Minneapolis emergency management department shifts focus amid immigration surge

KELLY GORDON: This is Minnesota Now, and I'm Kelly Gordon in for Nina Moini. It's been two months since the federal government began deploying thousands of federal agents to Minnesota, and today on Minnesota Now we're taking a step back to understand what's happened in that time through the eyes of the people responding to the situation.

My next guest has coordinated some of the response from the city of Minneapolis. Rachel Sayre is the city's-- excuse me, Emergency Management Director. She spoke at a press conference hours after the killing of Alex Pretti, and said the presence of federal immigration officers has forced people into the shadows for fear of being detained.

RACHEL SAYRE: Many of our Minneapolis residents-- my neighbors, my friends, my community members-- are ceasing participation in public life, afraid to even go to the doctor. In response, the city enterprise continues to utilize our entire emergency apparatus. That means staff across departments, often around the clock, are putting their regular jobs on hold in order to respond to the impacts of metro surge.

KELLY GORDON: That was Rachel Sayre speaking after the killing of Alex Pretti, and she joins me now. So thank you for making time to speak with us here on Minnesota Now, Rachel.

RACHEL SAYRE: Thank you for having me.

KELLY GORDON: So tell me more about the impacts that you've been seeing two months in. Taking almost like a big-picture look, what are you most concerned about right now?

RACHEL SAYRE: I'm most concerned about the ability of our residents to meet basic needs. Get groceries. Go get health care. We've heard of pregnant women who are too afraid to go to the doctor for baby well-checks. That is just beyond tragic and is really unacceptable.

KELLY GORDON: I know that your job is normally to-- I mean, to deal with emergencies. What does a normal day in your position look like, even before this started, and maybe compare it with what you're looking like now?

RACHEL SAYRE: Well, these days is nothing like normal, that's for sure, for everyone in this city. That includes my team and much of the city staff. Normal day, my team, we're focusing on things like maintaining the severe weather sirens in the city, things like helping residents prepare for disasters and large-scale emergencies.

Now all we're doing-- all my team is doing is this. Everything else has been placed on the back burner while we work to meet immediate needs that we're seeing in our residents.

KELLY GORDON: When did your office become involved in responding to the impacts of this federal immigration? Because if that's what you're doing right now, at what point did it really get switched over from what you used to do-- like you said, the weather and bigger emergencies, to just the day-to-day survival of people?

RACHEL SAYRE: Yeah. So earlier this month is when we stood up our emergency operations center. Really on January 7 is when we stood up the center. But even before that, we were heavily involved, monitoring impacts, really gathering together resources to meet our community's needs.

KELLY GORDON: How does that look like practically? When you say gathering resources, you're talking about food or just connecting people to different groups?

RACHEL SAYRE: Exactly. So we have, in our emergency operations center, almost all of our city departments have a representative. And what we do is we hear from community via our many colleagues who are working with our community every day. We're hearing we need food, we need rental assistance, we need various other basic necessities.

And what we then do here is really pull together all of the resources available. From the county, from the city, from nonprofits, from the phenomenal mutual aid organizations that are operating in Minneapolis, and reflect that back out so that people where to get the assistance they need.

KELLY GORDON: OK, so you said that because you've got this emergency response center, you're operating around the clock, yes?

RACHEL SAYRE: I mean, pretty much.

KELLY GORDON: OK. I was just thinking, what does that look like for your staff? Do you have examples of people-- are people calling in the middle of the night or after regular business hours when normally you wouldn't have to be responding to something like this for such a long time period?

RACHEL SAYRE: Yeah, well, I mean, that is our job. Our Emergency Management Department, we are a 24/7 operation, so when the call comes in, we get into action. So that actually is not different. The difference is, now we're getting those calls in the middle of the night.

KELLY GORDON: Do you have more people that are needing to be staffed for all those hours because of the volume of calls, or is it mostly during the day? So you're just having more uptick then?

RACHEL SAYRE: Yeah, during the day, it feels like an all-out sprint for sure all the time, but it's a total honor and a privilege to do this work. This is, I think, public service at its best. We are here for our community, we are a part of our community. So many of our city staff live here in Minneapolis. I live here in Minneapolis. And, I mean, we're hurting like everyone else here, and some are more affected than others, just like throughout our community.

KELLY GORDON: What's morale like, actually in your office there, then?

RACHEL SAYRE: One of the most common things I hear from my neighbors and friends is this feeling of helplessness, and I think the incredible thing about being in this line of work is you get to do something, and that's your job. We're really, again, honored to have a part in getting people help when they need it most.

KELLY GORDON: Right. Last week, President Trump changed up the leadership of the federal immigration officers who are here. So I'm wondering if you've noticed a difference in terms of impact for people.

RACHEL SAYRE: I think it's too early to see. We know ICE continues to be here. There continues to be reports of our impacts on our residents, so we're working just as hard as we have been. We're responding to needs and making sure people have their resources, so I think there's some way to go.

KELLY GORDON: So you also coordinate-- besides emergency preparation and response, also coordinate recovery. Have you had a chance to start thinking about that part of this right now? What would recovery look like?

RACHEL SAYRE: Yeah, that's such a good question. So recovery-- the longer this goes on, the longer recovery is going to take. I mean, we're looking at, long-term conversation, especially around mental health-- I'm very happy to hear you have a mental health expert coming up, because I don't anyone in this city who doesn't have those needs right now.

And those kind of impacts really increase in severity and scope the longer these kind of things go on. So we're absolutely talking about recovery, but we're still very much in the urgent needs time.

KELLY GORDON: Right. Still in triage.

RACHEL SAYRE: Exactly.

KELLY GORDON: Yeah. Rachel, thank you so much for joining us today. We appreciate your time.

RACHEL SAYRE: Thank you for having me.

KELLY GORDON: Rachel Sayre is an Emergency Management Director for the city of Minneapolis.