Hidden on a Minnesota farm, an immigrant weighs fear here against danger at home

On a remote farmstead in rural Minnesota, tucked behind a grove of trees, an immigrant worker from Nicaragua etches out a meager existence.

The work here is hard: Chores start early in the morning and go late into the night and involve tasks like hauling hay, feeding the livestock and mucking out the animals’ stalls, which smell rank, especially when it’s hot.

But the hard physical labor is preferable for this worker when compared to the reality of what awaits him back in Nicaragua, whose president, Daniel Ortega, announced his plan to end free elections in July.

MPR News agreed to refer to the man by his nickname, Alex, because he is not legally authorized to work in the U.S. He’s 31.

“The reason I traveled here to the United States was that the political situation in my country was very bad,” Alex said in Spanish, using a phone app to translate.

But he lives in fear of arrest, especially in light of the immigration enforcement surge in Minnesota this past year.

Newly updated data shows more than 2,300 noncitizens arrested in Minnesota during Operation Metro Surge were deported or left the country. That's according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement numbers obtained by the Deportation Data Project and analyzed by MPR News and APM Reports.

Still, many workers continue to fly below the radar. Data from the Center for Migration Studies and the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs indicate there were around 81,000 undocumented workers in Minnesota as recently as 2024.

And in rural areas, where populations have been dwindling, those workers often fill jobs that locals don’t want, according to David Peters, a professor of agriculture and rural policy at Iowa State University.

“I would say that in in in communities that have large-scale livestock production and processing, the majority of the people working on in those operations tend to be immigrants,” he said.

And he said those immigrants typically have work papers. But he says how legitimate or genuine those documents are is another question.

“A lot of farms tend not to ask too many questions,” Peters said. “They tend to follow the law very narrowly in the sense that they have a potential worker, they present their documents and the business is only responsible for making sure that those documents appear reasonably genuine.”

Arrangements that persist in agriculture

At this farm, which raises livestock, Alex makes a little more than $3,000 a month and sends some of his earnings back home to family in Nicaragua.

Jefe, his boss, whose real name isn’t being used because he hired Alex knowing his legal status, said that's a good wage.

"What these guys get paid, an American will not do it,” he said. “I don't want to be, you know, racist or sound bad, but that’s just that's the truth."

Most employers of large farms find difficulty connecting with immigrant workers themselves. So instead, they use an intermediary like Jefe, according to Peters.

"It's all done very informally. But this is, I think, a common way in how farmers are able to get good quality workers at the wages that they are able to pay," he said.

Peters noted the influx of immigrant labor into rural Minnesota was temporarily offsetting the declining populations.

“And the interesting thing is, in 2025, which is the last year we have data from, that level of growth rate has been cut by 55 to 60 percent due to immigration enforcement,” he said. “So just in one year, rural Minnesota's population gains were cut by over half.“

For his part, Jefe, the on-site boss, said he understands some aspects of the immigration surge, such as targeting criminals. But he said farms need workers like Alex.

"As far as immigration, I agree that they can take the bad ones, but don't take the good ones,” he said.

Fleeing Nicaragua

In the “credible fear interview” immigration officials conducted with Alex, a copy of which was reviewed by MPR News, Alex said his journey began back in 2018, when the Nicaraguan government began committing atrocities against citizens who were speaking out against its policies.

Alex said because he and his family refused government recruitment, they were at risk of being killed.

“The president wanted us to take part in the massacres he commits there and in the mistreatment of people,” he said.

He said shortly before fleeing his home country in 2022, he was stopped on the street by a police officer. The officer told Alex to prove he supported the president’s regime, and when he couldn’t, he was beaten with the butt of a rifle.

Alex said the only reason he wasn’t killed that day was because it was daylight. A crowd of people had also gathered around him. Before letting him go, Alex said the officer told him if they crossed paths again, he had better be able to prove he supports Ortega’s government or he would be killed.

Three days later, he left the country. Still injured from the beating, Alex said his two-week journey to the U.S. was difficult.

“I suffered a great deal on the trip. I spent nights without sleep and days without eating,” he said.

Alex crossed into the country by way of the Rio Grande, which acts as a natural border between the U.S. and Mexico. He was then taken into custody by border patrol agents in McAllen, Texas, before being moved to a facility in Los Fresnos, Texas.

“I was actually detained by immigration for three months. It was a very trying time for me. I thought I would be deported. But thank God I was released,” he said. “However, due to issues with transportation or finding someone to take me further — and perhaps not having the money to continue — I didn't make it to my court hearing.”

To complicate matters further, a few months ago Alex was arrested for a DUI. But he was bonded out before immigration authorities were notified, which in all likelihood would have led to his deportation. Now he rarely leaves the farmstead out of fear.

"It’s about as cut-off as it can be. This is what safety looks like, I think, in this time: a camper, a couple pickups, a pile of wood, a garden full of vegetables, some machinery to fix and a farmstead to work on,” said Ivan Olson, Alex’s friend. “It's kind of the American dream if you think about it, but it's wrapped in this weird nightmare thing that's going on."

When asked if the reality of the American dream he chased lived up to its expectations, Alex laughed. “No,” he said, gesturing around to the dilapidated property he lives at.

Still, he’d rather be here than in Nicaragua. “I am terrified of what could occur if I were sent back.”

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