Immigration

The Chisholm cultural institution known until last summer as Ironworld will lay off 26 full-time staff members Friday and on Satuday close its doors to visitors. The Minnesota Discovery Center, originally a state-funded effort now struggling as a private nonprofit, has suffered in the economic downturn. But like the mines that anchor the Iron Range [...]

Last weekend Gov. Pawlenty announced his support for Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman over GOP-endorsed Dede Scozzafava in New York’s special congressional election. Today Pawlenty announced a November trip to Mexico — a trade mission, but also an opportunity for Pawlenty to build bridges between our neighbors to the south and rabid anti-immigrant activists within our [...]

A new study says the net economic impact of the 2008 Republican National Convention on Minnesota’s economy was $170 million, Minnesota Public Radio reports. (The research was done for the Minneapolis St. Paul 2008 Host Committee by the University of St. Thomas’ Center for Retail Excellence, so you know it’s good.) But when the St. [...]

Why would young Somali men living in Minnesota return to their war-ravaged homeland to wage jihad? That’s the thorny question that’s been debated by the Somali community and federal investigators since the mysterious disappearances of as many as 20 young men surfaced last year.

Although only about four million of the estimated 44.3 million people of Latino descent in America live in Midwestern states, cultural differences and economic realities associated with those populations have created additional challenges for rural health care delivery systems that are already stretched thin.

Rep. Michele Bachmann is not the only person saying she won’t fill out the full U.S. Census. She’s joined in her boycott by a group she has vociferously spoken out against — undocumented immigrants.

This week Minnesota’s members of Congress went back to work after the July 4 break, except for Sen. Al Franken who was showing up — finally — for the first time. Rep. Keith Ellison put forward a credit reform bill, Rep. Betty McCollum announced her plan to expand the Peace Corps, and Republicans criticized the Democrats’ energy and stimulus policies. Here’s how the week shook down…

“Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,” wrote poet Robert Frost. And U.S. Sen. Al Franken defines that something as all “relevant effective law enforcement agencies” — none of which, he says, love the wall between the United States and Mexico.
“Good fences make good neighbors,” Sen. Amy Klobuchar might quote in reply. She wants [...]

A video of Somali youth harassing a gay man captured last week at the Twin Cities Pride Festival has garnered a lot of attention, spurred debate and spawned numerous press releases. Video author Justin Grey Day and the victim, Adam Schreifels, released videos responding to the debate over the incident. Politicians have denounced bias crimes [...]

During a forum on immigrants on Minnesota Public Radio today, Willmar Mayor Lester Heitke said he’d recently learned that the local Somali community had purchased 30 plots in the city’s public cemetery. That lead him to a conclusion: