REGIONAL — Bois Forte tribal member Nikki Love (Pieratos) had no idea when she was asked to testify in front of a Minnesota State Senate committee about ICE operations in Minneapolis late last week that her testimony would be televised and that she would also be speaking in front of officials from other states. She had testified a few other times at the state Capitol, but those were in front of only a few individuals, and often no public officials were present.
When I asked her if could get a copy of her remarks, which were succinct, informed, and cohesive, she laughed.
“I had just written a couple of notes to myself,” she said. “I had been asked to speak a couple of days before, but I wasn’t sure what the purpose was. I just knew I had five minutes.”
Nikki is no stranger to speaking in public. As the executive director on Tiwahe, a small nonprofit based in Minneapolis that works to support the Native community, she is often the public face of the nonprofit, she said, because she is comfortable with public speaking.
Nikki grew up on the Vermilion Reservation, but she moved to the Twin Cities about six years ago. She now lives in Hopkins with her family, which includes a school-aged daughter and son, along with high-schooler nephew Kai, whom she is raising after the death of her sister. Her mother, Denise, and nephew, Nick, still live at Vermilion. Nick is a student at Vermilion Country School.
Nikki’s remarks to the Senate committee were ground in the history of the country’s treatment of Native Americans.
“We are the original peoples on this land,” she reminded the senators.
“For Native people, history is not something that just sits in the past,” she said. “Federal actions land on top of memories of removals and broken agreements. They don’t arrive neutrally. Our bodies remember.”
Nikki detailed the impact the surge of ICE enforcement is having on her community: People afraid to walk outdoors. Elders feel unsafe leaving their homes. Parents are afraid of sending their children to school, missing medical appointments, and fear attending cultural and community events.
She noted that their community has responded with care, coordination, restraint, and a deep respect for community members.
“Our safety is shared,” she said.
She noted that Native American organizations are filling in for functions that should be the responsibility of local and state governments.
“We are providing for community safety and fundraising for basic necessities,” she said.
“Fear is preventing people from accessing all these things. We are not being protected by tribal IDs.”

Amplifying issues
Operation Metro Surge has made some of the main issues facing the Native population in Minneapolis even worse.
“Housing, MMIR (Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives), and fentanyl were there in the months prior to this,” she said. “But now these issues are being exacerbated. Our community has long been in a humanitarian crisis. We just didn’t catch the headlines.
“Our unsheltered community members are the most vulnerable.”
Nikki said she is hearing from people on the street that more Native American women are missing or unaccounted for, but there are even fewer law enforcement resources available to follow up on reports.
Speaking to the Timberjay earlier this week, Nikki noted her testimony was on behalf of her community. Her personal views are more nuanced.
“If ICE was here doing what it is supposed to do, I wouldn’t be objecting,” she said. “Some of the biggest threats to the most vulnerable in the Native community are sex trafficking and fentanyl. And it can be illegal immigrants who are bringing in fentanyl and trafficking our women.”
“There is no more perfect time to disappear Indian women than right now,” she continued. “You can blame it on ICE.”
She said police are slow to respond to reports of violence in the Native Minneapolis neighborhoods and that violence has become an everyday part of life for many residents.
She is also concerned that Native Americans are being detained.
“No Native people should be detained,” she said.
She spoke about a homeless 44-year-old, Harold Lightfeather, who has ties to the Bois Forte Reservation. He froze to death in Minneapolis on Jan. 15.
“Nobody cares,” she said, “but if you are white, there are billboards and memorials and million-dollar GoFundMes. Our families are still starving and freezing to death.”
She said the Native community is acting in solidarity with their black and brown neighbors, but she is leery of having “white neoliberals telling you what to care about.”
The reports of how detained people are being treated at the federal Whipple building are also very concerning.
“People are being treated like animals,” she said, but added that inhumane treatment of those picked up on immigration charges is not new. And the idea that Fort Snelling, which is a horrific part of Native history in Minnesota, is being planned as a future base for the ICE effort is also unfathomable.
“They are letting people out of Whipple without their phones, coats, or wallets,” she said.
“Even if people support the idea of illegal immigration enforcement, I don’t think they’d support how people are being detained and deported, sent to Texas, and then have no way to get back to Minnesota when they are released.”
She said her nonprofit has amplified its focus on community support and is working to set up a relief fund for individuals, on top of the grant-giving they have been doing.
“We are helping with rent and food relief. The nonprofit has had to put some of its planning on hold, such as creating a Native-only space in the neighborhood for ceremonies and healing as they work to support those affected by the enforcement actions. We are hoping to get that process started again,” she said.

Action and support need to continue
Nikki urged everyone to act with intention, to check facts, and to not buy into the hysteria on either side.
“A lot of our Native community are scared,” she said. “But I also see kinship and care networks, and this was happening before January. When it is not in the headlines, all the support goes away. People need continuous support.”
She cautioned against only “adrenaline-based” giving.
“We can support these groups all the time,” she said. “People think this is a tunnel, and that there will be light at the end. But there is not.”
Nikki hopes that Indigenous world views and lifeways, along with leadership skills, will help her community, and the wider community, heal.
“Now is the time to pivot and do the things we’ve wanted to do,” she said. “These events have put a fire under us.”
Tiwahe, which means family, and wherever you go you have a relative, has been doing its best to care for their community, but is also focused on caring for themselves.
“Our staff is doing nightly patrols and doing community organizing,” she said. “But we also just opened a community healing space. It is beautiful. A place to create art, mind and body medicine, and a place to care for yourself so you can take care of others.”
Learn more about Tiwahe at https://tiwahefoundation.org/. Donate to their rapid response grant fund at https://tiwahefoundation.org/rapid/.