We can begin to understand what it might require to "get over it"

This is just so much to the point, I find I can't retreat into needed rest without amplifying it. Just as in January, Minnesota is showing the way in envisioning how a healthy community recovers from MAGA violence.

Journalist Lisa Needham writes: 

Justice for ICE’s victims requires truth and reconciliation ... Moving on as if it didn’t happen is not an option.

... For communities crushed by President Trump’s brutal immigration crackdown, there isn’t a world where people simply get over it. ... It’s a difficult and delicate thing to ask people to remember the hurt they suffered, even more so when the federal government that inflicted it remains in power. Speaking out against the administration has proven to be a dangerous, even deadly, affair, so the Truth Council (which was created by Gov. Walz after the occupation ended) partnered with The Advocates for Human Rights to create a process for collecting the stories of survivors and witnesses.

... Everyone knows some of these stories. The murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti are indelible, as is the memory of five-year-old Liam Ramos’s abduction. But thousands of Minnesotans suffered at the hands of ICE, in ways ranging from abject cruelty to outright violence. The Truth Council is charged with documenting “the harms and abuses” experienced by Minnesotans, and the first public meeting last week was full of these brief stories, tiny sharp remembrances of pain and humiliation: 

    •    “An elder who needed new dentures was too scared to leave her home to access dental care. So she ate baba or kanji with little protein for months on end because she couldn’t chew her food without new dentures.” 

    •    “The mother taken at her child’s bus stop has an anaphylactic peanut allergy and ICE denied her food for six days because the federal government could not be bothered to provide a meal free of the allergen.” 

    •    “A convoy of SUVs filled with agents sped through an intersection where our kids were climbing on their buses to go home, raced towards the school and halted in front of the main entrance” 

    •    “She taught her mother how to crawl up into the attic space and hide in case federal agents came to their door for questioning.”

The Council is also tasked with making findings about how to “prevent the recurrence of unlawful or harmful conduct by federal agents.” Sarah Lopez, the policy director of Unidos Minnesota, relayed a story — which actually did receive media coverage at the time — that stands out as emblematic of the petty, relentless viciousness of ICE agents: 

“In Willmar, four agents sat down at lunch at El Tapatio,” she said. “And that evening, after the family closed early, agents followed them out and detained the owners of the restaurant and the dishwasher.” 

Imagine being one of those agents. Imagine going to a small family restaurant and being fed and cared for, only to turn around and arrest those same people later that day. Imagine how warped and broken you have to be to behave that way. 

... Along with the accounts of victims, survivors, and witnesses, it’s also important to remember the ICE agents at the center of stories like this. The Truth Council doesn’t exist only to amplify those voices, but also to document the behavior of the federal agents who terrorized the state.

Supporting Minnesotans in San Francisco, March 2026

But for every story of humiliation and harm at the hands of ICE goons, there were stories about Minnesotans coming together, demonstrating solidarity and resilience and resistance. And that’s part of the charge of the Truth Council as well, to “document how Minnesotans came together, supported one another, and persevered.”

What went down in Minnesota, what is going down in various forms all over the country, must be remembered, acknowledged, documented. Once again, Minnesota is showing the way to authentic healing which doesn't deny what has and is happening, but serves as a foundation to the new community we must build after MAGA.