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. …
City officials and UMN students gathered to discuss lessons learned from Operation Metro Surge and how to sustain community support. We know what happened during Operation Metro Surge. But what comes next? That question brought students, community activists and government officials together on the University of Minnesota campus for conversations that continued into the late…
New security measures have minimal impact on students; reveal further concerns about safety during Operation Metro Surge Restricted access to campus buildings — available only through U Card scans — has remained in place since Operation Metro Surge was declared over in February. Yet some students say the policy doesn’t make them feel safer. “I…
Activists, academics and artists gathered at the University of Minnesota on March 5 to discuss the fallout of Operation Metro Surge on the Twin Cities community. The event, “Crisis and Change: The Metamorphosis of State Violence and the Community’s Collective Response,” featured scholars from the College of Liberal Arts as well as professionals, community members…
The spring semester forced faculty to balance student safety concerns with teaching responsibilities in a way they hadn’t seen since the pandemic. For three weeks, while Operation Metro Surge was in full swing, faculty at the University of Minnesota dug into the task of keeping students safe from potential U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)…
Opposition signs appeared in the windows of student housing and apartments during Operation Metro Surge. In the weeks following Operation Metro Surge’s declared end, neighborhoods around the University of Minnesota campus returned to normal. But as protests died down, signs remained, standing tall. “ICE OUT MSP,” one reads in the window of an apartment in…
Some students changed their routes to the UMN RecWell after ICE was rumored to be staying at the Graduate hotel nearby. On a cold January night, Jeffery Chen sat in his apartment playing video games instead of heading to the basketball court on campus, as he usually did. Chen and his teammate, Shawn Li, were…
University of Minnesota Law School students are contributing their legal skills to help the community deal with the influx of habeas corpus petitions. As the legal challenges to a huge influx of immigrant detentions have flooded the state’s system, University of Minnesota Law School students are volunteering to help Twin Cities attorneys manage the work. …
Regardless of how long they’ve been in business, restaurant owners Alejandro Soto Bonilla and Alison Kerwin say there’s nothing quite like these past two months. While businesses citywide faced financial struggles as a result of Operation Metro Surge, restaurants on and around the University of Minnesota say students and community members helped to support local…
