing in new ways just to be able to arrest as many people as possible. This was after the shooting of Renee Good. Correct, yeah. I know that you heard about that. I was listening to the podcast and one of your colleagues, you could tell that something serious was happening.

It scared you how serious they were. And you got there and it was sort of the aftermath. And I think that sounds horrifying and traumatic for you and your staff. At the same time, you were there for an event that is like this, now this historic and this flashpoint for what's going on here in your city and your community. Can you just talk about getting there and some of the aftermath of what you saw? Yeah, and I was precisely sitting here because we were all also observing the street, just keeping up with the activity that's happening here on Lake Street. And that's when I got the call.

And yeah, as soon as I started hearing her voice, she tends to be really calm and just, even in high stress situations, it's really rare. I had never heard her as concerned. And people, we had people from the team that were already on their way, but when I heard her voice, I also grabbed two other team members and I was like, let's go. We grabbed the materials. We have vests so that community members know that we are there to support, to help deescalate, to help with folks that are trying to get out of there safely.

So we took some vests, we took eye protection, we took the masks for the irritants that they use, and we headed there. When I got there, I know the focus was. really on the community member trying to figure out what had happened to Renee Good if she if she was still alive was was a question and it was it was horrifying to see that despite that happening that the ice agents of Border Patrol like people that were there were not de-escalating in any way they were continuing to be verbally aggressive with people. I mentioned that there was one individual who was recording from afar. It wasn't even close, not in the middle of anybody, where one of the agents pushed them to the ground. At the same time, on the opposite end, we had the other team members that were supporting people that had already tear gas in their eyes. And they were openly,

like they had their arms, their weapons out and, you know, on purpose, pointing at people to create fear. They were shooting some of the rubber bullets. One of them hit a 16-year-old. But another team member that was standing next to him directly, he was just terrified. He was like, you know, they were aiming at us. And they, for no reason other than creating fear and intimidation. And in many ways it felt as. if they were almost enjoying it in a way that you could see it in their eye expressions.

They were laughing. They were joking. And it's incredibly terrifying to see that level of disconnect from the humanity of the individuals there. It's crazy to me that they would see a 16-year-old with his sister and see that as a threat. It's just the disconnect from the humanity. It's terrifying. You were shocked by the amount of blood you saw, right? Including, like, in the snow.

Seeing that, seeing the violence, seeing what's going on, and trying to make sense of all of it, just puts your body into a shock mode of, like, what are we dealing with? What is, what are we dealing with? Why are we to this point? They were trying to keep people away. They had, I mean, they had so many vehicles that they were just blocking the entire street. And, I mean, you could still see the blood.

but you could see that they were trying to block it off. You could see that they were trying to really hide, you know, what was happening. And that was also something that I really made me upset because it was almost as if you had one part of the team just trying to cover it up, get, you know, get the agent that shot Renee Good out of there while also trying to not deescalate but really on the contrary, continue to upset the people that had witnessed that. It just felt unreal. You are helping people get through a traumatic situation while you yourself are dealing with a traumatic situation. Of you and your staff, how do you even do that? How do you, I don't know if you separate them, how do you do that? I think we have to be mindful that all of us doing this work have been impacted in one way or another,

that we continue to be exposed to this violence, that we continue to be exposed to even the stories of community, that they're being vulnerable, they're sharing with us what occurs. And I mean, you know, eight, 10, 12-hour days of being exposed to that, it does something to you. And I think we have to be mindful. And that's always my fear, right? Like, how can we tell the team, hey, we have to continue doing this, knowing that we don't know. We can't promise anybody that we will be okay, that we will be safe. because we don't.

And how do we make sure that we are taking care of each other, mental health, you know, our needs, our personal needs. We all have families that have, many of them have been home for weeks that we are also trying to take care of as we're doing the work. So it's complex and it's difficult. But I do think that, and it sounds terrible to say this, but, you know, after COVID, after George Floyd, now Renee Good, I feel like Minnesota has been through so much that like it or not, it has prepared us in one way or another to be able to take this on in a way that is a little bit more manageable, but you're never prepared for this.

You can never be prepared for this. But really, we're just doing the best that we can to take care of each other because if we don't, we can't take care of the community. I think what you're getting at is resilience and sort of the last question I have for you. We're in this sort of quiet 48 hours. Yesterday it was Martin Luther King Day. And I know that you guys believe that maybe something's being planned. I mean, the agents have not gone anywhere. Maybe you could just talk about this moment.

And because I think the fact that you are now dealing with the ongoing situation, like, for example, you're trying to get food to people. I mean, can you talk about this, like, little moment that we're now, you know, We're going to see what happens. Yeah, and as I mentioned, we've seen how the agents have changed their strategy. We've seen how they are operating. We acknowledging all of that, we are expecting to see an increase in activity this week. And with that, we are as prepared as possible. Through our helpline, we do get several hundred calls each day.

So we are consistently tracking that, seeing, hey, what's happening? what are the needs of the community, how are we addressing them, and also what is the activity? With that information, we're able to better prepare ourselves, and we do think that there will be an increase this week, hopefully not, but nothing that has occurred in these past few weeks has even hinted that they are leaving or that they're no longer going to be doing what they're doing. they're just right now also a lot of folks that are calling and saying hey does this mean you know we can we can go out right now that we can get groceries that we have one person who hasn't seen her sister in several weeks and she depends on her for medical care and she was like hey is this a moment for me to go over and make sure she's okay um and it's hard right

because we can never we can't guarantee anybody safety um and many of these people are also US citizens that are terrified because of all of the instances where they have arrested U.S. citizens, people with status, people with green cards that are being questioned. And people, regardless of status, are terrified. I wonder what your message is, like, to our audience, to people who are seeing this and wondering what's going on. We hear about sort of tongue-in-cheek, but I think also true, like the Midwest that's a nice thing that, you know, but I also, I've seen like a fierceness in the way you guys

protect each other and take care of each other and have each other's back. I was speaking to a restaurant owner who talked about the sense of community that you guys have. I guess, yeah, I'm just curious, like, what is your message to people that are wondering how you guys are doing? Yeah, I think it's funny that you bring up the Minnesota nice. It's there, but I think right now everybody in our community is fed up with the violence, with the injustice, with the narrative at a larger scale that they are arresting, the criminals, that they are only going for people that are doing what's wrong, and we're here, we see what's happening, we see that that's not the case. And neighbors, I mean, the people that came out of Longfellow, neighbors that live around the area,

many of them have told us, you know, I've never been engaged to this level. I'm fed up with it. This is no longer an issue of left or right or, you know, where you stand on that line, but it's really about our humanity that is being questioned, our constitution that is being questioned. And that's why people are willing to stand up for one another because we're here, we see it. And I think that that gives us the courage to speak. You're the owner of Colonial Supermarket, right?

I'm the owner of Colonial Market and restaurant, yes. Your name? My name is Daniel Hernandez. You've been here. How many years and how long have you owned Colonial? Well, I've been in the States since I was 16. You know, right now I'm 41, so it's been 25 plus years that I've been in Minnesota, and I have owned several business, you know, during the last 14 years,

and Colonial is one of them. I own Colonial since 2019. Can you talk to the people who might not be familiar? I see Colonial, and it seems very familiar to me. It looks like one of those local Latino supermarkets for the Latino community. And, I mean, you're important in a community like this, right? Yes, a colonial market is the traditional grocery market in the United States. We have piñaras, we have Cessina, we have Doritos, we have different.

brands that people know and care from their countries, we export 90% of our groceries. So most of them come from anywhere from Brazil all the way to Mexico. So in November and December, but definitely in December, it picks up right before the holidays that agents come here. And what I found striking is, I mean, like, you could have the greatest heart, in the world and I think you do but you're a businessman you have to make money for your business or else you're not going to be able to stay here forever how how have how has your sales gone down the sales begin dropping at the beginning of 2025 when president trump took call first my sales

began dropping dramatically by month you know to until now what we are we only sell around one hundred seventy thousand dollars per month which is very very dramatic change what were you doing before We used to sell $1 million per month. So you're trying to help the community. Your own business is being hurt drastically. And you do, now what are you doing for the community? You do free delivery of food. Well, we do different things.

We do free deliveries, you know, which is free for them, but I have to pay them. We also do do dopas. I gave daily updates to the community. I am constantly in contact with the city of Minneapolis on which we have helped to get free to get free out of the impound lot cars that had been, the owner has been taken by ice. Why is it so important for me to do that? It's because a lot of the ones stay behinds are moms who do not have the money. And now they can get that car, sell it, and get some money for the money for the first.

family. So I've been working with the city of Minneapolis directly with Mayor Fry. I've been helping the community to be the middleman, let's call it like that, between the MPD, Minneapolis Police Department and the normal citizens, Latino citizens. So I've been doing that for two years already. I also have, I am working with the Minnesota National Guard to help Latinos to join the National Guard. So I have a lot of things in my plate, you know. How old are you? Uh, 41. Even before ICE came to Minneapolis in this huge way towards the end of the year,

you were doing work to help young people, to help kids, right? People that are taking. Can you talk about and explain what dopas? Yes, dopa is basically a parental authority that you give the authorization for somebody else to take your kids and take care of your kid up to a year. We begin doing Dopas at the beginning of 2025 in January 2025. Between January and December 2025, we did 2,75775 with the 2,757-75. And, you know, most of the kids that we did, most of them, I would say 90% of them were U.S. citizens.

What we're doing right now is I'm trying to raise up to a million dollars or more. for the Latino community to get them food. But the way I want to do it is completely different than most other non-profits. Most non-profit what they do is they raise the money and then they buy their groceries and everything to give away from big companies, Walmart, Target, Sam's Club, Costco, etc.

So what I have proposed is to raise the money, but the money to stay in, in the community. How is it going to stay in the community is that money I want to be distributed in all the grocery stores, Latino grocery stores, and they can, you know, put together a package where everything is the same, you know. So I'm going to put a package together where all the grocery store can have the same thing and be paid in full so that way we can help other small grocery, Latino grocery stores.

Thank you.