MINNEAPOLIS (RNS) — As the Rev. Ashley Horan turned the corner onto a residential street, adjusting the heat in her small sedan to stave off cold air blustering in from the open windows, she pointed to a man strolling along the sidewalk. Dangling around his neck were a whistle and what appeared to be a small camera. He smiled warmly as she waved.
“This is a patroller,” Horan said. “There’s people all over the place.”
By way of example, Horan pointed out another observer on a different block, stopping to loan the person her whistle. Two more, young women, stood huddled together on the next. An older man in a yellow reflective vest stood on yet another corner, pacing back and forth as he took drags from a cigarette.
All of them, she said, were keeping an eye out for any of the thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents that have flooded into the Twin Cities as part of “Operation Metro Surge,” one of the Trump administration’s targeted immigration enforcement campaigns. As she paused at an intersection, RNS asked how often she encounters federal agents in Minneapolis’ Central neighborhood — the same neighborhood where Renee Good was killed by an ICE agent less than a week before. …