Minneapolis

This morning Elaine and I joined 2500 people nationwide on a Zoom Prayer Meeting organized by the Interfaith organization, ISAIAH.  I think it’s fair to say the event was to help people, in Isaiah’s words, to wait on the Lord, renew their strength, and rise up with wings like an Eagle to melt the unjust ways ICE is operating in Minneapolis.  They directed participants to www.iceoutnowmn.com, and I was astounded at the list of local businesses closed today to support this effort.  I applaud them.  I am also troubled whenever I hear national leaders say this aggressive mass deportation activity is necessary because no one is above the law.  Much of my work as a storyteller/educator for many years has been with children in families struggling with employment and income because one or more parents have a criminal conviction.  I will never understand how one such conviction keeps many people from voting or holding a decent job, but one person with multiple convictions can be President making crucial decisions for all.

We were still in Mexico when Renee Good was shot.  We were visiting family who moved there in September because they decided they could not/would not live in a country where NO ONE IS ABOVE THE LAW does not really mean that.  We did not know Renee, but it could have been someone we know.  Frankly, it could have been one of us.  Leaders said she had it coming because she was a member of a radical terrorist organization, INDIVISIBLE.  I’m not aware that Indivisible is a group you can join, but we have been at two enormous NO KINGS gatherings they organized, one in Golden Valley where we live, and one in Alexandria the day our grandson was competing there in a trapshooting event.  We ducked out long enough to join many other people in expressing our first amendment rights.  This was also the day Melissa Hortman and her husband were killed.  We learned later that the shooter had a list that included many of our local elected officials, and that he was involved with the general “Christian” milieu I grew up in. When I graduated from high school in 1964 I attended Bible College and was working for Minneapolis Youth for Christ, the organization Billy Graham emerged from.  They fired the Director I liked because he took a potential donor to a famous Minneapolis restaurant with a nude statue in the courtyard.  About the same time I heard a Minister rail against Pat Boone for claiming to be “born again” while appearing with a “half naked” Ann Margaret in the movie, STATE FAIR.  It is extremely difficult for me to understand how current leaders of this “Christian” strand, like Franklin Graham, could endorse a President with a history of less than one percent sexual purity.  That’s also apparently the amount of Epstein files that have been released a month past the deadline for all to be out.  Still, I could maybe overlook that if current actions were not striking intense fear in many folks I know, including grown up grandchildren who don’t look white because their mother, long a U.S. citizen, grew up in South America.

I was drafted and served as an Army Medic 4 months after National Guard troops shot and killed 4 students at Kent State in May of 1970.  It was a freedom of expression protest against the War in Vietnam, a conflict described 20 years later by its Secretary of Defense as, “Gee, I’m sorry.  We knew at the time we shouldn’t be there”.  I have friends who were students at Kent State at that time.  It could have been them.  I have friends whose names are on the Vietnam Wall. I have spent my life advocating against wars that have nothing to do with defense, as well as for better care for the Veterans sent off to fight.  More often than not they are young and traumatized between the call to Patriotism and the Specter of things they’ve been taught all their life are wrong.  I personally applaud the Congresspeople who recently reminded us all that soldiers swear an oath not only to protect the Constitution and to obey the Commander, but also that they have an obligation to disobey unlawful orders. I will turn 80 this year, so deemed myself too old to be marching at 2 p.m. in 40 below windchill temperatures.  However, I’d take the bus downtown to bail Jesus out if he were thrown in jail for disobeying unlawful orders.  It’s what he did.

from Carol, who saw this in the St. Paul Pioneer Press:

Chief executives of Target, Best Buy, General Mills, Cargill and roughly four dozen other large Minnesota companies issued a public letter Sunday calling for an “immediate de-escalation of tensions” in the state.

The letter marks the first time the most recognizable businesses in Minnesota have weighed in on the turmoil in Minneapolis amid the aggressive crackdown by federal immigration agents, which have sparked widespread protests throughout the city.

It comes one day after federal agents shot and killed Alex Pretti, 37, a nurse at the city’s Veterans Affairs hospital, while he was being restrained during a protest in Minneapolis.

“With yesterday’s tragic news, we are calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions,” the letter states.

The letter was signed by top executives of Minnesota’s largest companies and large hospital systems, including Land O’ Lakes, Hormel, U.S. Bancorp, Mayo Clinic and 3M. It also was signed by local sports teams: the Minnesota Vikings, Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Wild.

The letter is notable because many CEOs have sought to avoid weighing in on any politically charged issues during the second Trump administration.

~ Pioneer Press

 

from Carol, also from the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Jan 23, 2026 report from Frederick Melo and Talia McWright: The sex offenders federal authorities said they were seeking when they detained an elderly Hmong man in St. Paul Sunday do not appear to be missing and may not be registered sex offenders.

After federal agents handcuffed 57-year-old ChongLy “saly” Scott Thao, a U.S. citizen, and forced him out of his house at gunpoint and into cold wearing little more than crocs and boxer shorts, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security took to social media to say he lived with two criminal aliens — both of them convicted sex offenders who are still at large. DHS officials said earlier this week that the two were at large in St. Paul and “public safety threats.”

The Thao’s family has said he has no knowledge of the two men — one of whom is already in custody within the state prison system at Minnesota Correctional Facility-Faribault, where state records show the offender has resided for the past 16 months.

Lue Moua, who was born in 1973, has been in state custody since September 2024, serving a sentence for child kidnapping, with an expected release date of January 2027. An ICE detainer is already in place, according to the state Department of Corrections, meaning he is in line to be transferred to federal immigration authorities on his scheduled release date.

In defending the decision to remove Thao from his home at gunpoint, DHS issued a press statement calling Moua his roommate, and one of its “most wanted” and “a criminal illegal alien from Laos … wanted for sexual assault of a minor, rape, kidnapping and domestic violence.”

The statement noted an immigration judge issued him a final order of removal in 2012 but he remains at large.

In fact, Moua is behind bars, and has been for months. Before that, he was homeless, according to the criminal charges that landed him in state custody.

 

Court records show that in 2023, while living in a tent in a lakeside campsite off a dirt road, he repeatedly removed his ex-wife’s 6-year-old daughter from her home and threatened to harm them both, garnering convictions for felony kidnapping and misdemeanor domestic abuse. He was not charged with sex assault in the case.

Another man named Lue Moua, who was born in 1986, was placed in state custody in June 2020 following a drug conviction, and released under supervised probation in January 2022. His supervised release expires in October 2027.

ICE issued an order in June 2020 that they be notified within 72 hours of his release. DHS published a public statement Wednesday that also listed him among their “most wanted” at large, even though he’s currently listed on state records as being under the supervision of a probation officer from Ramsey County Community Corrections.

A search of the Minnesota Department of Corrections registry of sex offenders who are subject to public notification does not list either of the two Lue Mouas, or another man on the DHS “most wanted” list who was alleged but never proven to have lived with Thao.

 

On Friday, following coverage of Lue Moua’s imprisonment by Twin Cities broadcast news stations, DHS issued the following statement on X, attributing their inability to find him to the mayor of Minneapolis, who plays no obvious role in the case:

“We are calling on Governor Walz and Mayor Frey to agree to turning this child predator over to ICE, so this criminal can never prey on innocent American children. This is exactly what we have been saying: We need state and local law enforcement engagement and information so we don’t have to have such a presence on the streets.”

The other suspect, Kongmeng “Jack” Vang, was described as dangerous and at large by DHS officials. They said he was wanted for “sexual assault, gang activity and assault,” and that a federal immigration judge had ordered him to be removed from the country in 2016. It does not indicate why ICE failed to do so after he was transferred into their custody that year.

His court history on record shows Vang was convicted of misdemeanor sex assault in 2012, placed on probation, and then, following a probation violation, sentenced to 90 days in the Hennepin County Workhouse a year later.

 

In November 2016, Vang was convicted of disorderly conduct, but a fifth-degree assault charge was dismissed. He was sentenced to 30 days in the Hennepin County Workhouse and a year of probation.

Court and prison records show Vang was transferred to ICE’s jurisdiction and held in the Sherburne County Jail from November 2016 to April 2017 on an ICE hold. It’s unclear why he was not deported at that time.

 

On Thursday, a search of public records showed him living a few hours out of state, with a phone number listed.

COMMENTS (more at end of page):

Situation just heartbreaking.We all are doing the best we can.

Thanks for your updates, and so sorry for the assault on your community.  You and your neighbors are in our thoughts, and actions.  Friday I attended a labor-focused protest outside Home Depot and Target in Boston, Sunday joined a suburban march around the town common.  Kenbe fem!

from Jane: Good to have someone on the spot who can tell us what is really going on.

from Lawrence: