MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) – A Minneapolis man is on a mission to keep the Twin Cities safe on the ice.

Ice safety advocate

What we know:

Steven Glasford, who moved to Minneapolis from Boston, has embraced the city’s outdoor lifestyle. “I moved here from Boston and I kind of fell in love with the city’s park systems,” said Glasford. 

He enjoys biking on the ice, saying, “I love to bike on the ice, that’s one of my favorite things to do is just to go biking on it.”

Once a week, Glasford bikes across frozen lakes to measure ice thickness. “It’s just easy, repetitive,” he said. 

Using an auger, he drills through the ice to check its thickness. 

“Right here it’s 23 inches thick. So that’s about like this thick. So you could easily drive a car on here,” he explained.

Growing community interest 

The backstory:

Glasford began this project to ensure the ice was safe for his bike commute as a Metro Transit bus driver. “

“So I can get from here to the southern part of the lake In about five minutes, and it takes me 10 minutes otherwise,” he said. 

His efforts have expanded to include several lakes, and his findings on Reddit have garnered up to 50,000 views weekly.

“Everybody who lives on the shoreline, everybody lives in the neighborhood and wants to go onto the ice, wants to know, like, ‘Hey, like to know how thick it is,’” said Glasford. 

He recently assisted organizers in confirming ice strength for a community event supporting Minnesota’s immigrants.

No one on thin ice

What they’re saying:

Glasford says he isn’t worried about falling through the ice himself because the orange suit he wears doubles as a life vest, which helps him keep his head above water.

But it’s his mission that keeps his spirits afloat, and he has no plans to ride off into the sunset just yet.

“It’s kind of cool. Not many people get to be able to be like, ‘Hey, this is my job.’ I can go on ice whenever I want,” said Glasford.

The full frozen lakes report can be found here. 

The images coming out of Minneapolis over the past two months have looked like something from a Hollywood dystopian horror film: masked Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents armed with guns, pepper spray, and teargas coming to blows with everyday citizens bearing phones, whistles, signs and, perhaps most surprisingly, food to feed their fellow protesters.

For Fatoun Ali and other Somali community members, sambusa was the weapon of choice. Last December, before prejudiced threats turned to bloodshed in the streets, they deployed this tasty east African staple – a fried, flaky, triangular-shaped pastry typically filled with ground meat, vegetables and spices (similar to south Asian samosas) – to combat the xenophobic rhetoric rapidly spreading across the Twin Cities. She estimates they bought and handed out hundreds of the simple snacks near community hubs, all in hopes of introducing others to the largest Somali diaspora community outside Africa.

“Food brings people together in our culture,” said Ali, who has lived in Minnesota for 20 years. “Sambusa smells and tastes good, and we eat it together for special gatherings and holidays, like during Ramadan when we’re breaking the fast at the end of each day. At a time when we were being called terrorists and frauds, we were trying to welcome people in to learn about our culture and hold a safe space to eat and drink together and ask questions.”

In addition to sambusa, Ali and her comrades were handing out whistles and pamphlets outlining people’s rights. “In the beginning, we were telling people that as long as they were documented, they would be safe,” she recalled. “But it turned out that wasn’t true. Everyone became terrified, regardless of their status. Businesses closed. People became scared to go to work. They lost their jobs. They couldn’t pay rent. They couldn’t feed their families.”

At that point, Ali shifted her attention to feeding her community. She quickly escalated the existing food-aid efforts of her non-profit, the Somali Youth and Family Development Center, which provides education, resources and support programming to the Twin Cities community.

“As a mother and someone who has experienced civil war and knows firsthand what it feels like to be hungry, my immediate instinct was to feed people,” she said. Now, her group delivers halal groceries – meat, rice, flour, dates, spices and similar ingredients conforming to Islamic dietary laws – to more than 400 people weekly with the help of shoppers, drivers and other volunteers. It’s just one example of how one of the most targeted groups in Minneapolis remained one of the city’s bedrocks.

Ali’s mutual food-aid initiative and others like it have become even more critical during Ramadan (when rituals call for culturally specific foods), and these efforts will continue on long after ICE agents are redeployed elsewhere.

So too will the effects of a weeks-long siege on the Twin Cities metro area, which is estimated to have cost immigrant-owned businesses a cumulative $46m in December and January, per the Star Tribune newspaper. For the Somali community, the reverberations go far beyond financial.

“The fear created by the federal presence and enforcement activity has changed daily life for us and has reopened old wounds,” said Jamal Hashi, a chef and nutritionist who has lived in Minneapolis for more than 30 years. “Even with the announced drawdown, the emotional and psychological impact on the Somali community here doesn’t simply disappear overnight. The feeling right now is a mix of relief, vigilance and resilience – because our community has survived much worse.”

After fleeing civil war in their home country, many Somali refugees made their way to Minnesota in the early 1990s. Soon, the state was home to the US’s largest Somali population; the majority of them are US citizens. They represent a vibrant, rich thread of the city’s cultural fabric, and they have helped fuel the local economy with businesses such as the Karmel Mall – the nation’s largest Somali shopping center, earning it the nickname Little Mogadishu. They have made history, with Representative Ilhan Omar being the first Somali American elected to Congress in 2018. In short, Somalis have made Minnesota their home.

Complicating the public perception of the Twin Cities Somali community is the ongoing Feeding Our Future scandal, in which a small group of people – several of them from the Somali community – fraudulently received nearly $250m in federal funding earmarked for child-nutrition programs during the pandemic. The local Somali community faced further scrutiny after the rightwing influencer Nick Shirley went public claiming to be exposing fraud at Somali-run daycares. His late December 2025 viral video may have helped ignite the ICE siege in Minneapolis.

Hashi, who has built his career around creating culinary bridges, recently partnered with food bank Second Harvest Heartland to develop a halal groceries program for distribution via a network of trusted locals making small-scale deliveries in their personal vehicles. In his downtime, he’s doing the same: regularly picking up hot meals from immigrant-owned restaurants (whose owners prefer to remain anonymous) and delivering them to families afraid to leave their homes.

Somali community hubs like Karmel mall have sat shuttered in recent weeks, for fear that these gathering places will draw ICE raids. Abdirahman Kahin, Afro Deli & Grill owner, has had to temporarily close two of his four restaurant locations since having two ICE encounters in December.

“As a Somali restaurant, we’re definitely a target,” said Kahin, who has lived in Minneapolis for 14 years. “They came to our St Paul location twice and served us with subpoena. They asked for a list of our employees, which we delivered. The second time they came, they just asked silly questions, like, ‘Do you hire illegals?’ They tried to be as intimidating as possible.”

Like Hashi, Kahin’s efforts to feed his community began long before ICE’s arrival in Minneapolis. During the Covid pandemic, his team served an estimated 1.5m meals in collaboration with organizations such as Second Harvest, the Red Cross, Meals on Wheels and World Central Kitchen. About 80% of those halal meals – goat’s meat, chicken, sambusa and the like – support people living in public housing. So while this food is culturally specific for east African folks, it is nutritionally balanced for anyone, he points out.

For Kahin, there are more parallels to the pandemic. “For the past two months, we’ve been living in fear, not knowing what to expect,” he said. “You carry your passport all the time. We never could have imagined living like this, and we don’t know how long it will go on. During Covid, a vaccine was the remedy. Now, we’re waiting for ICE to leave so we can feel comfortable again.”

These vital food mutual-aid initiatives, like the ICE protests themselves, have been cross-culturally powered, with Minnesotans from all backgrounds showing up for their neighbors. That outpouring of support bolsters these Somali community leaders’ resolve, even amid ongoing harassment, discrimination and safety concerns.

“The love I have received is stronger than the hate I have faced,” said Ali. “Minnesota has set such a strong example of how we love each other, how we support each other, how we feed each other. This is an amazing state, and so many immigrants ended up here because of the resources, services and support available here. This is our home, and we’re not going anywhere.”

The Minneapolis City Council debated the renewal of two liquor licenses on Tuesday, focusing on two hotels allegedly housing federal agents during Operation Metro Surge. 

In January, protestors descended on both the Depot and the Canopy hotels, believing ICE agents were staying inside. Some protestors faced off with Minnesota State Troopers after an unlawful assembly was declared. 

Hospitality union members spoke to the council about the license renewals, explaining that some employees from the hotels have expressed fear over ICE agents staying there. 

“We believe that a liquor license is a privilege and that privilege should be reserved for businesses who keep the public safety in mind,” said Wade Luneberg, who is part of the union, Unite Here Local 17.

Though another union member told the council there is “misinformation” that has caused anxiety. Joan Soholt said she’s worked as a hotel banquet server for 23 years.

“Claims that these facilities are contracting with ICE or overpouring liquor to agents are false and deeply damaging,” Soholt said. 

The licenses for these two locations were first singled out and held up at a council meeting in early February. On Tuesday, Chair Aurin Chowdhury pushed for further delay. 

“Do we want to take a moment to do due process and investigate the situation that our constituents throughout the city have raised up as a grave concern or not?” Chowdhury questioned. 

Though other council members, including a lawyer from the city attorney’s office, warned waiting too long could open the city up to legal risk. 

“Not respecting staff input and opinion here could have tremendous legal and financial impact,” said Councilmember Elizabeth Shaffer. 

Shaffer argued that delaying the renewal decision beyond Thursday could send a bigger message to business owners that Minneapolis “is not a safe place to do business.”

Councilmembers Pearll Warren and LaTisha Vetaw also spoke out against the delay. 

“This feels like exactly what the president did to Jimmy Kimmel; to me, I don’t like it,” said Vetaw.

During the discussion, several members deferred to Quinn O’Reilly, managing attorney for the city, for legal clarity. 

Councilmember Jamison Whiting asked O’Reilly whether housing ICE at these hotels was in itself a reason to deny a liquor license. 

“No, as we advised previously, there needs to be connection between licensed activity and identifying concerns,” O’Reilly said. “So who stays at the hotel, there’s no nexus between the license activity, which is the serving of alcohol and the activity that which we are concerned.”

Ultimately, the council voted 11-2 in favor of a day-long investigation, with city staff returning findings on Thursday.

Ahead of the next meeting, staff will review complaints, 911 and 311 calls and reach out to business owners. As of Tuesday, city staff confirmed both hotels have active liquor licenses and are able to serve alcohol as the council debates the renewal.