“People vanish quietly at dawn, and there is no trace of them”

“People disappear quietly at night or at dawn, and there is no trace of where they were taken.”

That is how Sei Yang, an activist from Minnesota’s Hmong community—the state’s largest Asian American community—described the recent wave of federal immigration enforcement. Speaking at an online press conference hosted on January 28 by the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC), Yang said, “What we are seeing now is not a series of isolated incidents but a structurally transformed form of state violence.”

According to NAKASEC, Minnesota has a high immigrant population, with one in every 11 residents born outside the United States. The state’s Asian population stands at about 360,000, including roughly 27,000 Korean Americans. More than half of the Korean American community consists of Korean adoptees. This month alone, two people were killed in separate shooting incidents during federal immigration enforcement operations, fueling widespread fear and controversy over ICE’s use of force.

Yang said ICE agents have repeatedly entered stores in plain clothes demanding passports and intimidating residents in parking lots. “Many business owners say sales are worse than during the COVID-19 pandemic,” he said. In addition, more families are being thrust into crisis as women and children suddenly become primary breadwinners after their breadwinner is detained.

Lee Ji-man, a Korean American pastor who operates a homeless shelter in Minnesota, said ICE vehicles and helicopters have been repeatedly spotted near the shelter. “There have been family arrests near churches, and households with children are not exempt,” he said. “Having to teach children emergency response measures is an unbearably harsh reality.”

Kim Park Nelson, a professor at Winona State University and a Korean adoptee who attended the press conference, warned that ICE operations are driven by racial profiling. “If you look Asian, you can become a target—even if you are a U.S. citizen,” he said. As a result, many adoptees have become cautious about going out. He added that he now carries his passport at all times and wears a GPS tracker as a precaution.

The fallout has reached Capitol Hill. While the House has already passed a budget bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—which includes funding for ICE and Customs and Border Protection (CBP)—many Democratic senators have said they will oppose any legislation that includes DHS funding in the wake of the Minnesota incidents. The proposed budget allocates more than $45 billion for immigration enforcement alone. If the bill is not passed by January 30, the federal government will enter a partial shutdown.

In response, NAKASEC has launched a phone campaign urging senators to oppose the DHS budget. In a statement, the organization described ICE and CBP enforcement actions as “violent state acts that violate constitutional rights” and called for budget cuts, accountability for officials, and a halt to enforcement operations. “An attack on one community inevitably spreads to others,” NAKASEC said. “What is happening in Minnesota is not a problem of a single group but a challenge facing American society as a whole.”

BY JIHYE HAN