Context, Questions, and a collage about Minneapolis
Welcome to Export Quality, a home for my reporting, musings, and news about South Asian Americans and Canadians
It’s been one hell of a start to 2026. We’re a month in and it’s felt like an age. One of anger, frustration, and an absurdity of political theater. Personally, it’s taken me some time to get back into the swing of the year because of a health scare. I’m relatively ok!
I did take the time to come up with some new ideas for Export Quality. which is ultimately a newsletter for my own reporting on a variety of beats but also about the desi diaspora community. Right now it’s a bit nerve-wracking to be an immigrant and write about what’s going on in Minneapolis, even from afar.
I can’t add to the intense and brave reporting being done by the Minnesota Star Tribune and Sahan Journal, but what I can do is give you conext for this situation and ask a lot of questions.
Two journalists - both Black - were arrested simply for trying to do their jobs. You should go support those news outlets and independent journalists like Don Lemon and Georgia Fort because while influencers who post online are amplifying events, jouralists are doing the work of keeping power accountable. Fort had live streamed a protest at a church and was then arrested at home.
When this happens in Black, brown, and Asian countries, the West immediately gathers regional experts and touts that press freedom is the bedrock of any democracy.
One example is the 2019 arrest of Maria Ressa, a Filipino-American journalist and co-founder of digital news site Rappler in the Philippines. Ressa was reporting a story about a prominent businessman allegedly bribing a judge and then was charged under the country’s cyberlibel law for publishing a false story. The move was seen as a political one since Ressa was also a critic of President Rodrigo Duterte’s alleged extrajudicial killings and ‘war on drugs.’ After the uproar from humanitarian groups and even former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, Ressa went on to win the Nobel Prize in 2021 and continues working on press freedom.
It shouldn’t matter that they are independent, the media industry has pushed so many of us out at this point that being out on your own is often the choice that makes the most sense. It shouldn’t matter that they were at a protest. We all have that Constitutional right. Would I defend them if they worked for a right-wing outlet? Yes, as long as they weren’t perpetuating hate speech.
Neither of them was doing the latter, but if even showing others’ criticism is blasphemy against the Church of MAGA, the problem lies with the truth and not the truthteller.
If the administration is intent on silencing the visual proof (video from Shanelle Kaul of CBS News) of what is happening, we have to look at the hard facts they can't arrest.
The questions we should be asking right now aren't just about the outrage in the streets, but the self-destruction of an economic engine and the chance to redefine American politics.
It’s natural to think the blanket answers are MAGA Republicans’ xenophobia and racism, but I think that’s letting other Republicans and Democrats off the hook too easily.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I turned to making some art for the first time in months, inspired by recent events:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I don’t think we should reduce an immigrant’s ‘worth’ solely to their income or financial contribution to society, to do so is inhumane in many ways. But, it’s naive to not think about it at all in the discussion on reforming our expensive, confusing labyrinth of immigration policies.
So, let’s have that discussion. Is all this bloodshed, fear, and chaos really worth more than $100 billion, Social Security, Medicare, and unemployment insurance for this administration?
We were told the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), State Department, and the Environmental Protection Agency were either dismantled or gutted without Congressional approval as a cost-cutting measure. Smaller federal footprint = more money in Americans’ pockets. So purely from a fiscal standpoint, why does ICE need more money? Why did the House (both Republicans and more than a few Democrats) approve $75 million more for ICE? [Eight Senate Republicans and all Democrats blocked the bill, which includes other proposed funding as well, on Friday. As of Saturday however, part of the government is still shut down as they try to hash out an agreement.]
We as a country, as voting citizens, have a right to know what our tax dollars are being used to do. Tax dollars that also come from the undocumented people. According to a study conducted by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, undocumented residents in the U.S. paid nearly $100 billion in federal, state, and local taxes in 2022.
Billion with a B. They pay into programs they can’t even access as a means of showing they want to be here and part of the economy and society. They pay for years on end, waiting for their paperwork to be processed.
Why are Congressional Democrats (and Republicans, for that matter) not pushing for setting up a stronger legal labor framework that would benefit undocumented people as well as the people who employ them?
Of course, business owners would be liable for the minimum wage, health insurance, and other associated costs. But, if our food costs are skyrocketing anyway because of inflation and undocumented agricultural workers are/will soon be too scared to keep working, isn’t there some benefit to employers and the marketplace writ large to have a steady workforce?
Why are Congressional Democrats not hammering their Republican colleagues on this? [I may have half an answer to this one: they are scared to lose power. You have to be in the game to play it, after all. But, political operatives have repeatedly told me in the post-Trump 2016 years that voters want courage of conviction and consistency, not cowardice. Ironically, it’s the thing that got Trump and NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez elected.]
Where are all the states’ rights advocates now? They champion states’ rights to outlaw gay marriage, abortions, and adjudicate independently, but not to prevent a federal agency from (allegedly) killing its own citizens or detaining children born in the state?
If the goals of the administration are distraction from other actions or a less civically engaged populace, they’ve likely only partially succeeded.
Unfortunately for them, Minneapolis-St. Paul was one of the worst places they could have chosen to target. Don’t underestimate Midwest Nice (which isn’t always actual kindness) for docility. I have to believe Prince would never stand for all this.
And now, ICE is reportedly going to come for southern Ohio and its Republican Governor Mike DeWine. It feels cruel not to frame this in terms of the potential devastation to the Haitian community and other immigrants in the state, but sometimes questions need to be asked on other peoples’ terms.
If anything, this is a test for DeWine and the gubernatorial candidates. What kind of Republican does he want to be going forward as he finishes his second term in office? He can’t run in this year’s election and is backing Vivek Ramaswamy, an Indian American from Cincinnati. Does he want to protect the people that live in his state as part of his legacy? Even non-immigrants are staying home from work and school in the Twin Cities right now out of fear. Does he want to cede control and jurisdiction over to federal officials on his way out of office?
This is also a test for Ramaswamy. This impending ICE raid is a chance for him to set himself apart from the sea of desis in the Trumpsphere who often feel like they would be willing to sell out their skin color, culture, and history for proximity to a power that ultimately does not value people who look just like them. Will he actually take it? And, what will it do for people of color and immigrants in the state if he doesn’t?
At some point every politician has to ask themselves whether their loyalty lies to the party structure or the electorate, and this is the time for Ramaswamy to do that.
Life is frustrating these days as so many of my friends and colleagues (and I!) are looking for jobs and the cost of living is insane. There’s local work to be done, though. We said as much after the 2024 election.
And, we see that in the Twin Cities. Parents forming human shields so all children can attend school, setting up funds to help undocumented and other immigrant families get groceries and pay bills as they stay home from work out of fear, people quite literally putting their lives on the line as legal observers.
It’s both horrifying and inspires some hope in humanity.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Your media list:
Jennifer Chowdhury has been writing about the mental health of children in undocumented families for her newsletter Port of Entry and it’s crucial reading for those wondering what the future of this crisis looks like.
You can support immigrant-led, Minnesota-based news site Sahan Journal. They’ve been doing important reporting no one else has been.
The Asian American Journalist Association’s statement on Don Lemon and Georgia Fort’s arrests.
How Baltimore organizers are preparing to fight back against ICE - Jaisal Noor for Baltimore Beat
How Global Tensions Defined the 1956 Cortina Olympics - Lakshmi Gandhi for History.com
Providence City Council launches push for rent stabilization. What it means. - Nish Kohli for The Providence Journal
Kamar Samuels is an NYC Education Veteran. But Is He Ready to Take on Universal Childcare? - Nikole Ragor and Levine Signals Reinvestment of City Pension Funds in Israeli Bonds as Mamdani Opposes the Move - Shaan Merchant for The Polis Project’s limited reportng series, First 100 Days of Zohran