AIM VS ICE
Members of the American Indian Movement and the Many Shields Warrior Society are patrolling the streets of Minneapolis.
By Theia Chatelle ,
February 7, 2026
American Indian Movement dancers dance at the site where Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by a Federal agent, on February 1, 2026, on Portland Avenue in Minneapolis, Minnesota.Andrew Lichtenstein / Corbis via Getty Images
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.
Acozy cafe in the heart of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has become a staging ground for Indigenous-led patrols working to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) off their streets. Pow Wow Grounds, opened in 2011 by Bob Rice, has been both a gathering place for community members attempting to make sense of the scale of violence they have witnessed over the past few weeks and a place to strategize an autonomous response.
During Truthout’s visit to the cafe at the end of January, wagons full of supplies — from food and gas masks to Narcan — passed in and out of Pow Wow Grounds’ front door, which for the first time was kept locked to keep ICE agents out. The door was unlocked again and again to allow the wagons into the newly repurposed All My Relations gallery space, which is housed with Pow Wow Grounds in the Native American Community Development Institute.
“Look outside,” Rice said during an interview with Truthout in the cafe. “This is the American Indian Cultural Corridor, the heart of Native life here in Minneapolis. They come here to try to intimidate us, but we will not bow down.”
“They come here to try to intimidate us, but we will not bow down.”
Rice’s efforts to supply the Native community and its allies with “soup and supplies,” as he told Truthout, have been successful. Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and of the Many Shields Warrior Society (an Indigenous community security group) have been patrolling the streets of Minneapolis’s Phillips neighborhood since the start of the occupation, and they do not plan to stop.
“We all have a place. My place is to make sure people are fed and get a cup of coffee,” Rice said.
As is the case with many Minneapolis residents who do not imagine themselves as demonstrators — much less radicals — getting involved in anti-ICE activities, Rice said this felt like the logical thing to do. “We get a call that someone needs something, but they don’t want to leave the house. We have a volunteer list of people who will drive stuff out. This is about keeping the community safe,” Rice stressed.
Masked federal agents have been ubiquitous in the city since the start of “Operation Metro Surge” in December, and for the Native community, the idea of police brutalizing members of their community is hardly new.
“The day after Renee Good was murdered, I remember waking up and thinking I need to get to work and open up the gallery for the people, and it was just immediately, this is what we need to do,” Angela Two Stars, vice president of arts and culture at the Native American Community Development Institute in Minneapolis, told Truthout.
This is not the first time All My Relations has served as a community hub amid turmoil in the Twin Cities. In 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, Two Stars and her team opened the space for community members just as they did in early January, she recalled.
“The thinking is the same. We’re not going to bow down to the fear tactics. Hand in hand, everyone is doing the work together.”
“There is a blood trauma here, seeing masked federal agents walking down our streets waiting to pick people up.”
Minneapolis is the historic heart of the American Indian Movement. It was founded in the Twin Cities in 1968 amid extraordinary levels of violence against the Native community committed by the Minneapolis Police Department. “You’re going to see second- and third-generation AIM here. You’re going to see activism out of here, to push back. That’s the history here,” Rice added.
AIM was instrumental in bringing the number of arrests of Native people down from five to six each day to close to zero. Through the 1960s and 1970s, AIM patrollers scanned police radios and intervened during arrests in progress in an attempt to de-escalate a pattern of violence fomented by underinvestment, redlining, and intense policing.
Rice, who was born and raised in Minneapolis, remembers this time well. When his family moved to the city from the White Earth Reservation, he told Truthout that a petition circulated in his North Minneapolis neighborhood to keep his family out. This anti-Indigenous animus has appeared at other points in Rice’s life in the Twin Cities. He told Truthout it often takes the form of anti-Indigenous comments made in his presence because of his light skin tone.
In early January, reports circulated that federal immigration authorities had detained four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis. The site was a concentration camp for Lakota people in the late 1860s, from which they were deported west. The historical memory of such a place is not lost on the Native community in Minneapolis.
“I never thought that I would have to wear my tribal identification, but that’s what I’m wearing around my neck. We don’t know if we’re stopped by ICE.”
“There is a blood trauma here, seeing masked federal agents walking down our streets waiting to pick people up,” Mary LaGarde, executive director of the American Indian Center in Minneapolis, told Truthout. LaGarde said her own family has been impacted by Operation Metro Surge. At least two of her relatives have been stopped and questioned by immigration agents since December.
“I never thought that I would have to wear my tribal identification, but that’s what I’m wearing around my neck. We don’t know if we’re stopped by ICE. Are they going to give us time to provide proper identification?” she asked emphatically.
Jacqueline De León, a senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, confirmed reports that Native Americans have been stopped in Minneapolis and provided their tribal identification cards to federal immigration agents, but that officers have refused to accept them as valid forms of identification. She said this has also occurred in other cities that have experienced federal immigration surges.
“A lot of our elders are afraid to leave their homes. They’re stuck inside because they’re afraid they will get detained by an ICE officer, even though they have citizenship,” LaGarde added.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe recently banned ICE agents from entering its reservation, a step that other tribes have taken in response to increasingly brutal tactics deployed by immigration agents, such as the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.
“A lot of our elders are afraid to leave their homes. They’re stuck inside because they’re afraid they will get detained by an ICE officer, even though they have citizenship.”
Chase Iron Eyes said in a statement outside the Whipple Building published by online news outlet Status Coup, “There is nobody more American than American Indians.” Per the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, Native people in the U.S. who are members of a federally recognized tribe are also U.S. citizens.
When ICE came to town, it was only a matter of activating what had already been done before. The historical memory was there, and so was the framework for action. “They should have expected this,” said Miles Koenig, who has been working with AIM to help patrol neighborhood streets.
AIM patrols have continued in an on-and-off fashion over the decades — restarting when the community faces a wave of shootings and winding down when a degree of calm returns. But this time is different, according to those who spoke with Truthout.
Crow Bellecourt, the son of Clyde Bellecourt, one of AIM’s four co-founders, now leads the Indigenous Protector Movement, another organization patrolling the streets of the Phillips neighborhood since the start of the occupation. “We just want them out of here,” Bellecourt said of ICE agents. “They can’t keep taking us away.”
The Many Shields Warrior Society, like the Indigenous Protector Movement, is something of a splinter group of AIM. Members of Many Shields allowed Truthout to join them for a training session in the neighborhood of Kingfield on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retribution from the federal government — a well-founded fear. The FBI has historically attempted to infiltrate left-wing autonomous collectives, including through COINTELPRO in the 1960s.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe recently banned ICE agents from entering its reservation.
For Many Shields, the community’s elders have become something of an institution over time, while the group has taken a hardline abolitionist approach. The group’s work is an attempt to counter the logic of prisons and policing inherent in a system that has historically criminalized Native people. “We know our community best, and we are best equipped to make them feel safe,” one member said.
The City of Minneapolis approached Many Shields in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd uprising to ask whether the group would be interested in joining the city’s violence interrupter program, which was expanded in response to calls to abolish the Minneapolis Police Department. Many Shields declined the funding, saying it did not want to “self-police,” as one member put it, or tie the group to an institution it had worked to undercut.
Many Shields members are prepared for the worst-case scenario, each carrying combat medical kits. With each passing civilian death at the hands of federal immigration agents, one member said, their use is becoming less of a “just in case” and more of a certainty. Many Shields has been patrolling the community’s streets for weeks, communicating potential ICE sightings via handheld radios.
Putting ideological differences aside, the autonomous groups operating in Phillips have banded together in solidarity by coordinating patrols and sharing tips on potential ICE sightings. “There’s been an incredible network of dedicated Indigenous people, neighbors, friends, and advocates who have come together to support the Native community,” De León said.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
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.
Acozy cafe in the heart of Minneapolis, Minnesota, has become a staging ground for Indigenous-led patrols working to keep Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) off their streets. Pow Wow Grounds, opened in 2011 by Bob Rice, has been both a gathering place for community members attempting to make sense of the scale of violence they have witnessed over the past few weeks and a place to strategize an autonomous response.
During Truthout’s visit to the cafe at the end of January, wagons full of supplies — from food and gas masks to Narcan — passed in and out of Pow Wow Grounds’ front door, which for the first time was kept locked to keep ICE agents out. The door was unlocked again and again to allow the wagons into the newly repurposed All My Relations gallery space, which is housed with Pow Wow Grounds in the Native American Community Development Institute.
“Look outside,” Rice said during an interview with Truthout in the cafe. “This is the American Indian Cultural Corridor, the heart of Native life here in Minneapolis. They come here to try to intimidate us, but we will not bow down.”
“They come here to try to intimidate us, but we will not bow down.”
Rice’s efforts to supply the Native community and its allies with “soup and supplies,” as he told Truthout, have been successful. Members of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and of the Many Shields Warrior Society (an Indigenous community security group) have been patrolling the streets of Minneapolis’s Phillips neighborhood since the start of the occupation, and they do not plan to stop.
“We all have a place. My place is to make sure people are fed and get a cup of coffee,” Rice said.
As is the case with many Minneapolis residents who do not imagine themselves as demonstrators — much less radicals — getting involved in anti-ICE activities, Rice said this felt like the logical thing to do. “We get a call that someone needs something, but they don’t want to leave the house. We have a volunteer list of people who will drive stuff out. This is about keeping the community safe,” Rice stressed.
Masked federal agents have been ubiquitous in the city since the start of “Operation Metro Surge” in December, and for the Native community, the idea of police brutalizing members of their community is hardly new.
“The day after Renee Good was murdered, I remember waking up and thinking I need to get to work and open up the gallery for the people, and it was just immediately, this is what we need to do,” Angela Two Stars, vice president of arts and culture at the Native American Community Development Institute in Minneapolis, told Truthout.
This is not the first time All My Relations has served as a community hub amid turmoil in the Twin Cities. In 2020, shortly after the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, Two Stars and her team opened the space for community members just as they did in early January, she recalled.
“The thinking is the same. We’re not going to bow down to the fear tactics. Hand in hand, everyone is doing the work together.”
“There is a blood trauma here, seeing masked federal agents walking down our streets waiting to pick people up.”
Minneapolis is the historic heart of the American Indian Movement. It was founded in the Twin Cities in 1968 amid extraordinary levels of violence against the Native community committed by the Minneapolis Police Department. “You’re going to see second- and third-generation AIM here. You’re going to see activism out of here, to push back. That’s the history here,” Rice added.
AIM was instrumental in bringing the number of arrests of Native people down from five to six each day to close to zero. Through the 1960s and 1970s, AIM patrollers scanned police radios and intervened during arrests in progress in an attempt to de-escalate a pattern of violence fomented by underinvestment, redlining, and intense policing.
Rice, who was born and raised in Minneapolis, remembers this time well. When his family moved to the city from the White Earth Reservation, he told Truthout that a petition circulated in his North Minneapolis neighborhood to keep his family out. This anti-Indigenous animus has appeared at other points in Rice’s life in the Twin Cities. He told Truthout it often takes the form of anti-Indigenous comments made in his presence because of his light skin tone.
In early January, reports circulated that federal immigration authorities had detained four members of the Oglala Sioux Tribe at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis. The site was a concentration camp for Lakota people in the late 1860s, from which they were deported west. The historical memory of such a place is not lost on the Native community in Minneapolis.
“I never thought that I would have to wear my tribal identification, but that’s what I’m wearing around my neck. We don’t know if we’re stopped by ICE.”
“There is a blood trauma here, seeing masked federal agents walking down our streets waiting to pick people up,” Mary LaGarde, executive director of the American Indian Center in Minneapolis, told Truthout. LaGarde said her own family has been impacted by Operation Metro Surge. At least two of her relatives have been stopped and questioned by immigration agents since December.
“I never thought that I would have to wear my tribal identification, but that’s what I’m wearing around my neck. We don’t know if we’re stopped by ICE. Are they going to give us time to provide proper identification?” she asked emphatically.
Jacqueline De León, a senior staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, confirmed reports that Native Americans have been stopped in Minneapolis and provided their tribal identification cards to federal immigration agents, but that officers have refused to accept them as valid forms of identification. She said this has also occurred in other cities that have experienced federal immigration surges.
“A lot of our elders are afraid to leave their homes. They’re stuck inside because they’re afraid they will get detained by an ICE officer, even though they have citizenship,” LaGarde added.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe recently banned ICE agents from entering its reservation, a step that other tribes have taken in response to increasingly brutal tactics deployed by immigration agents, such as the deaths of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti.
“A lot of our elders are afraid to leave their homes. They’re stuck inside because they’re afraid they will get detained by an ICE officer, even though they have citizenship.”
Chase Iron Eyes said in a statement outside the Whipple Building published by online news outlet Status Coup, “There is nobody more American than American Indians.” Per the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924, Native people in the U.S. who are members of a federally recognized tribe are also U.S. citizens.
When ICE came to town, it was only a matter of activating what had already been done before. The historical memory was there, and so was the framework for action. “They should have expected this,” said Miles Koenig, who has been working with AIM to help patrol neighborhood streets.
AIM patrols have continued in an on-and-off fashion over the decades — restarting when the community faces a wave of shootings and winding down when a degree of calm returns. But this time is different, according to those who spoke with Truthout.
Crow Bellecourt, the son of Clyde Bellecourt, one of AIM’s four co-founders, now leads the Indigenous Protector Movement, another organization patrolling the streets of the Phillips neighborhood since the start of the occupation. “We just want them out of here,” Bellecourt said of ICE agents. “They can’t keep taking us away.”
The Many Shields Warrior Society, like the Indigenous Protector Movement, is something of a splinter group of AIM. Members of Many Shields allowed Truthout to join them for a training session in the neighborhood of Kingfield on the condition of anonymity, citing fear of retribution from the federal government — a well-founded fear. The FBI has historically attempted to infiltrate left-wing autonomous collectives, including through COINTELPRO in the 1960s.
The Oglala Sioux Tribe recently banned ICE agents from entering its reservation.
For Many Shields, the community’s elders have become something of an institution over time, while the group has taken a hardline abolitionist approach. The group’s work is an attempt to counter the logic of prisons and policing inherent in a system that has historically criminalized Native people. “We know our community best, and we are best equipped to make them feel safe,” one member said.
The City of Minneapolis approached Many Shields in the wake of the 2020 George Floyd uprising to ask whether the group would be interested in joining the city’s violence interrupter program, which was expanded in response to calls to abolish the Minneapolis Police Department. Many Shields declined the funding, saying it did not want to “self-police,” as one member put it, or tie the group to an institution it had worked to undercut.
Many Shields members are prepared for the worst-case scenario, each carrying combat medical kits. With each passing civilian death at the hands of federal immigration agents, one member said, their use is becoming less of a “just in case” and more of a certainty. Many Shields has been patrolling the community’s streets for weeks, communicating potential ICE sightings via handheld radios.
Putting ideological differences aside, the autonomous groups operating in Phillips have banded together in solidarity by coordinating patrols and sharing tips on potential ICE sightings. “There’s been an incredible network of dedicated Indigenous people, neighbors, friends, and advocates who have come together to support the Native community,” De León said.
This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.
Theia Chatelle
Theia Chatelle is a conflict correspondent based between Ramallah and New Haven. She has written for The Intercept, The Nation, The New Arab, etc. She is an alumnus of the International Women’s Media Foundation and the Rory Peck Trust.
Minneapolis Native communities fight fear of ICE with traditional ritual and prayer
(RNS) — In Minneapolis, many Native people say they are reluctant to leave their homes for fear of being detained by federal ICE agents.
Indigenous people perform during a memorial honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were both fatally shot by federal agents, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Fiona Murphy
February 7, 2026
Indigenous people perform during a memorial honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were both recently fatally shot by federal agents, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
The Rev. Joann Conroy, senior pastor of All Nations Indian Church in Minneapolis and an Oglala Sioux tribal member, said recent weeks have been difficult for her 20-person congregation. “People are stressed,” Conroy said. “People are afraid.”
Most, Conroy said, need a listening ear. “You see people come in, and they just need to tell somebody about their emotions and their fears,” she said. “They need to be heard.”
All Nations worships liturgy in the languages and traditions of its congregation, which Conroy said includes Ho-Chunk, Anishinaabe and Dakota, along with English. “We try to use the traditions of burning sage and different things like that,” Conroy said. There is a sacred fire pit outside of the worship area that is lit whenever worship is happening. “So people can go out and stand by the fire and pray,” Conroy said.
For Native community members in particular, Conroy said cultural tradition assists in healing and gathering strength, like burning of sage, sweetgrass, cedar and offering tobacco. “I think when people are seeking out spiritual help, just the seeking itself helps them cope,” she said. “Those practices help you be who you are. When those things are present and you smell those scents, it gives you strength.” All Nations has participated in protests in the city.
The Rev. Joann Conroy. (Photo courtesy of All Nations Indian Church)
Other Native leaders are taking a more confrontational approach. On Saturday, Feb. 7, Conroy’s daughter and co-pastor, Dr. Kelly Sherman-Conroy, helped organize a demonstration planned at the Whipple Federal Building, near Fort Snelling, which houses ICE’s local offices. Organizers have described the action as a symbolic “eviction notice” directed at the federal government, meant to draw attention to their demand that the United States dispossess Native American land.
The demonstration is expected to bring together Native clergy and community members from multiple faith traditions. The action will be followed by a memorial and grief ceremony at Powderhorn Park, organized by NDN Collective, honoring Renée Good and Alex Pretti and their families.
Jim Bear Jacobs, a Mohican pastor and racial justice leader, said he will be at the federal building tomorrow, “because this is my city, and this is my home, and the families that are being torn apart are my neighbors, and, in Indigenous understanding of the word, they are my relatives.”
Sharyl WhiteHawk poses at a memorial honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Minneapolis. (Photo courtesy of WhiteHawk)
Sharyl WhiteHawk, an Ojibwe activist and jingle dress dancer whose daughter helped organize Sunday’s ceremony, said Saturday’s gathering will include Arvol Looking Horse, the Lakota spiritual leader who carries the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, traveling from South Dakota to take part.
She described the response as decentralized and community-driven, with ceremonies and gatherings emerging organically. “People bring in speakers or plan gatherings. There’s no one person in charge. People are responding to what’s needed,” she said.
WhiteHawk said she expects Native communities to continue showing up for ceremonies, dances and memorials as long as federal enforcement remains present in Minneapolis.
“I think this is a lasting thing,” she said. “People will continue to do it, to keep bringing the medicine.”
(RNS) — In Minneapolis, many Native people say they are reluctant to leave their homes for fear of being detained by federal ICE agents.
Indigenous people perform during a memorial honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were both fatally shot by federal agents, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
Fiona Murphy
February 7, 2026
RNS
(RNS) — On Sunday (Feb. 1), a group of dancers in dresses affixed with metal noisemakers performed an Ojibwe traditional healing dance known as the jingle dress dance to the heartbeat of a leather drum in downtown Minneapolis. The swishing of the dancers’ dresses sounded like light rain as more than 100 Minneapolis community members followed them to the sites where two local residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were killed by federal agents in recent weeks.
At each site, the group prayed, sang and danced in a ritual meant to promote healing and solidarity.
Nicole Matthews, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, who helped organize the dance, compared the ceremony to a “medicine dance.”
“It was a community collaboration of Native women working together,” said Matthews. “We were there as a community to come together and bring healing to that place where, you know, significant trauma occurred.”
In Minneapolis, many Native people say they are reluctant to leave their homes for fear of being detained by federal ICE agents. “We are seeing people being profiled based on the color of their skin,” Matthews said. “We have families who are afraid to leave their homes or send their kids to school.”
On Jan. 9, the Oglala Sioux Tribe reported that four unhoused tribal citizens were arrested by ICE during enforcement operations in Minneapolis. Tribal leaders say three remain in custody at a facility in St. Paul near Fort Snelling, a U.S. Army outpost during the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. Locals connect the site with the imprisonment of Dakota Sioux people, culminating in the execution of 38 Dakota men in what is widely regarded as the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
Some people in the Native community have begun wearing their tribal identification on lanyards around their necks so they can show that they are tribal citizens and not immigrants. But Native leaders say that another way to mourn the violence in Minnesota, and resist fear and promote healing, is through traditional ceremony, prayer and worship.
“I think our prayer and our ceremonies and those cultural pieces that connect us are our strengths,” Matthews said. “The people that I talked to were very grateful for having that.”
Although Native people make up a small share of Minneapolis’ population — roughly 1% of residents identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, according to U.S. Census data — the Twin Cities area is home to one of the largest urban Indigenous populations in the Midwest. In Minnesota, there are seven reservations belonging to the Anishinaabe, another name for Ojibwe, and four Dakota communities, each with their own distinct culture and ritual.
Robert Two Bulls, an Oglala Lakota visual artist and pastor of All Saints Episcopal Indian Mission Church in Minneapolis, said his congregation of about 75 people, most of them Native, has seen attendance decline at Sunday services in recent weeks.
The Rev. Robert Two Bulls. (Photo courtesy of All Saints Episcopal Indian Mission Church)
“There’s a few showing up. A lot of people just don’t go out,” Two Bulls said, noting that frigid weather may have combined with ICE’s presence to inhibit attendance. All Saints is an “inculturated” church, meaning the Christian liturgy is grounded in Native culture. Congregants pray seated in a circle, while many hymns and prayers are recited in Anishinaabe, Dakota and English.
In this time of uncertainty, Two Bulls said much of the support he is providing his community is through listening. “I’ve noticed that people just want to talk,” said Two Bulls. “Some of them feel isolated.”
At All Saints, a weekly food pantry known as First Nations Kitchen serves Indigenous and organic cuisine to anyone who shows up. The 17-year-old program serves neighbors of many backgrounds — “Somali, Latino, white, Black, Native, a real working class neighborhood,” Two Bulls said. After moving the pantry outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic, the church has recently moved food distribution indoors to reduce visibility after seeing federal agents driving by.
“ICE is made up of individuals from different parts of the country, so they have no idea what Native people look like,” said the pastor.
“We still have trained observers outside, and we bring all our guests inside. Our main concern is keeping people safe.” The church has also developed a protocol in case federal agents arrive during distributions, Two Bulls added.
But Two Bulls said the community hasn’t been deterred from providing services. “We continue on. We don’t let this fear override what we do,” Two Bulls said. “We still serve food. We still practice food justice. We still worship every Sunday. We just keep marching on.”
Robert Haarman, director of the Office of Indian Ministry of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and community minister at Gichitwaa Kateri Catholic Church in Minneapolis, said his ministry’s small food pantry has been delivering meals and traditional medicines, such as sage, to homes.
“There are requests for some food,” said Haarman, who is not a Native person. “We have a small food shelf here that we can help with, and then we can also offer, like, some of the medicines that are used for prayer.”
(RNS) — On Sunday (Feb. 1), a group of dancers in dresses affixed with metal noisemakers performed an Ojibwe traditional healing dance known as the jingle dress dance to the heartbeat of a leather drum in downtown Minneapolis. The swishing of the dancers’ dresses sounded like light rain as more than 100 Minneapolis community members followed them to the sites where two local residents, Alex Pretti and Renee Good, were killed by federal agents in recent weeks.
At each site, the group prayed, sang and danced in a ritual meant to promote healing and solidarity.
Nicole Matthews, executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, who helped organize the dance, compared the ceremony to a “medicine dance.”
“It was a community collaboration of Native women working together,” said Matthews. “We were there as a community to come together and bring healing to that place where, you know, significant trauma occurred.”
In Minneapolis, many Native people say they are reluctant to leave their homes for fear of being detained by federal ICE agents. “We are seeing people being profiled based on the color of their skin,” Matthews said. “We have families who are afraid to leave their homes or send their kids to school.”
On Jan. 9, the Oglala Sioux Tribe reported that four unhoused tribal citizens were arrested by ICE during enforcement operations in Minneapolis. Tribal leaders say three remain in custody at a facility in St. Paul near Fort Snelling, a U.S. Army outpost during the U.S.-Dakota War of 1862. Locals connect the site with the imprisonment of Dakota Sioux people, culminating in the execution of 38 Dakota men in what is widely regarded as the largest mass execution in U.S. history.
Some people in the Native community have begun wearing their tribal identification on lanyards around their necks so they can show that they are tribal citizens and not immigrants. But Native leaders say that another way to mourn the violence in Minnesota, and resist fear and promote healing, is through traditional ceremony, prayer and worship.
“I think our prayer and our ceremonies and those cultural pieces that connect us are our strengths,” Matthews said. “The people that I talked to were very grateful for having that.”
Although Native people make up a small share of Minneapolis’ population — roughly 1% of residents identify as American Indian or Alaska Native, according to U.S. Census data — the Twin Cities area is home to one of the largest urban Indigenous populations in the Midwest. In Minnesota, there are seven reservations belonging to the Anishinaabe, another name for Ojibwe, and four Dakota communities, each with their own distinct culture and ritual.
Robert Two Bulls, an Oglala Lakota visual artist and pastor of All Saints Episcopal Indian Mission Church in Minneapolis, said his congregation of about 75 people, most of them Native, has seen attendance decline at Sunday services in recent weeks.
The Rev. Robert Two Bulls. (Photo courtesy of All Saints Episcopal Indian Mission Church)
“There’s a few showing up. A lot of people just don’t go out,” Two Bulls said, noting that frigid weather may have combined with ICE’s presence to inhibit attendance. All Saints is an “inculturated” church, meaning the Christian liturgy is grounded in Native culture. Congregants pray seated in a circle, while many hymns and prayers are recited in Anishinaabe, Dakota and English.
In this time of uncertainty, Two Bulls said much of the support he is providing his community is through listening. “I’ve noticed that people just want to talk,” said Two Bulls. “Some of them feel isolated.”
At All Saints, a weekly food pantry known as First Nations Kitchen serves Indigenous and organic cuisine to anyone who shows up. The 17-year-old program serves neighbors of many backgrounds — “Somali, Latino, white, Black, Native, a real working class neighborhood,” Two Bulls said. After moving the pantry outdoors during the COVID-19 pandemic, the church has recently moved food distribution indoors to reduce visibility after seeing federal agents driving by.
“ICE is made up of individuals from different parts of the country, so they have no idea what Native people look like,” said the pastor.
“We still have trained observers outside, and we bring all our guests inside. Our main concern is keeping people safe.” The church has also developed a protocol in case federal agents arrive during distributions, Two Bulls added.
But Two Bulls said the community hasn’t been deterred from providing services. “We continue on. We don’t let this fear override what we do,” Two Bulls said. “We still serve food. We still practice food justice. We still worship every Sunday. We just keep marching on.”
Robert Haarman, director of the Office of Indian Ministry of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis and community minister at Gichitwaa Kateri Catholic Church in Minneapolis, said his ministry’s small food pantry has been delivering meals and traditional medicines, such as sage, to homes.
“There are requests for some food,” said Haarman, who is not a Native person. “We have a small food shelf here that we can help with, and then we can also offer, like, some of the medicines that are used for prayer.”
Indigenous people perform during a memorial honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, who were both recently fatally shot by federal agents, on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Ryan Murphy)
The Rev. Joann Conroy, senior pastor of All Nations Indian Church in Minneapolis and an Oglala Sioux tribal member, said recent weeks have been difficult for her 20-person congregation. “People are stressed,” Conroy said. “People are afraid.”
Most, Conroy said, need a listening ear. “You see people come in, and they just need to tell somebody about their emotions and their fears,” she said. “They need to be heard.”
All Nations worships liturgy in the languages and traditions of its congregation, which Conroy said includes Ho-Chunk, Anishinaabe and Dakota, along with English. “We try to use the traditions of burning sage and different things like that,” Conroy said. There is a sacred fire pit outside of the worship area that is lit whenever worship is happening. “So people can go out and stand by the fire and pray,” Conroy said.
For Native community members in particular, Conroy said cultural tradition assists in healing and gathering strength, like burning of sage, sweetgrass, cedar and offering tobacco. “I think when people are seeking out spiritual help, just the seeking itself helps them cope,” she said. “Those practices help you be who you are. When those things are present and you smell those scents, it gives you strength.” All Nations has participated in protests in the city.
The Rev. Joann Conroy. (Photo courtesy of All Nations Indian Church)
Other Native leaders are taking a more confrontational approach. On Saturday, Feb. 7, Conroy’s daughter and co-pastor, Dr. Kelly Sherman-Conroy, helped organize a demonstration planned at the Whipple Federal Building, near Fort Snelling, which houses ICE’s local offices. Organizers have described the action as a symbolic “eviction notice” directed at the federal government, meant to draw attention to their demand that the United States dispossess Native American land.
The demonstration is expected to bring together Native clergy and community members from multiple faith traditions. The action will be followed by a memorial and grief ceremony at Powderhorn Park, organized by NDN Collective, honoring Renée Good and Alex Pretti and their families.
Jim Bear Jacobs, a Mohican pastor and racial justice leader, said he will be at the federal building tomorrow, “because this is my city, and this is my home, and the families that are being torn apart are my neighbors, and, in Indigenous understanding of the word, they are my relatives.”
Sharyl WhiteHawk poses at a memorial honoring Alex Pretti and Renee Nicole Good on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Minneapolis. (Photo courtesy of WhiteHawk)
Sharyl WhiteHawk, an Ojibwe activist and jingle dress dancer whose daughter helped organize Sunday’s ceremony, said Saturday’s gathering will include Arvol Looking Horse, the Lakota spiritual leader who carries the White Buffalo Calf Pipe, traveling from South Dakota to take part.
She described the response as decentralized and community-driven, with ceremonies and gatherings emerging organically. “People bring in speakers or plan gatherings. There’s no one person in charge. People are responding to what’s needed,” she said.
WhiteHawk said she expects Native communities to continue showing up for ceremonies, dances and memorials as long as federal enforcement remains present in Minneapolis.
“I think this is a lasting thing,” she said. “People will continue to do it, to keep bringing the medicine.”
