Refugee day event in Grand Forks will not feature refugee participation amid safety concerns

GRAND FORKS — A Saturday event in Grand Forks marking World Refugee Day will not feature any refugees due to safety concerns.

The program, at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 13, at the farmers’ market, will not include the annual youth performance amid concerns that gathering refugees in one place may allow them to be targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, according to Cynthia Shabb, executive director of the Global Friends Coalition organization.  

The United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees has established the theme “Until Everyone Is Safe” for 2026, Shabb said. “This is an appropriate theme given what has been happening here and around the world.”

World Refugee Day is an internationally recognized day designated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, she said.

“This is a frightening climate for many, and for those of us born in the U.S., it is frustrating that something done each year in our beautiful city has had to be approached with a level of concern we have not felt before,” Shabb said.

As members of the Global Friends Coalition weighed whether to organize a program with refugees on stage, “we had to consider the risks our youth and families might face,” she said. “We were concerned that convening refugees in one spot may allow them to be targeted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” she said. The farmers’ market “has always been a welcoming place. However, when immigrants talk about their fears, when teachers express concern about safety and whether we would be setting children and families up for being held by ICE, we have to listen.

“Because of this, there will be no public refugee youth performance this year, as we have always done previously,” Shabb said. “Instead we will share the artwork of area students who came as refugees so that Grand Forks can hopefully better understand the lives and perspectives of those who have been through enough struggles already.”

The program will feature two U.S.-born high school students, members of the Summer Performing Arts Company, and elementary students will read six-word memoirs written by students who are refugees. Altogether, 14 memoirs will be read, each accompanied by a piece of artwork by the memoir writer.

All the memoirs have been written focusing on the theme “Until Everyone Is Safe,” Shabb said.

It will also feature U.S.-born individuals, including Tricia Berg, a Grand Forks City Council member, and others who will speak on behalf of refugees and immigrants, Shabb said.

“In my 16 years of putting this (program) on stage for World Refugee Day, I have never had to be this cautious,” Shabb said of the decision not to feature, on stage, the talents of refugees and immigrants who live in Greater Grand Forks.