MONTEVIDEO, Minn. — As federal officials escalate attacks on immigrants in Minnesota, the Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is more committed than ever to working with its allies to ensure all members of rural communities are treated in a just and fair manner, according to an LSP organizer who has a long history of working with beginning and emerging farmers.
“LSP supports our immigrant neighbors, no matter their status, because we believe we will not have a sustainable farm and food system until it is sustainable for everyone,” said Nick Olson, an LSP organizer who farms near Litchfield, Minn. “The same force that threatens the demise of small and medium-sized farms — a government/business model that prioritizes corporate profits above all else — also threatens the immigrant community. Everyone should have the opportunity to participate in transforming our farm and food system for the better.”
LSP is working closely with partners who are on the ground in immigrant communities by taking part as an active member of the Immigrant Defense Network (immigrantdefensenetwork.org), a partnership of more than 90 Minnesota groups formed to protect the rights of immigrants and to provide trusted information and education in communities throughout Minnesota. As part of LSP’s involvement with the Immigrant Defense Network, also known as IDN, the organization is co-facilitating the coalition’s Greater Minnesota caucus.
In recent months, LSP has been working with other IDN member-groups to provide “constitutional observer trainings” in rural communities. These trainings provide participants the tools to observe and document law enforcement interactions with immigrants and to inform the detainees of their civil rights during the interactions, as well as to provide them resources such as contact information for legal services. These trainings are also providing space for community members to come together to generate localized solutions.
Such support and networking have become particularly critical as raids carried out by agents working for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have increasingly been characterized by actions that are violent, violate Constitutional rights, separate families and vilify certain members of Minnesota’s communities. On Jan. 7, a local resident, Renee Nicole Good, was shot and killed by an ICE agent during an operation in South Minneapolis, just a few blocks from LSP’s Twin Cities office. LSP also has offices in Lewiston (southeastern Minnesota) and Montevideo (western Minnesota).
“Undocumented immigrants, along with everyone else residing in this country, are guaranteed certain civil rights when being arrested,” said Olson. “And citizens have the right to observe enforcement actions and to ensure people’s civil rights are being respected.”
According to a report released by the Minnesota Chamber Foundation in February 2025, 94% of Minnesota’s net population growth between 2020 and 2024 was attributable to international immigration. Sixty percent of Minnesota’s total labor force and employment growth came from foreign-born workers between 2019 and 2023, according to the report. Entrepreneurship among Minnesota immigrants has also risen in the past decade. In 2014, the rate of self-employment among Minnesota’s foreign-born population was 3.4%; in 2022, it was 5.5%.
In recent years LSP has been involved with supporting the immigrant community through its Farm Beginnings course and Spanish language “Land Access: Are You Ready?” workshops, as well as via support of the Emerging Farmers Conference. Through such initiatives, Olson and other LSP organizers have been working to help support the next generation of beginning farmers.
“But teaching someone how to do business planning does little good if they are being scapegoated and in general made unwelcome in the community,” said Olson. “Recent actions by ICE sow the kind of fear and mistrust that undermines efforts to create a fair, just farm and food system. This is not the kind of future rural Minnesotans want for their communities.”
That’s why LSP and its allies are working with community members and local officials to not only provide constitutional observer trainings but to discuss various educational and support strategies for building trust and understanding between long-time residents and newer immigrants. One initiative being planned is the Upper Midwest Brave of Us Tour, a multi-city effort coordinated by members of IDN from January to March. The tour is designed to strengthen community readiness, solidarity and response across the region through trainings and relationship building.
“Immigrants have stores on Main Street, produce food on farms, go to church, have kids in our schools and are an active part of the community, and yet anti-immigrant folks continue to pound this message into us that we are supposed to be afraid of them,” said Olson. “How do we shift this narrative? We can use this moment of fear and anxiety as an opportunity to reach out, get to know our neighbors and work together to build the kinds of rural communities that are good for the land and people.”
For more resources related to supporting Minnesota’s immigrant community, see landstewardshipproject.org/community-care.
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The Land Stewardship Project (LSP) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering an ethic of stewardship for farmland, promoting sustainable agriculture and developing healthy communities in the food and farming system. LSP has offices in the Minnesota communities of Montevideo, Lewiston and South Minneapolis. More information is available at landstewardshipproject.org.