How Minneapolis Taught America to Fight Back
Reveal
The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX
4.7 • 218 Ratings
🗓️ 7 February 2026
⏱️ 51 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a Minnesota town outside the Twin Cities, Emily is a nurse who treats many immigrant patients. She can’t locate a patient who just had a test result that shows they might have cancer. The patient was recently detained by ICE; situations like these have forced the clinic to adapt, making house calls and triaging care.
“I'd love to know how well somebody's kidneys are functioning today,” Emily said, but “I'm gonna wait till three months because I don't want them to come in for a lab appointment that's not critical.”
Emily is one of many Minnesotans mounting a quiet, secretive resistance to the Trump administration's hard-nosed and often violent immigration agenda. Across the state, neighbors are helping neighbors and communities are building grassroot systems to support immigrant families.
This week on Reveal, our Minnesotan reporters Nate Halverson and Artis Curiskis report on how Minnesota is teaching the country to resist federal agents who have arrested children, killed citizens in the street, and pepper-sprayed high schoolers.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | From the Center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. |
| 0:06.3 | I'm Al Ledson. |
| 0:08.1 | For the past three years, Emmett Bondgarts has worked as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service, |
| 0:15.0 | going door to door, walking miles a day. |
| 0:18.4 | He loves it. |
| 0:19.0 | I think the U.S.PS really is, like, in a way, like a logistical masterpiece. |
| 0:25.6 | Because if you think about it, the post office, every single day sends somebody to every single address in the country. |
| 0:34.6 | And to me, that's like a miracle that a government service can do |
| 0:39.2 | that. Even before he got the job, Emmett loved writing and receiving letters, taking time to put |
| 0:45.8 | pen to paper for someone you care about a special, even if people don't do it as much anymore. |
| 0:51.7 | You know, maybe they're not receiving as many letters from, you know, their lover as they |
| 0:56.3 | used to back in the day, but there's still just this, this sense of connection that I think |
| 1:05.1 | the Postal Service can provide people. |
| 1:07.9 | That connection to community that Emmett describes is why we wanted to talk to him. Because |
| 1:13.4 | the city where he lives and works, Minneapolis, has been at the center of the national spotlight for |
| 1:19.7 | weeks. There's been an all-out assault by federal agents, including customs and border protection |
| 1:25.9 | and ice, widespread protests, and the killings |
| 1:29.4 | of two Americans. |
| 1:31.3 | And despite it all, postal workers like Emmett are still out there walking the icy sidewalks. |
| 1:37.7 | I think an important thing for communities is like shit can be hitting the fan, but the mailman's still going to deliver |
| 1:46.1 | your mail. |
| 1:47.5 | That's right. |
... |
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