Minneapolis Artists Put Their Bodies on the Line Against ICE
When U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents subdued, disarmed, and then killed nurse Alex Pretti on January 24, it was on the doorstep of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD) and just a few blocks from the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA). Multiple flash-bang grenades and chemical munitions deployed by federal agents in the aftermath resulted in an eleven-hour shelter-in-place order for the MCAD community, which numbers about 800 students from 13 countries. The school has had one employee apprehended by Border Protection agents, says president and CEO Gwendolyn Freed. Related Articles “We are rooted in the Whittier neighborhood, and there has been heavy ICE enforcement throughout the area,” she told ARTnews in a phone interview recently. The school will go remote through mid-February. That’s only one example of how the arts community in the Twin Cities has been impacted by Operation Metro Surge, the enormous operation in which some 3,000 federal agents have overwhelmed the city in what is supposedly an immigration enforcement operation but appears intended to terrorize a left-leaning populace. …
