I was shocked when they killed Renee Good a few weeks ago.
Then they killed Alex Pretti. If they kill a white man, no one is safe, I kept thinking as I watched the video a few times, jostling between anger, sadness and disbelief.
For over five years, my family and I have been living, working and commuting across the Twin Cities suburbs. We are Hmong — the biggest Asian ethnic group in Minnesota. We are scared. We are cautious. We feel like our identity will make us a target.
We still go about our everyday lives, but with uncertainty. And we are paying attention, checking for daily updates — observing who is speaking out against what’s happening, and those who aren’t.
I was born in the Chiang Kham refugee camp in Thailand. I was almost 7 when my family arrived in Fresno, where we had relatives, in 1995.
We were permanent residents before I found out in high school that we should become naturalized citizens for better security and privileges. I took the test after I turned 18. Then I made sure my parents did too.
Growing up in Fresno, with a Hmong population less than half the size of the Minneapolis-St. Paul area’s, I wanted to experience being Hmong in the Twin Cities — to shop at Hmong businesses, to see Hmong people be successful and to be represented.
Minnesota has lived up to that promise in many ways. I first lived in St. Paul and worked at a nonprofit organization supporting Hmong and Southeast Asians. Then I taught Hmong language and culture at schools in Brooklyn Park, another Hmong hub.
After Trump took office again last year, I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew it probably wasn’t going to be good. In March 2025, ICE deported a Hmong woman from Wisconsin to Laos. It was one of the first Hmong deportations in recent memory because Laos rarely, if ever, took deportees until then.
That June, while ICE surged in L.A., they took a Hmong man from Coon Rapids after his 5-year-old son answered the doorbell. Many Hmong ended up in the U.S. through a post-Vietnam War refugee resettlement program, after making sacrifices to help the CIA fight Lao communists.
The ICE attacks today feel like a betrayal — and the salt to the wound is sending them back to Laos where they don’t know the language and culture, and they could face retribution.
It was a huge deal when Kaohly Vang Her became the first Hmong and first woman to be elected St. Paul mayor in November. I appreciated that one of her campaign priorities was to “provide real-time alerts for residents to inform them when ICE is in their neighborhoods, forbid agents in our community from hiding their faces and teach our residents how to be constitutional observers.”
Soon after Mayor Her took office, ICE expanded Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota. Even Mayor Her was advised to carry her passport because ICE was racially profiling us and going door to door asking where the Asian people lived.
I worried for my community and my family. I did feel some relief seeing the state, as well as local governments in Minnesota, speaking out against the federal attacks. I’ve noticed the police departments in St. Paul, Minneapolis and Brooklyn Park (whose officers of color, when off-duty, have been targeted by ICE) criticizing the operations as well.
I was proud to see students from all over the metro area protesting and many more people fighting back with methods to alert people and pressure ICE into leaving in recent weeks.
Because I am a naturalized citizen, I felt a small sense of safety. But then, a couple of weeks ago, ICE took an elderly Hmong wearing only his underwear and sandals — despite his being a U.S. citizen. ICE had no warrant and broke into his home in Columbia Heights, which is only 15 minutes from where my partner, three kids and I live now.
Though the elder was returned to his home after an hour, what happened was cruel, humiliating and wrong. The man’s 4-year-old grandson cried witnessing the chaos. This trauma has become one of my biggest fears for my own kids.
I am also fearful for my mom, who lives with my two younger sisters in St. Paul. I worry she won’t have the language to communicate that she is a citizen should she encounter ICE.
My siblings and I have discouraged her from leaving the house. If she needs her prescriptions or to attend English classes at an adult education center, we insist one of us must go with her. My younger sister is staying home with my mom and attending online classes at her public St. Paul high school.
My mom is aware of the current situation in our state, staying up to date through Hmong news on Facebook. Online videos show how empty East St. Paul’s Hmong Village is. And when she visited HmongTown Marketplace, where she can buy food, clothes, medicine and produce, she saw some booths were closed, with fewer people shopping.
Perhaps it’s fortunate that my home in Coon Rapids, about 20 minutes from Minneapolis, feels far away. Coon Rapids is overwhelmingly white and conservative.
When my partner and I first moved here, someone left an empty beer can in our mailbox. We felt unwelcome and kept to ourselves. It’s gotten more diverse over the years, but we’re still one of the few Asian families on the block.
My children are still attending school in person. Their school district is the largest in Minnesota, yet they’ve posted only two updates about ICE and provided resources on their website.
My oldest son is 12, and he takes the bus down the block from our house to his middle school. My youngest son walks or bikes to the elementary school down the street.
My kids are aware of what’s happening. We’ve talked about Renee Good, Alex Pretti and what ICE is doing to our communities of color as a family. They are somewhat fearful that I will get deported since I am the only foreign-born one in our family of five, and they know ICE is operating lawlessly.
It’s unpredictable where ICE will strike next. What I am holding onto in this moment is how Minnesotans have shown up for each other and are showing other states how to fight back against ICE.
Pa Dao Vang lives in Coon Rapids, Minnesota, and works as a direct care professional.
This article was written for Zócalo Public Square, an ASU Media Enterprise publication.