The city’s tech scene is in turmoil as US immigration agents have stepped up their crackdown on Minneapolis, killing several peopleincluding at least two US citizens.
Eight Minneapolis-based founders and investors told TechCrunch that they’ve put much of their work on hold and now spend their days focusing on their communities, volunteering at churches and helping with food purchases. It’s part of a grassroots effort, across race and class, that sees people speaking out, donating money, protesting and offering emotional support to one another.
“There’s a lot of commonality between how a teacher is reacting right now and how a tech professional is reacting,” Scott Burns, an investor in the area, told TechCrunch. He said people are “very tired”. Burns goes to church more often to help pack food to deliver to those too scared to leave their homes. “It was like what happens after a natural disaster,” he said of the effort.
Burns and other members of Minneapolis’ tech industry told TechCrunch that the immigration raids have been very disruptive to their lives, describing a city that has seen itself united in recent weeks in face of escalating violence by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
How can building a company remain a focal point when ICE agents seem to be everywhere, politically and armed with military weapons? Federal agents have been seen searching public transportation and roaming workplaces. They are outside the houses and in parking lots. They have been spots circling schools.
A Black founder, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect his staff members, said he now carries his passport everywhere he goes. He’s a US citizen, but he’s seen people of color all over the city being turned in and picked up by ICE and Border Patrol agents.
“People don’t exaggerate how difficult it was. It’s hard to focus, it was a challenge just to navigate even my team through it,” he said.
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He recalled a routine phone meeting with a colleague who suddenly went silent. At a loss for words, the colleague said she saw ICE detaining someone in the neighborhood where his mother lived.
“I had to pick up the phone and call my mom to make sure she had her passport,” the founder said.
EfraÃn Torres, a Latino founder, works from home, reluctantly listening to the immigration raids happening in his neighborhood. “You can’t help but hear them,” he told TechCrunch. Cars will honk. Protesters whistle alerts. “And if you miss it, you’ll see signs that say, ‘My neighbor was taken by ICE.’
Officials are even conducting “citizen checks,” stopping people and asking them to prove their immigration status — something the Supreme Court said last year could be done based on details such as race or whether a person has an ‘accent’. These checks have been conducted on people performing even mundane tasks, Torres said, such as shoveling snow from the lawn. He said he’s had a few run-ins with ICE himself, so he likes to lay low.
“The line that separates me from being a victim of an attack is just a chance encounter,” he said, adding that he knew people who were followed by ICE — something others have reported happens alongside the raids.
The Trump administration has escalated its crackdown on immigration across the country, though the force building in the Twin Cities is particularly large, with more than 3,000 federal agents; deployed in Minnesota as part of the Trump administration’s “Operation Metro Surge.” ICE and Border Patrol agents now outnumber local police in Minneapolis nearly 3 to 1, Sen. Amy Klobucharof Minnesota said.
The state is home to one of the largest populations of Somali immigrants, a group that the administration has targeted before. That includes U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, who sparred with President Trump. Minnesota’s Democratic governor, Tim Walz, has he also saw himself targeted by the president, as did the mayor of MinneapolisJacob Frey, who is also a Democrat.
Increasing immigration enforcement is part of President Trump’s campaign promise to crack down on illegal immigration, though some argue that Trump is targeting specific cities and states that did not vote for him. Over 2,000 people have gone arrested by ICE in Minnesota since Trump took office last January.
“It was difficult,” said one black investor, who spoke on condition of anonymity. He is also a US citizen and can trace his roots back to the country for a century. Still, living just outside the city, he carries his passport with him just in case.
“Where I go to the gym, it’s in rural Minnesota,” he said, meaning the agents aren’t just in the city. “It was just a weird moment.”
Everyone does what they can, however, to help others. This investor, for example, works with founders in college, many of whom are immigrants. He buys them food so they don’t risk going to the grocery store themselves. He also tries to work from home when possible, as do several other people TechCrunch spoke with.
“It’s a tense and difficult time on the ground,” Mary Grove, another investor in the region, told TechCrunch.
Investor Reed Robinson, who has also helped members of the community financially, said some of his founders with children have created a voluntary system to watch each other’s children at school or daycare. It is so common for ICE to detain daycare staff, she said, adding that ICE agents they often break the law and court decisions.
“It feels unnecessary, it feels intrusive, it feels like a rights violation,” Robinson said of the immigration operation.
Like Robinson, many people feel anger beneath worry and fear.
The emotional toll makes it difficult to build, investors and founders said. Torres, for example, said his company now has a no-ride-app sharing policy. Some of its engineers are on H-1B visas (which the Trump administration has also attacked) and have reported being watched by immigration officials.
“Each time, it was three to four armed men in plainclothes,” Torres said, adding that he and his wife have talked about fleeing the state. “They cause trauma wherever they go.”
Grassroots efforts prevail as business leaders falter
The Minneapolis tech scene is still pretty small, with companies just growing over $1 billion in recent years. There are some notable companies in the ecosystem, such as fintech Sezzle (now public), clean water company Rorra, and medtech Reema. There is an incredible history of innovation, Robinson said. “It’s not going to stop; we’re going to keep doing the work as long as we understand this current situation.”
The Twin Cities — Minneapolis and St. Paul — are home to some of America’s largest companies, including Target, Optum, Best Buy, UnitedHealthGroup and General Mills, to name a few. Some founders and investors have criticized the leadership of these big companies, particularly for their lackluster responses to the chaos that is engulfing cities, even as many of their own employees are detained.
“We didn’t have enough response,” said one startup investor.
Sixty top executives from the state signed a statement which called for an “immediate de-escalation” after ICE agents killed ICU nurse Alex Pretti. Major companies in the state have also come together to fund millions in grants through the Minneapolis Foundation for businesses affected by immigration.
But compared to what’s happening at the grassroots level, many founders and investors said those actions are not enough. Recent CNBC poll found that a third of executives who took part in a poll remained silent because they could not find anything to talk about the business. 18 percent were concerned about the “backlash from the Trump administration,” while 9 percent said they were still figuring out how to respond.
“When you see the failure of community institutions to show any kind of bravery, that’s really where it’s most disappointing,” Tim Herby, a local investor, told TechCrunch, describing the past two months as shocking.
Grove, the investor, said her team regularly checks in with others in the community, including her portfolio companies, to make sure they’re doing well. He said people help each other pay rent, while restaurants offer free meals. A local technology The non-profit organisation, Minnestar, is set to host a community event to bring people together and discuss next steps.
A black investor said he found it ironic that today the police are around many people speaking against the governmentjust a few years after people in the city were protesting against them after the killing of George Floyd. It’s a new everyday life.
Another Black founder, meanwhile, said some of his white friends began driving him into town for safety. He remembers one day he was sitting in a restaurant chatting with friends when the TV started showing live updates on ICE shoots another person. The mood fell dark, a reminder of how these raids have consumed every moment of life.
“I saw a friend yesterday,” he said. “It was the first time he’d left the house since New Year’s.”
