UMN student journalist documented communities in South Minneapolis during Operation Metro Surge

SPEAK MPLS multimedia journalist, Saniah Bates, limited her time on the frontlines and reported on the events bringing Minneapolis together.

When Saniah Bates was hired as a multimedia journalist in 2025 at SPEAK MPLS, a community media outlet and center in South Minneapolis, she was still pursuing her journalism degree at the University of Minnesota. 

Less than a year later, Operation Metro Surge began, and thousands of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents flooded the Twin Cities. About two blocks away from one of SPEAK MPLS’ offices, Alex Pretti was shot and killed by ICE agents. 

“So I happened to be the only person of color who works here, so everyone was kind of on high alert for me,” she said. 

Bates said her work during that time differed from the work of her colleagues. A lot of the reporting Bates did was in conjunction with SPEAK’s CEO, Rebecca Smith. 

“A lot of those stories were a lot more light-hearted, focused more on the artistic and, I guess, mutual aid pieces of the surge, more of what people were doing for each other, rather than that frontline reporting,” Bates said. 

When Bates did go out to community events to get interviews and video footage, she said she remained on her “p’s and q’s” because she never knew what could happen at those events during that time.

While the time was stressful for her as a reporter, she said she learned a lot from it. 

“I got to talk to a lot of really cool people,” Bates said. “I got to tell a lot of really interesting stories, and it’s been a journey for sure.”

As a student, Bates did remote learning for as long as she could before the university resumed classes in their originally scheduled format on Feb. 16. 

Now Bates is back in person for her classes, but not every aspect of her life is back to normal. 

In addition to being a student and working at SPEAK, Bates is a lifestyle content creator with roughly 3,000 Instagram followers. Her videos feature her opening packages sent by brands, events she attends and her overall day-to-day life. 

Before the surge, Bates posted about three to five times a week. But once the surge started, she did not post as much and instead put her focus into sharing resources and information not only on her Instagram story, but with the people she knew in real life. 

“It’s still affecting me now because I’ve slowed down a lot on posting, still just trying to get back into the flow of things,” Bates said. 

Despite this slowdown, Bates said she has found community during this time in the same place she found it as a kid — on the internet. She said she joined a lot of different group chats and had a space where people, not just in Minnesota, could share their experiences as well as bond over common interests. 

Bates believes the Twin Cities community has become more openly compassionate toward each other as a result of the surge. When she walks around South Minneapolis, where one of the SPEAK studios is and where Pretti was shot, Bates said she sees more people smiling at each other and looking out for each other. 

“Instead of just saying, ‘Bye, have a nice day.’ It’s ‘Bye, stay safe,’” Bates said.