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.”