While the presence and actions of federal agents in Minnesota’s Twin Cities are a high-profile national news story, federal agents are active in small cities and rural communities across the country.
It can be easy for rural residents and rural policymakers to write off the news streaming out of Minneapolis as something happening elsewhere. While the headlines have emanated from large urban areas, dig deeper, and it becomes clear that federal agents are active in rural areas, too. Consider several news reports in just the last week.
Immigration actions in rural areas nationwide
Observer video published this weekend out of Saint Peter, Minnesota, shows three ICE agents recklessly stopping a car and approaching the driver, a local woman. All three agents are masked and have their guns drawn and aimed at the driver. Her apparent crime was observing their activity from her car while driving on a public road in this town of 12,000 people.
Federal agents also surged into largely rural Maine in the past two weeks, with activity reported throughout a large region of the state. In Lewiston, Maine, a town of 37,000, WBUR reported that many residents opted to avoid school and work out of fear of being targeted. Family members, lawyers, and local and state officials all reported that many of those detained in the state were legally present asylum seekers with no criminal record.
Multiple news outlets report that federal agents plan to arrive in Springfield, Ohio, in the coming days. Springfield is a town of 58,000 residents, including 15,000 Haitian immigrants who arrived with Temporary Protected Status, a protection granted by the U.S. government. The current administration has indicated that it will allow the protection to expire on Feb. 3. State and local officials anticipate a surge of federal officers to begin detaining these heretofore legally present residents. Haitian immigrants make up 25% of the local population and have helped revitalize the local economy.
Back in Minnesota, the state Farmers Union held a press conference to raise attention to the impact federal agent activity is having on the agricultural workforce in the state. Gary Wertish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, noted that federal agents have been active throughout the state. He reported a shortage of workers in some agricultural processing plants as well as the restaurant industry. Again, he said, “You have workers who are afraid to go to work, even if they have legal status."
Center for Rural Affairs staff, too, have seen firsthand how the rapidly changing federal enforcement climate is affecting communities where we work. Heightened concern about being profiled or otherwise caught up in the current dragnet approach has led to residents who are scared to engage in public life, operate their businesses, or go to work.
A different way is possible
Rural America is often characterized as mostly white and a place with few newly arriving immigrants. Those of us who work in small towns across the country know this generalization is not accurate. Accepting that, but for Native Americans, we are all immigrants to our places, newly arriving Americans have been making a home in and contributing to our small towns and rural communities for decades, often breathing new life into local economies.
As new residents arrived, the Center for Rural Affairs built programming to help both long-time residents and newcomers create welcoming communities where everyone can be a full participant in local civic, economic, and cultural life. Together, we have made great progress in building communities that are more welcoming, economically vibrant, and culturally diverse.
The federal government’s current actions threaten this progress. As we see from the above examples, masked and heavily armed agents are already present in small cities and rural towns. They are ensnaring citizens and non-citizens alike, legal residents, and children. These federal actions ignore basic law enforcement safety protocols and constitutionally rooted rights. Without a fundamental change, we're likely to see more, not less, of this in our communities in the months ahead.
The rule of law underlies our individual and collective ability to do much of anything—start businesses, operate public institutions, and go about our personal lives. A breakdown in the basic tenets of the law and the apparatus of enforcement has far-reaching and deleterious implications for our communities and the values that the Center advances.
These ought not be controversial statements. They are deeply embedded American values, springing from the Constitution, and long held by the legislative, administrative, and judicial branches of government.
The current situation is neither fair nor just nor sustainable. A different way is possible. The Center has called on Congress to take action on comprehensive immigration reform for nearly two decades. The vast majority of Americans support the same.
The decades-long failure to enact positive immigration law is actively harming rural communities. Comprehensive reform is necessary to create a humane, sensible, and sustainable basis for immigration policy in our country. Enforcement action must then also operate within the bounds of the Constitution and our laws.
