Some Minneapolis donors have moved on. The immigrants waiting for help haven't

NPR | By Sergio Martínez-Beltrán

Published May 13, 2026 at 5:10 AM CDT

Tania Fischer and Carissa Coudray, volunteers with the mutual aid group Juntos Podemos, carry boxes of food into A & A Barber Studio in Minneapolis, Minn., on April 24. Juntos Podemos continues to distribute food and other donations to families as they recover from Operation Metro Surge.

MINNEAPOLIS — On a recent Thursday evening in late April, dozens of people hang out at a local brewery in south Minneapolis. The Cha Cha Slide blasts through the speakers.

In between sips of craft beer, patrons walk around a silent auction put on by Juntos Podemos, a volunteer mutual aid group that helps immigrants with groceries and rent.

Anaí Tepozteco, a co-founder of the group, mingles and every now and then looks at the handmade donation tracker.

"Our goal is $20,000 — right now we are halfway there," she says.

It's an important night. Her group has seen a sharp drop in donations since Operation Metro Surge ended in February and thousands of masked federal immigration agents left Minneapolis after arresting more than 3,000 immigrants and turning parts of the city upside down. Over and over, agents and protesters and agents. Two U.S. citizens were fatally shot by federal agents there.

Masked ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents are no longer dragging immigrants out of their cars and homes. Community members are no longer waiting on street corners, ready to blow their whistles to alert neighbors of ICE's presence. But the immigrants here still need support.

"We want to keep assisting families with groceries but also families who are behind with rent," Tepozteco says.

Guests mingle on a patio during a mutual aid fundraiser hosted by Juntos Podemos at Arbiter Brewing Co. in Minneapolis, Minn., on April 23. The event raised around $15,000 to support community members who continue to be impacted by federal immigration enforcement in the aftermath of Operation Metro Surge.

Anaí Tepozteco, a co-founder of the mutual aid group Juntos Podemos, attends a fundraiser hosted by the organization at Arbiter Brewing Co.. The group raised $15,000 of its $20,000 goal.

By the end of the night, Juntos Podemos raised $15,000, about $5,000 short of its fundraising goal.

Since the end of Operation Metro Surge in February, donations to volunteer mutual aid groups have tanked. The number of volunteers has dropped, too.

Despite continued community needs, people seem to have moved on.

Many immigrants who talked to NPR said they stopped working during Operation Metro Surge and are still trying to recover economically. Many said they have accrued debt and worry about paying rent on time.

Paola, an undocumented immigrant from Ecuador who asked NPR to identify her just by her first name because of her immigration status, told NPR she's worried.

"Without a paycheck, I don't know how I'm going to make rent and pay for my bills," she says.

Paola, an immigrant from Ecuador whose husband was deported in August 2025, went into hiding for two months during Operation Metro Surge. During the surge, Paola lost much of her income and fell behind on paying back her debts.

According to HOME Line, a nonprofit tenant advocacy organization in Minnesota, eviction filings in April in Minneapolis spiked 26% in comparison to April of last year.

Minneapolis resident Sulia Altenberg co-founded her neighborhood's rent relief effort and says she worries they won't be able to help enough people anymore.

"The other day, I got, like 8 bucks overnight, and I was like, 'You gotta be kidding!'" she said. "This is so sad."

Altenberg says there were some days in February and March where her group was getting up to $10,000 in donations from community members. They were able to help more than 230 households pay their rent.

Sulia Altenberg helped raise money for rental relief for more than 60 households in the Powderhorn neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Altenberg holds the backpack she used to distribute rental relief funds to neighbors impacted by Operation Metro Surge.

In April, the group received $300,000 in donations from two local foundations, enough money to pay rent for more than 60 households.

"It's all gone," Altenberg said. "Literally, the bank account is empty."

She wonders what's going to happen next, with less money and fewer volunteers.

"There's just no way to spread the load after people keep dropping off," she said. "People talk about that like, 'Oh, we'll get new people in here,' and it's like, where are they?"

This frustration — and pressure — is also felt by Alexandria Guzman Gomez. She started a separate rent relief effort in Minneapolis in January that has paid over $1.5 million in rent.

She said community members are burnt out.

"They don't have the time … and they also don't have the money anymore," she said.

Alexandria Guzman Gomez, a grassroots mutual aid organizer who helped raise over $1.5 million in rental relief for residents of the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Food and gas prices have gone up. Since the Iran war started, gas is more than $4 a gallon here. A few months ago, it was under $3.

"So those little changes and groceries being more expensive and things being more expensive … And people just don't have the money anymore," Gomez said.

People are still helping their neighbors directly, but it's not enough, she said, and donors and volunteers have jobs and lives to return to.

Gomez herself is going to graduate school in the fall for social work.

"I actually was in the middle of submitting my grad school application in mid-January when the city was falling apart," she said.

She says her own volunteer time will likely come to an end. She hopes others step up.

"There is still a huge need for relief and support in the Twin Cities," she said.

This story was supported by the journalism nonprofit the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.