Keeping Our Manufactured Housing Communities Safe
What’s Happening Right Now?
At the beginning of the year, Minnesota co-speaker of the House, Lisa Demuth, coordinated with a YouTube influencer to fly to Minnesota and cause chaos about our childcare system so that they could wipe childcare and other funding from thousands of families and send thousands of troops to Minnesota – attempting to use fraud as a justification. While there have been problems with fraud in Minnesota that have been and are actively being prosecuted and addressed, things have blown out of proportion and are being used as a political tool to wreak havoc on our state.
Things have escalated to striking levels, and hundreds of people are being arrested, detained, beaten, and in some cases killed regardless of their immigration status or criminal background. These federal ICE agents are no longer cooperating with our state and local law enforcement to investigate wrongdoings and our neighborhood streets have become unsafe for thousands of Minnesotans. In some communities, they have set up check points demanding people hand over their passports purely based on the color of their skin and in others they are going door to door asking people to identify any person with brown skin that lives in their neighborhood.
Because part of what makes Minnesota’s manufactured home communities great is the wide range of backgrounds of the people who live there, manufactured home communities have become a target for ICE raids in the past week.
This is not a political problem. This is a human problem. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their homes. It doesn’t matter who we voted for or if we voted at all. This is decades of work to protect the wealthiest among us, while the rest of us are distracted by chaos and cruelty. Now is the time to say “enough is enough.”
We cannot effectively organize at the scale we need to for lot rent caps and other rights while our neighbors are afraid to leave their homes, while people are being taken, their homes being left behind, and park owners likely ready to hike lot rent for the now vacant lots, or while armed guards are going door to door demanding information on our neighbors. As is true in all our other organizing, no one person is coming to save or protect us - we do that for each other.
So What Can We Do?
None of this is written in the stars or set in stone. Just like organizing for the Bill of Rights, we can build enough people power to push back when we think something is wrong. Oftentimes, we just need to know what is the most impactful use of our time and energy or to get over the feeling that maybe we can’t do anything because we’re just one person. I’m here to tell you, we can do a lot. A lot of people are doing a lot right now. Here are some concrete actions residents, resident associations, and park organizing teams can take together:
Demand your park owners become a “4th Amendment” business to prohibit ICE from entering their private property without a judicial warrant.
Pass out know your rights information to all neighbors
Patrol your neighborhood
Join or create a rapid response group in your neighborhood - you can include grocery/medication delivery to neighbors staying in their homes
Build alliances with nearby fourth amendment businesses, churches, and local law enforcement (if they have positive relationships with the community)
BONUS: If they aren’t a fourth amendment business already, encourage them to become one
Just like anything else, these things are most safe and effective when you do them in pairs or in a group of any size.
1) Demand Your Park Become a Fourth Amendment Business
The Fourth Amendment of the US Constitution protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures by the government. Any business who owns their property and is considered private property can prohibit government officials from entering their private property without a judicial search warrant (which are very hard to get). All of Minnesota’s manufactured home communities with the exception of Landfall (owned by the city) are private property. Our park owners can and should be posting signs, like many other businesses, declaring themselves a fourth amendment business and that ICE is not allowed to enter the community without a judicial warrant.
There are several steps to take to demand your park owners do this:
1) Write your park owners and park manager a letter laying out your demand, your timeline, and what they need to do to become a fourth amendment business (including the conditions for posting a sign at all entrances that is legible to ICE agents and alerting on site management)
2) Follow up on that letter if they don’t comply with your demand
3) Contact your state and local elected officials to ask them to help you put pressure on your park owner to comply
Document:Letter Template to Draft Your Letter to Owners and Management
2) Share Know Your Rights Information with Your Neighbors
It’s helpful for your neighbors to get “Know Your Rights” information so they know what they can and can’t do in the event that a masked, armed agent knocks on their door. You could consider going door to door and handing out this flyer, emailing it to any resident association lists, or posting on your park’s Facebook page.
Document: Know Your Rights Document from Immigrant Law Center
3) Join or Create a Rapid Response Signal Group in Your Neighborhood
Many neighborhoods are already organizing community rapid response groups on Signal and coordinating when they see ICE activity. There are often people who are already out on patrol and can be a presence in your neighborhood if you report any ICE activity or a need for bystanders.
Signal is an encrypted messaging app that you can download on your phone or computer. Here is a link to the verified site to download Signal.
To find and join your neighborhood Signal group, download Signal and then click on this link to the “Rapid Response Sorting Hat Chat” and read the description to find your neighborhood chat. You can also create a group just for your park if you don’t have one already. Keep in mind that Signal is the safest place to communicate, but expect that anything you put in a chat could be seen by someone you may not want seeing it. Protect your identity and the things you share as much as possible.
You might consider joining a rapid response training in your area to get more information about how to become a formal constitutional observer for your community and best participate in your rapid response group.
Look for Rapid Response Trainings in Your Area:
● Monarca: https://monarcamn.org/training
● Immigrant Defense Network: https://immigrantdefensenetwork.org/#events-trainings
Many people are afraid to leave their homes for fear of being targeted by agents. Community members have set up grocery, meal and other essential item deliveries (like medications). A rapid response chat with a form for people to submit if they are willing to deliver vs. if they are in need of delivery might be a good idea for your neighborhood if your neighborhood rapid response doesn’t have it set up already.
4) Patrol/Monitor Your Neighborhood
This is usually best after you have joined a rapid response group or have gone to a training, but patrolling can be done so long as you have the hotline numbers to call and understand what to do if you see suspicious activity.
Patrolling usually means travelling the same section of your neighborhood in your car, on foot, or in another motorized vehicle looking for ICE activity to report. Sometimes you may see activity that looks suspicious, but you’re not sure if it’s ICE. You can report license plate numbers to your community Signal rapid response group as they usually have people identifying and confirming plates.
When you see ICE activity, there are several things you should do:
1) One person should be responsible for reporting the activity to a hotline and another to your neighborhood rapid response group if you are in one
2) Alert your neighbors by blowing your whistles or sounding some kind of agreed upon alarm (if you don’t have a whistle, please reach out to Lilly to get one)
3) Everyone who is present and has a device on them should record the whole interaction with ICE, whether you are interacting with them directly or they are interacting with any of your neighbors
Hotlines for reporting ICE activity - if one line is busy, try another:
● Immigrant Defense Network: 612-255-3112
● Monarca Rapid Response Line: 612-441-2881
● Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee: miracmn@gmail.com
Report all activity using the SALUTE method:
S = Size: how many agents/officers?
A = Activity: what specifically are they doing?
L = Location: give an exact address or intersection
U = Uniform: what are they wearing? what letters, details, or patches are visible on the uniforms or vehicles?
T = Time: what precise time did you witness the activity? (report as quickly as you can)
E = Equipment: what did the agents have with them?
Some other things you may consider that serve similar purposes to patrolling:
● Asking people who live at the entrances of your park to install or pay attention to their security cameras to alert the neighborhood when ICE may be in the park
● Have a group on food distribution days or other community events stationed to monitor any ICE activity
● Have a group regularly posted up by the office to alert folks of any ICE vehicles in the neighborhood - reports from residents said they have seen them stop by the office before entering
5) Build Alliances with Nearby Fourth Amendment Businesses, Churches, and Local Law Enforcement (If They Have Positive Relationships with the Community)
There are many other places in our communities that are concerned about what we’re seeing right now and are looking for ways to support the community. Here are some questions you can ask local businesses, churches, or law enforcement to see if they have some extra capacity to help patrol your neighborhood, or if you have some additional capacity, you could offer your time to them:
● Is your institution monitoring ICE activity in our city? What does that look like for you?
● Are you connected to any rapid response groups in our neighborhood?
● Do you have any additional capacity to help patrol our neighborhood and keep an eye out for ICE activity?
6) BONUS: If A Local Business Or Corporation Is Not A Fourth Amendment Business Already, Encourage Them To Become One
This is a similar process to asking your park owners. No business is too large to make this ask of. There are some large corporations we have more sway over because they are headquartered in Minnesota and care about their public reputation. A local branch of a McDonalds in Minneapolis made the decision not to let ICE enter their store and now have a sign posted out front, and local businesses across the state have been doing the same.
There is a big effort to demand Target become a Fourth Amendment business, and people all across the state are showing up at their local Targets to ask them to post signs on their doors barring ICE from entering. As of right now, they have still been silent, even after two US Citizens were tackled and detained at their Richfield location just days ago. Walmart, Home Depot and other large box companies have either cooperated with ICE or have been silent when they’ve used their parking lots or stores to stage raids. This has prevented many people from being able to travel to stores for necessities and allows them greater access to any neighborhoods nearby. It makes a difference if our local businesses stand with us or not.
Use this toolkit as a guide to ask your local Target or other businesses to become Fourth Amendment Businesses.
If you have any questions about any of these resources or how to connect with a team in your neighborhood, please contact lsasse@isaiahmn.org
