With Love to Minnesota

Dear Minnesota,

We’ve been holding our breath so long we forgot what it feels like to exhale. Over these past weeks and months, the air in our neighborhoods hasn’t felt peaceful — it’s felt electric with tension, heavy with uncertainty, and rooted in a deeply human survival instinct. Whether we walk down the street, wait at a bus stop, or kiss our children goodnight, there’s been a quiet, persistent hum of what-if in the back of our minds.

This is hyper-vigilance — not just as a concept, but as our lived moment. For many families here in Minnesota, it has been weeks of wondering “Will today be the day something changes?” while carrying on with ordinary life. We’ve seen local shops and restaurants suffer under the strain of fear that grips foot traffic and economic confidence. We’ve seen kids who should be learning spellings and science instead pick up on the anxiety they feel in the eyes of the adults around them. We’ve watched neighbors transform routine errands into calculated risk assessments — scanning streets, counting exits, noticing uniforms. This is not normal life — it is survival, and we have been living it.

And yet — and this is the part I want you to really hear — it’s okay to be skeptical about the messaging that says the worst is “over.” When you’ve lived through weeks of heightened alert, it’s normal to still feel tense, to still flinch a little at every siren, to still brace yourself — even when someone announces that the operation is winding down. When your whole nervous system has been in survival mode, your body isn’t going to switch off its alarms on command. That doesn’t make you weak. It makes you human.

There is an end in sight. Federal leadership has publicly announced that Operation Metro Surge — the massive deployment of immigration enforcement agents that’s reshaped our daily rhythms — is being drawn down. That means fewer agents on our streets and fewer encampments of fear and uncertainty in our communities.

But let’s be real with each other: no announcement instantly erases what we’ve lived through. No press release magically restores every shaken nerve. No statement from Washington rewinds the last few months of community trauma. It will take time for our hearts and our economy to fully recover — and that’s a very human thing.

What doesn’t need to be in doubt is this: 

Not because we were perfect. Not because we never faltered. But because we showed up for one another. You stood peacefully, relentlessly, compassionately, bravely — for your neighbors, for your friends, for the children who deserve to grow up in a Minnesota where safety isn’t a question mark.

You showed what it means to be Minnesotan: Quiet strength, unwavering solidarity, and a refusal to abandon one another in the toughest of times.

So today, I want you to take a breath — a real one — and know this:

With all my respect and admiration,