every time you see me it’s like winning big in reno.

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It doesn't feel like we're on the brink of invasion. It feels like we're being newly occupied by an invading force. Except that the invading force doesn't just want our total submission; they also want to rip half our neighbors out of our arms. They came for Hmong Minnesotans next, and they are also more than 90% citizens. We have a lot of minority populations who settled here because Minnesota prides itself on welcoming refugees; both populations have been here for more than thirty years.

And for all the rest of us US occupants not in Minnesota, it's coming to us, too. Ohio is getting door-to-door ICE today, for instance, and I've seen multiple friends in other states posting photos of big ol' trucks, beds packed with ICE vehicles, rolling in to town.

Transcript:

"It's a dangerous time to be a political dissenter. When I was apprehended, I was apprehended in the state of Michigan. My family was worried about me, so my sister picked me up and moved me across state lines from Illinois to Michigan. And in truth, this likely saved me from being apprehended by ICE."

"They took my prayer scarf from me because they claimed that I could hang myself with it. Just like, I don't even know how to describe how traumatizing this was. I won't be able to talk about it in detail for, like, at least a year. Being detained stole from me the last three active weeks of the life of one of my best friends.

I only came back to United States to say goodbye to Suz. They reminded me that we're coming up on 10 years of friendship in 2026. And instead of reminiscing with them during their last final weeks of sentient, like, responsive life, I was incarcerated in an adult psychiatric facility.

And I could not leave. By the time I was finally released, Suz no longer responds to outside stimuli. So there's just, like, there's no apology for that. There's nothing anybody can say to make that better."

Support Ismatu while they recover!

allow yourself to be a beginner

Reporter: Why do you think so many countries’ governments around the world are just ignoring what’s happening in Gaza?

Greta Thunberg: Because of racism, that’s the simple answer, I would say. Racism, and basically desperately trying to defend a deadly, destructive system that systematically maximizes short term economic profit and geopolitical power over the well being of humans and the planet. Right now, it is morally difficult to defend that – it is impossible— but they’re desperately trying which is …. absurd is not the word, but there are no words to describe it.