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A new organization called HavenWatch started two weeks ago in Minneapolis. The goal is to help people who were detained at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building upon release. 

“Many of them are people who were temporarily detained all day long and they were picked up either just observing, maybe protesting, they had a whistle or there’s just a lot of racial profiling. You know, 20-year-old kids who were on their way to work and they showed their documentation,” leader Natalie Ehret said in an interview with Minnesota Now. 

“They’re a full citizen, they showed their real ID and still were drug from the vehicle and brought here.”

They wait hours, meeting people at the gate, getting them in a warm car and helping contact their family. People are often detained without phone or ID and not allowed to make calls upon release. Ehret says it is important to provide a safe place for people to wait to return home.

“After some of these, I just go cry in the parking lot because it’s so devastating,” she said. Even with the emotional toll, Ehret says she doesn’t plan to stop any time soon and more volunteers are lining up.

The latest on ICE in Minnesota

Nina Moini

Author

Ellen Finn

A new organization in Minneapolis is helping ICE detainees after they get released from the Whipple Federal Building.

HavenWatch helps ICE detainees when they're released

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