ICE Brings a Bitter Chill to Minnesota

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Returning home from a dog walk on a bitterly cold Monday afternoon in mid-January, I saw a black GMC pickup truck idling alongside my house in St. Paul. ICE protestor Renée Macklin Good, a mother and poet, already was dead at the hands of the federal government’s armed invaders in Minnesota. We didn’t know yet that multiple agents would kill intensive care nurse Alex Pretti 17 days later — a murder that my younger son accurately described as an execution. In hindsight, we might have predicted it.

I was on edge that chilly day, my scattered thoughts seeking refuge in quotes about how courage means acting in the face of fear.

Facebook: Jamie Palmquist

I paused on the sidewalk, looked over the enormous slush-sprayed truck and eyed the driver with visible disdain. He immediately rolled down the passenger side window and assured me that he was helping to install new windows at a house down the block. Then he jumped out of the vehicle waving his business card to prove he was a sales consultant with Renewal by Andersen windows and not one of those “jokers” grabbing Hispanic, Somali and Hmong residents off the streets, from their workplaces and out of their homes.

I took the man’s card and apologized for my suspicion, although I didn’t feel sorry for a level of caution that has become commonplace in the Twin Cities since masked and armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection agents descended on us in December. “If I ever need new windows,” I told him, “I’ll look you up.”

As I returned to my comfortable, warm home in a middle-class, largely white neighborhood that had not yet witnessed any ICE activity, I thought of a sign I had seen at a protest less than a mile away. “What the government is doing to others, it will eventually do to you,” it read. I can refuse to believe that, or I can get myself prepared.

Protesters hold up homemade signs at a regular weekly protest in St. Paul.
Photos: Jamie Palmquist
"No more deportations," reads a sign held by a young person on a street corner in St. Paul.

“No one is coming to save us,” said an organizer from Unidos, a community leadership and empowerment organization, on a Zoom call for some 300 activists in the Twin Cities on January 29. “Only we can save ourselves.”

Nearly two months into Operation Metro Surge, ICE has injected terror and uncertainty into our daily lives. Make no mistake, however: People in the Twin Cities and smaller communities that have been targeted throughout the state are bent but not broken. As was demonstrated in Shine a Light for Minnesota the night Alex Pretti was killed, a hastily assembled initiative to get folks out of their homes with a flashlight or candle to commiserate and reconnect, the historically white population has pulled together for all our neighbors, of all colors and ethnicities.

In an Atlantic article headlined “Minnesota Proved MAGA Wrong,” staff writer Adam Serwer calls it “neighborism.” (Shout out to my Saint Paul City Councilmember, Molly Coleman, for pointing her followers to that piece on Bluesky.)

A business posts a sign saying it's "a 4th amendment workplace" and forbids entry by federal agents and law enforcement "without a warrant."
Photo: Amy Gage
A sign for "Shine a Light for Minnesota," an impromptu effort to get neighbors out of their homes after ICE agents murdered Alex Pretti.

Looking beyond the well-meaning but ultimately meaningless “thoughts and prayers,” many of us who still feel relatively safe are seeking out concrete actions we can take. Signal chat groups have become a private way to organize laundry brigades, school patrols, food delivery for populations afraid to leave their homes and mutual aid initiatives to drive people of color to and from their jobs.

“We are aching from the consistent and unfathomable violence done by ICE to our communities over the last days, weeks and months,” wrote Our Justice, a reproductive freedom organization, in its appeal to leave donations of diapers, pull-ups and feminine pads at Moon Palace Books. An activist bookseller, Moon Palace was the first business in Minneapolis that I saw spray-painted with “Abolish the Police” after officers killed George Floyd in May 2020.

The website Stand with Minnesota highlights countless ways to contribute. And, as my aging peers and I acknowledge, no one person can do it all. “My volunteerism hours are about maxed out,” I told a young compatriot seeking my participation in yet another worthy cause.

Minnesotans rally in record-cold temperatures in downtown Minneapolis on Friday, January 23, 2026.
Facebook: Andy Singer

I didn’t get to the peaceful mass protest on Friday, January 23 — the Day of Truth and Freedom that saw many schools and offices closed and businesses shuttered in solidarity with courageous resisters (a word that some prefer to “protesters”). Thousands of people filled the streets of downtown Minneapolis, culminating in a rally at Target Center, an event that Target Corp. itself reportedly took no hand in supporting.

Instead, I rode the Green Line to a tiny protest at the State Capitol the next day, feeling the shockwaves as another murder shook the city. I was there as a favor to a colleague. I was there as a favor to myself. After spending several hours with my 6-month-old grandson, I wanted to do something to ensure our democracy holds for his lifetime. Despite our small numbers in the subzero windchill, we thrilled to the waves and honks from passing vehicles as people acknowledged our good intentions and homemade signs.

"This is private property," reads a sign in the window of a business.
"We stand with our immigrant neighbors," reads a sign at a small business in St. Paul. "ICE out now."
Photos: Amy Gage

How, at 68 years old, can I still be so naïve? As though these tragedies, this reign of terror, could never happen in liberal, peaceful Minnesota, a flyover land whose generous support of parks, libraries and other social services has always been a point of pride. I refused to sing or stand for the National Anthem at the Gophers women’s basketball game the day after Pretti’s murder, a perhaps pointless but determined gesture that many social media friends supported. “We have to take action any way we can these days,” one said.

The searing headlines continue to shock me after weeks of these atrocities, and they should: a Black baby and his family being teargassed, a Hmong American man ripped from his house in his underwear, a 5-year-old Hispanic boy and his father deported to Texas, with false and racist claims that the child’s parents had abandoned him.

Earlier in the occupation, my older son directed me to Instagram as a more authentic resource than traditional media for on-the-ground news. I stumbled upon a provocative video by Black musician and author Andre Henry (“fighting despair in the world,” his bio says). “I’m gonna hold your hand while I say this,” he explains. “But if you’re from the U.S., you’ve always lived in a fascist country.”

Masked ICE agents, one showing a gun, ride through a protest in a large gray vehicle.
ICE agents in St. Paul. Facebook: Jamie Palmquist

Employing a gentle tone, Henry seeks to upend the patriotism of white, middle-class, homeowning Baby Boomers raised to believe in the U.S.A. — those of us who benefited from its biases and exclusions, its rules and norms. “What we’re seeing is not America acting like Nazi Germany,” he says, a comparison I have heard from white neighbors — and voiced myself. “It’s America acting like America.”

I recently heard Dr. Yohuru Williams, a Black Civil Rights scholar, speculate on Minnesota Public Radio whether the outrage would be less widespread if the murder victims in Minneapolis had not been white. Another Instagram reel puts this racially charged moment into context for seemingly well-educated whites whose schools taught no lessons on white oppression. “ICE isn’t just like the Gestapo,” says journalist and videographer Ashley B (“history & headlines — decoded, unfiltered”). “They’re closer to slave catchers. And once that clicks, a lot of people get real uncomfortable real fast.”

“Slave patrols are the history that a lot of white families don’t talk about,” she concludes. Mine certainly never did.

Alex Pretti memorial, Facebook: Saint Paul Mayor Kaohly Her

The social media posts become exhausting, overwhelming, though they’re also a ready source of information and inspiration. “I was told today by someone close ‘there’s nothing else I can do but pray,’” a former colleague posted. “I call bullsh*t.” Then she asked people to help her list what “we all can do to make a stand against this occupation in our country.”

My advice was this: “Stay connected to your favorite social justice organizations and take their direction. Volunteer at a food shelf like Keystone Community Services, many of which are now delivering groceries to their clients who feel unsafe coming in. Talk to your activist friends for ideas. If we all do what we can, it will be enough.”

It will be, so long as we embrace activism as a way of life, not a job that will be finished once ICE and border agents exit our communities. “This battle is not just to get rid of ICE,” an organizer at the recent Unidos training said. “We are all committed to building the future and the Minnesota that we deserve.”

Having made my living in journalism and communications, I am following a variety of news sources, networking with friends and neighbors, and staying centered in the sharing of information and ideas.

  • I love to walk and have volunteered to be a patrol at my neighborhood elementary school, which will begin once I complete my “constitutional observer” training through Monarca on February 1.
  • When an ICE agent cased a fourplex that houses University of St. Thomas and Macalester College students three blocks away, I connected a nearby homeowner with the landlord and the university’s chief of staff.
  • I told a friend who sings in her church choir about Singing Resistance, which CNN anchor Anderson Cooper covered during his reporting trip to Minneapolis.

“It takes all sorts of people, a variety of personalities and gifts and skills, to make social justice happen,” writes Rev. Shay McKay in the February newsletter for Unity Church-Unitarian in St. Paul.

I recently reviewed the full meaning of the Starfish Theory and recognized that staying stuck in guilt — because, as I grow older, I have less tolerance for the cold and feel unsafe getting to and from nighttime protests — is wasted energy. “Do What You Can” is the title of Rev. McKay’s essay. Anything less is only an excuse and capitulation.

Happy New Year: No Fakery, No Frills

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If I were writing a traditional New Year’s letter — the greetings that few people send anymore, now that photo-filled Shutterfly and Snapfish cards have replaced the lengthy recountings of successes and celebrations — I would focus on what went well in 2025. Like a Facebook post, my letter would paint a colorful picture of the past 12 months that is exuberant but only partly true.

Because it wouldn’t describe what has been difficult. Or sad. What has made me feel old and out of touch. Where I’ve been wrong, or felt wronged, or made decisions that I regret. The letter would broadcast, even brag, rather than reflect.

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

As I write this, I’ve been home alone for two weeks over the Christmas holiday, mothering a tripod cat and two dogs who demand multiple walks a day. Outings with friends and a Christmas Eve gathering with my daughter-in-law’s extended family have been welcome distractions, but mostly I have kept my own company.

“I won’t feel happy all the time this holiday season,” a commentator wrote in a reflection about the 60th anniversary of “A Charlie Brown Christmas,” the timeless tale of an awkward boy who manages “to find hope” amid a season of mixed blessings. Author Abigail Rosenthal describes Charlie Brown as “anxious and depressed,” employing a lingo that today’s readers will understand. I find him to be honest and touchingly human, unafraid to acknowledge that this weighted holiday carries more expectations — whether religious or secular — than people can possibly achieve.

In that spirit, here’s what 2025 has really felt like for me. How it’s been, rather than what I want you to believe.

The first grandchild

How could the birth of Arthur on July 22nd be anything but a blessing? My younger son is a proud and attentive father; the growing baby came nine days early, and was a full pound and a half smaller than his dad, making labor and delivery relatively smooth; and he is healthy, alert and well loved. We are lucky.

One of the first times I fed him, as Arthur was transitioning to a bottle, I thought of malnourished babies in Gaza. When I left my son’s house, exhausted, after a five-hour babysitting shift, I wondered how overwhelmed, under-resourced single parents manage. Reviewing the photos I take every time I see Arthur, I push away thoughts of all that could go wrong, recalling my sister’s warning when I was pregnant with my first son: Once you have a child, you are always vulnerable.

What you love, you can lose. As a grandmother, in a role consistently described as relaxed and carefree (“you get to send the kids home!”), I didn’t anticipate feeling so unsure of myself, so afraid.

Heeding advice from my peers who became grandparents at a younger age, I have sought to be a helpful, loving presence. But transitioning from Mom to Grandma hasn’t come easily or naturally — I hadn’t held a baby in 30 years — and I’ve had to learn when to bide my time and bite my tongue.

“Do the dishes,” one young mother advised my older son as he prepared for his first visit with his nephew.

A traditional New Year’s letter would extol only the joys of being a grandma, and there are many. But it wouldn’t describe the generational tensions between how we Baby Boomers, the original helicopter parents, raised our kids and what our Millennial offspring expect today:

  • My son insisted that any relative who wanted to be responsible for Arthur’s care enroll in a grandparenting class at Amma Parenting, a women-owned center in an upscale suburb of Minneapolis where he and his partner had taken a daylong parenting class.
  • Given that my sons were circumcised right after birth, which my father recommended, I had to learn the particulars of cleaning an uncircumcised baby boy — and hide my dismay when my son described the procedure as genital mutilation.
  • I’ve abandoned the multicolored, gender-neutral baby blanket I was knitting because babies no longer sleep with blankets. Who knew? Recounting to my son how we tucked him in with a “blanky” and stuffed animals, I was startled by his abrupt response: “Arthur could suffocate.” Today’s babies wear a sleep sack and lie in a barren crib to prevent SIDS, the sudden infant death syndrome that took my husband’s second oldest brother.

What sometimes feels like zealous and unnecessary instruction — how to hold the baby, clean his bottles, push his stroller on a bumpy sidewalk — actually ensures that his parents will entrust me with Arthur’s care. In moments of insecurity, I wonder whether my son found me inadequate as a mother. Or has parenting just progressed and changed?

The only truth that matters is this: If I want a loving, respectful relationship with my grandson, I must set aside my ego and adapt. Healthy aging requires a willingness to learn from our grown children — as well as from our past mistakes.

A period of adjustment

My retirement in September and a deeper dive into volunteering are the other big news for my New Year’s greeting. As with the birth of my grandson, many hearty congratulations have come my way.

But for what? I enjoyed my career. I found purpose in work. It lifted me out of a difficult period in my 20s when I was floundering and making risky, unhealthy choices. And, combined with my husband’s astute investing, the income got both of our sons through college and allowed us to help with down payments on their homes.

Now, as a healthy (so far) retiree of comfortable means, I am supposed to build a life of leisure, which runs contrary to my nature. Friends urge me to travel and read more books; and though I am doing more of each — including a first-time trip to London last April — I am noticing a cautiousness that has stifled me throughout adulthood, a tendency to default to the familiar.

Family wedding
June in Chicago

A leisurely ride on Amtrak to visit friends in Chicago and a stop in North Carolina last spring for my niece’s wedding enroute to see my older son in London were enjoyable, relationship-building experiences. But they didn’t stretch me. I didn’t challenge myself to take a solo train trip, which I promised myself I’d do after retirement. I didn’t immerse myself in a different culture or venture on a Civil Rights tour of the south, which long has intrigued me.

Even the warm-weather bike rides that I have loved for decades were on familiar pathways this past year. I never found time to haul my hybrid or road bike to trails and small towns throughout Minnesota, chatting with the locals along the way.

As for reading, it’s way past time to set aside the white women’s fiction that I enjoy and toe-dip into stories that will take me to new places, written by people whose backgrounds and perspectives differ from my own. Here again, I am learning from my younger son, who reads books only by authors from other cultures or with identities he doesn’t share as a middle-class, cisgender white male.

Reading widely means moving beyond your usual comfort zone to understand different human experiences and ideas. 

I thought retirement, given enough resources, would help me feel safe and secure. But challenge and ambition are what I always sought at work. Four months into freeing myself from paid employment, I recognize that the price of less stressful living can be sameness and stagnation — especially at an age when society wants to warehouse seniors into dorm-like housing, walling them off from a community that could enrich elders’ lives and, in turn, benefit from their experience.

Not for me. Not yet. I am determined to live larger in 2026. How’s that for a New Year’s resolution?

Can a Mobile App Improve Seniors’ Mobility?

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I first went to a physical therapist two decades ago, in my 40s, when I injured my shoulder in yoga. Young, fit and overly sure of myself — a runner and bicyclist, an aerobics instructor — I didn’t do the exercises with any consistency, and I live with that mistake to this day.

After visiting a different PT twice in my early 60s for a pulled hamstring and another shoulder injury, I figured out that physical therapy, like yoga, only pays off with regular practice. If you commit to performing the highly specific, often tedious exercises every day — or nearly so — your body will heal and feel better. Otherwise, you likely will remain in pain.

Given that reality, how practical is the growing trend of providing physical therapy not in a clinical setting but via a mobile app that people can access at home?

Physical therapy traditionally has been hands-on. Photo by Raspopova Marina on Unsplash

My experience as a physically active 68-year-old woman dealing with the normal wear and tear of aging proves that it can, indeed, work. Hinge Health, a San Francisco–based company whose services are free through my Medicare Advantage plan, has been nothing short of a godsend for my stiff neck and perpetually impinged left shoulder.

Initially, I was skeptical whether video visits with a PT and a health coach could possibly be effective. But I was so tired of shoulder pain, which was hindering my spring bike riding, that I decided to try it last May.

“People come to us with a wide range of goals,” says Doctor of Physical Therapy Melanie Cosio, based in Mobile, Alabama, and serving members (the word Hinge Health prefers to “patients”) across the country. “We often see people getting ready for a surgery, whether sports-related or they slipped and fell at their house.”

She sees plenty of older people like me, who’ve been athletic our whole lives and — seemingly out of nowhere — are now more prone to injury or sudden aches and pains. “They want to stay on top of their mobility,” says Dr. Mel, as the program calls her.

Hinge Health also serves older adults who may be housebound, lack access to in-person appointments or want a daily dose of motivation, backed by scientific research. “Hinge Health gets us into people’s homes, no matter how rural they are,” she explains. “The connection I can make via video is really impactful. We’re also making programs that are easy to digest and access from someone’s phone.”

“Our stretching and strengthening exercises help your body get more resilient and train your nervous system to better cope with pain.”

Hinge Health mobile app, education library

Traditional physical therapy states that movement is medicine. Hinge Health translates that time-honored philosophy into a 21st century AI-powered program that potentially reaches more people and keeps them exercising longer.

Rewards, including free exercise gear and performance badges, are woven throughout the program. Key to why Hinge Health works, however, is reliance on the foundations of successful physical therapy — motivation, consistency and education — but with a modern, more accessible twist.

Daily texts provide chipper reminders to “exercise for better sleep and a more vibrant you,” “keep marching forward” and “get up and glow.” Those prove to be more motivational than annoying. In fact, the messages work to plant a seed: I’d better do this today if I want to hit my weekly goal.

The daily playlists are no more than 11 minutes, and each session earns points that eventually push you to the next level, with progressively harder exercises. At the end of each session, you can indicate whether a particular movement was too hard or too easy, and the system will adjust your playlist’s difficulty.

An assigned physical therapist and health coach are within easy reach through the app and typically respond within a day. More immediately, Hinge Health’s TrueMotion® AI technology, or “real-time feedback,” lets you track through your smartphone whether you’re performing the exercises correctly.

“Laser beams of light are being shot so they can monitor where you are,” explains Tony Schmitz, a Hinge Health member from St. Paul, Minnesota. “It’s a little Wizard of Oz-ish: Who’s behind the curtain, really? Maybe it’s all AI and there is no person.”

Photo by Elena Kloppenburg on Unsplash

More enticing for me than the technology was the free equipment. Hinge Health sent a phone stand when I finally enrolled last spring, after my insurance provider, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota, mailed out two invitation letters (“move better and feel better with online physical therapy”). A set of resistance bands, which I had never used in weight-training workouts before, and a yoga mat soon followed. I even got an electronic muscle- and nerve-stimulating device called Enso 3, once I had demonstrated that I was serious about the Hinge Health program.

“They’ve really dialed this in,” says Schmitz, 72, an author, retired journalist and self-described gym rat who’s endured a series of health challenges and now practices his Hinge Health exercises every day. “They’re giving you this stuff early on to really get the hook in. Mission accomplished.”

“It’s possible to retrain your pain system by considering all the factors that may contribute to your pain: sleep, stress, relationships and worries.”

Hinge Health mobile app, “Pain Is Your Protector”

Founded in 2014 and holding a “moderate buy” consensus rating on the New York Stock Exchange (HNGE), Hinge Health serves 1.5 million people through 2,350 client companies and over 50 health plans. The program focuses on musculoskeletal care, with the low back, knees, shoulders, neck and hips being the most common areas treated.

Given how strongly Blue Cross Blue Shield promoted the program, I found it odd that the company refused to comment for an article I wrote about Hinge Health in Next Avenue, an online magazine produced by Twin Cities PBS for people 50 and older. After being turned down for an interview, I asked the media relations team via email: “Could anyone explain how Blue Cross selects the clients to target for Hinge Health? For example, I got two unsolicited letters, possibly because I had used PT before.”

No response may indicate an answer. On November 21, two weeks before the open-enrollment period ends for 2026 Medicare plans, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota announced that “high cost pressures across all Medicare programs” were forcing the insurance giant to cut its SilverSneakers benefits at two of the Twin Cities’ most popular workout facilities, Life Time and YMCA of the North. The loss of free memberships will affect 26,000 seniors, according to the Minnesota Star Tribune.

Even if Blue Cross discontinues its sponsorship of Hinge Health, I’ve learned enough to do the exercises on my own and to recognize that a home-based routine of physical therapy augments more rigorous workouts outdoors or at a health club.

Photo by Delaney Van on Unsplash

The program’s wholistic approach includes an emphasis on education. A new article appears at the end of each daily playlist focusing on sleep tips, mindful eating, building goals and habits, breathing and meditation, and mental health. One article features author and podcast star Brené Brown and “Atomic Habits” author James Clear describing how all-or-nothing perfectionism can undermine new habits. Instead, “plan for failure,” the article says. Don’t beat yourself up if you fall short of a particular goal. Reset, reevaluate and try again.

My biggest learning from Hinge Health is that the pain in my body gets fed in my brain. Emotions affect it, especially fear. I’ve learned how to carefully, mindfully move toward my shoulder pain (and my emotional pain, for that matter) rather than freezing up or backing away.

“Pain typically goes a lot deeper than the physical pain that someone’s in,” explains Dr. Mel, the PT with whom I work. “Knowing that pain is multifaceted, we encourage people to move. It’s often the best way to support healing.”

Maintaining health becomes more challenging and time-consuming as we age — whether building muscle mass and strengthening thinning bones or figuring out how to consume enough fiber and protein. Hinge Health asks members to articulate a North Star goal when they enroll. Mine is simple but not always easy: Keep moving well, and well into old age.