Christina Baal-Owens and KaYing Yang: As ICE Terrorizes Our Communities, AAPI Families Deserve Protection and Support
By Christina Baal-Owens and KaYing Yang
In the first two months of 2026, at least eight people have been killed by ICE: Luis Gustavo Núñez Cáceres, Geraldo Lunas Campos, Víctor Manuel Díaz, Parady La, Luis Beltrán Yáñez–Cruz, Heber Sánchez Domínguez, Renee Nicole Good, and most recently, Alex Pretti. These deaths are not isolated incidents. They are the terrifying result of an enforcement regime going unchecked, where racial profiling, harassment, and political rhetoric treat immigrants and people of color as threats. Now, as ICE supposedly considers pulling out of Minnesota after wreaking havoc and terror, the fear and instability they’ve entrenched will continue to disrupt the safety and stability of immigrant communities across the state.
In Minnesota, more than 300,000 of the state’s residents identify as Asian, with Hmong Americans making up the largest Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) group, the majority being refugees who resettled after U.S. wars in Southeast Asia. In recent months, reports have surfaced of federal agents storming neighborhoods, detaining people without explanation, and even asking residents where “the Asian people live.”
Despite the sacrifices Hmong people made during the Secret War in Laos fifty years ago, fighting as U.S.-backed guerrilla soldiers to advance American interests, Hmong Americans are once again caught in the crossfire. Today, they stand alongside their children, fighting not on foreign soil but here at home, to defend a democracy the U.S. promised and is now failing to uphold. Many find themselves asking: What did our families come to the US for?
In fact, reported hate crimes against Asian Americans remain nearly three times higher than pre-pandemic rates, making 2024 the third-highest year on record since national offense counting began. The true scope of harm is likely far greater, with most incidents going unreported due to language barriers, fear of law enforcement, and immigration concerns.
Fear has spread so widely in Minnesota that St. Paul’s mayor, Kaohly Her, who is Hmong American, says she carries her passport out of concern of detention. When an elected official can be questioned simply for being Asian, it sends a chilling message to every AAPI family that visibility itself can be dangerous.
This renewed climate of fear is inflicting real-time damage on the very fabric of our communities. Businesses shuttered as customers stayed away, afraid of being seen or stopped. Elders who already limit their movements after years of anti-Asian harassment retreated further into isolation. Families locked themselves inside their homes, scared of leaving for work, school, or medical appointments.
Yet these realities rarely break through national media coverage, reflecting a long-standing failure to fully see AAPI communities, not just as statistics, but as people who also face the consequences of state-inflicted terror. Asian Americans are often treated as unaffected or insulated from violence, in part because of limited data and the persistence of the model minority myth.
For communities facing racialized violence alongside aggressive immigration enforcement, this chronic underinvestment has devastating consequences. Harm goes unreported, and families disappear from support systems altogether. This fear is compounded for those who are pregnant, undocumented, or caregivers, and may avoid seeking care when they need it because even routine interaction with authorities could lead to criminalization, family separation, or worse.
Of course, we’re grateful for the many community organizations in St. Paul and Minneapolis that are stepping in where government systems have failed. The Coalition of Asian American Leaders, MN8, SEWA-AIFW, Transforming Generations, and The Urban Village, among others, are delivering rapid-response, culturally specific support to AAPI individuals facing visa conflicts, detention or deportation – including legal help, resource navigation and direct mutual aid. These organizations are doing life-sustaining work under extraordinary strain, but in many cases, they are underfunded, overextended, and asked to shoulder the consequences of policies they did not create. As a result, AAPI families are left navigating economic loss, fear, and family separation largely on their own – often with women, who tend to serve as primary caregivers, shouldering much of the burden.
What AAPI communities need is not abstract sympathy but real, sustained investment. The more we lack visibility, the less urgent our challenges seem. Less than 0.2 percent of philanthropic funding reaches AAPI-serving organizations, despite Asian Americans being the fastest-growing racial group in the country.
Ensuring support systems are funded can be a matter of life and death for many immigrant communities, as their safety often begins outside formal government systems. That can come in many forms, from culturally specific legal aid to help families understand their rights to survivor support services, allowing people experiencing domestic or gender-based violence to find help without risking immigration consequences.
Instead of funneling billions into DHS and ICE, Members of Congress should be funding the support systems that actually keep people safe, while funders should prioritize channeling resources to all groups, including AAPI-serving organizations.
AAPI communities should not have to relive the violence of authoritarian rule or racial terror. Like everyone else, they deserve safety, dignity, and the ability to care for their families in peace. The question is whether this country is willing to live up to that promise for all.
Christina Baal-Owens is the Executive Director of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF), where she leads the only national multi-issue organization dedicated to building power for Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) women, girls, and gender expansive people. Christina built her career in the labor and immigrant rights movement, working in coalition to expand civic engagement and build voting power in communities that are often overlooked. Christina’s work has been shaped by her lived experience as the daughter of Filipino immigrants and as a mother to two young daughters – perspectives that inform her commitment to dignity, equity, and collective power.
KaYing Yang is a longtime social justice leader who has spent more than two decades advancing immigrant and human rights at the local, national, and global levels. Her work is deeply informed by her experience arriving in the United States as a refugee at age seven and witnessing firsthand the impacts of poverty and generational trauma. She is president of RedGreen Rivers, LLC, senior advisor to the Southeast Asian Action, a 2019 Bush Foundation Fellow, and a co-founder of the National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum (NAPAWF). In 2022, she was appointed to President Biden’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders.
