Hope & Fear in Minnesota’s Heartland: Refugees search for safety, some don't find it

ABOUT THIS SERIES: "Hope & Fear in Minnesota's Heartland" is a four-part series taking an in-depth look at how St. Cloud is addressing a bitter divide about its growing Somali refugee population.

ST. CLOUD — Farhiya Iman grew up on the move, looking for an escape from conflict. She eventually sought refuge — and made a home — in the heartland of Minnesota.   

Farhiya’s family lived in Congo when violence broke out in the early 1990s. Although the family had once called Somalia home, that country’s ongoing civil war prevented them from returning. Trapped between two wars, Farhiya fled to Uganda as a refugee. 

When her family came to the United States in 2001, Farhiya remembers her mother speaking about the promise of good education, well-paying jobs and ample opportunity. Years later, she had come to live out her mother’s aspirations in St. Cloud. 

But now Farhiya is once again looking to flee, this time away from Central Minnesota. 

She’s considering moving out of St. Cloud, fearful for her children’s futures in a city where refugees, particularly those from East Africa, have faced a stark backlash. “I hate the feeling that people don’t want me here, and it sucks. I think about this all the time,” she said. “That’s what I don’t want that for my kids."

While Farhiya has built a life for herself in St. Cloud, her longtime home has faced a bitter divide about its growing Somali refugee population, fueling an impassioned debate that’s reverberated from coffee klatches to the St. Cloud Times' Opinion section, all the way up through City Hall.

For years, some residents have called for stopping the refugee program altogether, culminating in a 2017 temporary refugee halt proposed by a member of St. Cloud's City Council.

The effort, which the mayor said was legally unenforceable, overwhelmingly failed. All but one council member voted against the effort and, instead, the council passed a welcoming resolution. But two current council members ran — and won — on a 2018 platform questioning the resettlement program. 

The tensions have galvanized activists, churches and community groups like #UniteCloud to push for a more welcoming city. From organizing community events to talking to individuals one-on-one, residents have grown a grassroots movement to counter anti-refugee sentiment — efforts they say are showing signs of progress.

But others have gone forward with a more hard-line approach, including a group of nativist activists asserting explicitly anti-Muslim rhetoric. And recent articles in the New York Times and The Economist put a national spotlight on the city, elevating a longstanding conflict about St. Cloud's changing demographics and an emotionally laden debate about the city's future. 

Caught in the middle 

Farhiya came to St. Cloud at age 15 after a brief stop in Louisiana and a 2-year stay in Marshall, Minnesota.

Like many immigrants, her family followed a family member's recommendation as well as job opportunities at a food processing plant in nearby Melrose. 

She and her eight siblings were among the first Somali families to settle in the area in 2003 — Muslim, East African refugees who stood out among the predominantly white, German community in Central Minnesota. 

“I came to St. Cloud and that’s when I realized I was actually different,” she said. “We were like so different. We looked different. We spoke different. And that was a shock.” 

Farhiya, now 30 years old, has lived in the city for nearly 15 years. She became a U.S. citizen, went to Tech High School and graduated from St. Cloud State University with a master’s degree in social work. She now works as a social worker for Stearns County.

Last year, Farhiya and her sisters opened a coffee shop, a modest space tucked away in a strip mall. It was their mother's idea, but the sisters wanted to make it a space for community and conversation. 

Part 2:Growing optimism with every conversation

Farhiya also got married and started a family of her own: a 3-year old daughter and infant son, whom she's always wanted to raise alongside her sisters and their children.

But Farhiya is increasingly worried about raising her children in St. Cloud. She can't help but wonder whether her daughter will endure the same harassment Farhiya did growing up. The glares in public. The bullying in school. The calls to "go back to your country."

“She was born here. So for someone to say that she doesn’t belong in this community that she was born in is something that I cannot fathom as a mom," Farhiya said. "I don’t want to ever come across someone telling my daughter that she doesn’t belong here. And that’s what I’m afraid of.”

From Farhiya's perspective, she's done everything right, but it still isn't enough. And she's determined to give her kids a different childhood from her own, even if it means leaving her sisters, her mother and the place she’s called home for nearly half her life.  

“I have a master's degree. I’m educated. I provide so much to this community. And I want to stay here. I want to raise my children here," she said. "But how do I raise my children in a society where they hate who we are?”

St. Cloud, the state’s 10th-largest city, has grown into an increasingly diverse community in the past several decades. In the city of 68,000, nonwhite residents now make up 19.4 percent of the population, up from 10.6 percent in 2009, according to the American Community Survey, yearly estimates by the U.S. Census. 

Part 3:Are efforts to counter anti-refugee hate working?

However, when it comes to the overall size of the Somali community in Central Minnesota, it's difficult to pinpoint an exact figure. That's due to a number of reasons, including minority populations are often underestimated in Census data, refugees frequently move inside the United States and it's challenging to narrow down children of Somali parents, many of which were born in the U.S. or another country besides Somalia. 

Here's what we do know: The St. Cloud area has seen an influx of refugees from Somalia and other East African countries over the past decade.

Stearns County has resettled 1,774 primary refugees from 2005 to 2018, of which nearly 90% are Somali, according to the Minnesota Department of Health. Benton and Sherburne counties have resettled 117 and 46 refugees, respectively, in that time frame. 

That makes one primary refugee for every 90 residents in Stearns County, the second-highest of any county in the state. Yet, the area's refugees still make up only a fraction of more than 34,000 primary refugees who have arrived in Minnesota since 2005. 

Many more Somali immigrants are estimated to have come to Central Minnesota, many as “secondary refugees” like Farhiya: Those who were initially placed in another city and later moved to St. Cloud.

But the exact number is unknown. Minnesota has one of the highest, if not the highest, rate of secondary migration, but the state does not systematically track secondary refugees moving to Minnesota. Like other U.S. residents, they are free to move about the country.  

The most recent American Community Survey shows 3,542 residents report Somali ancestry in the 194,000 St. Cloud metro area, which includes Stearns and Benton counties. But experts say that's not a perfect measure because some people may identify more with an ethnic group than a country, while others don't know how to answer. 

Other data is also less than precise. For example, there are nearly 11,000 foreign-born residents in the St. Cloud metro area, but that includes people born in all other countries, like Canada or Mexico, and doesn't account for those of Somali-descent born in the U.S. Likewise, Census figures on households that speak Somali leave out young children and include some speakers of other African languages. 

Mónica García-Pérez, an economics professor and director of the St. Cloud State University Faculty Research Group of Immigrants in Minnesota, said estimates of the Somali community range from 4,000 to 13,000 residents. She thinks it's around 4,000 to 6,000, but says the 2020 Census should provide more clarity. 

Many of those opposed to refugee resettlement say they believe around 20,000 or 25,000 Somali people live in the area. But local researchers and experts say that estimate is likely far too high.   

“I don’t think that 25,000 is remotely close to what is possible," said Minnesota State Demographer Susan Brower, even as there's some "wiggle room" in the Census estimates. 

Central Minnesota as a whole remains by-and-large homogeneous. White residents, after all, still make up around 90 percent of the St. Cloud metro area, according to the American Community Survey.  

“While, yes, there have been changes and the population is becoming more diverse in Central Minnesota, it still lags far behind the U.S. and even Minnesota overall,” Brower said. 

The pushback to Somali refugees

As St. Cloud has grown, not all have welcomed the changes.

The city's demographic shifts have fueled anxiety and fear among some white residents. Some trace it back to the Crossroads Center stabbings in which Dahir Adan stabbed 10 people at the St. Cloud mall, but pushback preceded the 2016 attack.

Though St. Cloud has accepted refugees from around the world — including Vietnamese, Iraqi, Sudanese and Karen refugees — there has long been backlash toward Somali residents, many of whom are Muslim. 

Mosques and Somali-owned businesses have been frequent targets of vandalism. A few years ago, Somali residents reported they found pig intestines wrapped around the door handles of a halal grocery store. In June, an unknown man walked into a mosque with a dog, pulling off dog hair and throwing it on the ground — a gesture believed to play upon stereotypes that Muslims don’t like dogs.

A slate of anti-Muslim speakers has made routine stops in a few St. Cloud-area churches, restaurants and VFWs on their tours across the state. The speakers, often invited by locals activists, have spread a message that intertwines explicitly anti-Muslim rhetoric with broader concerns about immigration and the costs of refugee resettlement. 

Some St. Cloud residents have taken an outspoken role opposing refugees. A few years ago, a group of conservative anti-refugee activists in St. Cloud coalesced into a small-yet-vocal organization called Concerned Community Citizens, or C-Cubed.

Part 4:Local politics underscore deep divisions

The nativist group was formed by John Palmer in the wake of the failed 2017 refugee moratorium. The former St. Cloud State professor was one of two C-Cubed candidates who unsuccessfully ran for City Council last year, pledging to stop the refugee resettlement program, even though resettlement is governed under federal, not local law.

In recent years, Palmer has given a series of talks criticizing the cost of refugee resettlement to representatives of state and local governments. Donning red "Make St. Cloud Great Again" hats, Palmer led a group of residents around the area seeking to put a resolution on last year's city ballot calling on federal officials to stop the resettlement program — an effort that came up short with about half the signatures it needed by the city's deadline, according to Palmer. 

St. Cloud City Council member Jeff Goerger doesn't buy that C-Cubed's concerns are really about the costs. “I think I know what they want: They want people leaving the community," he said, maintaining the refugee population hasn't added to the city's budget.

Though C-Cubed says they're merely raising questions about the resettlement program, the group's leaders openly express overt anti-Muslim rhetoric: warning that Muslims are imposing Sharia law, Islam promotes violence and Muslims cannot live under the U.S. Constitution. 

"There's no such thing as Islamophobia," Palmer said in an interview with the St. Cloud Times. "Phobia is is an irrational fear. There's nothing irrational about being concerned and protecting yourself when you look at the 1,400-year history of Islam." 

“What we are questioning as far as Islam goes is the doctrine,” said C-Cubed member Liz Baklaich, on local radio show following the New York Times article.

“It's the ideology,"  she added. "I don’t hate any individual person. Hearts and minds can change. The ideology, though, I don’t know how you can change that.”

Baklaich, who ran alongside Palmer in the 2018 council elections, declined to be interviewed by the St. Cloud Times for this series. 

Some C-Cubed critics, which include some fellow conservatives, dismiss the group as "a few people sitting in a Culver's." The group has a dozen people regularly attend its meetings, but Palmer said its email list contains more than 250 people.

But others see C-Cubed's presence, as well as the litany of high-profile harassment incidents in the city, as evidence of St. Cloud's ongoing problem with hate. 

Jaylani Hussein, executive director of the Minnesota Council on American-Islamic Relations, says St. Cloud has long been the breeding ground for the state's anti-Muslim movement. 

“St. Cloud is still the epicenter of hate groups in Minnesota, especially the anti-Muslim movement,” Hussein said. “This is clear organizing that is happening. You don’t have that in Willmar.” 

In September, a panel discussion in St. Cloud about dismantling hate crimes — which included Hussein, the ACLU of Minnesota, St. Cloud police, the Minnesota Department of Human Rights and the FBI  — was postponed over safety concerns after a conservative group protested CAIR's involvement. 

More:Here's how to get involved, learn more

Other regional centers have experienced growing immigration trends in recent years. As a sizable Somali community developed in Willmar, some white residents have pushed back against the changes, but the city has been routinely praised for its inclusion and welcoming efforts.

Hussein, however, said that St. Cloud stands apart because of its large size and influence across the state. And he faults local residents, especially city leaders, for too often taking a neutral stance. 

“The silence of the normal people in St. Cloud is defeating,” he said. “What we need from St. Cloud residents is to tell people who are racist to knock it off, we are not going to accept that."

Council member Carol Lewis disagreed. She says St. Cloud has been wrongly miscast as "the poster child" of anti-refugee backlash.

"All of these folks down in the [Twin] Cities, they basically hold their nose when they talk about St. Cloud. Yet, I can tell you the same folks are there," she said. "This is everywhere.” 

Mayor Dave Kleis has also taken issue with the city's negative portrayal. He says the problem boils down to a few individuals, not the community as a whole.

“There are clearly individuals in every community ... that hate,” he said. “I think St. Cloud has done better than a lot of communities when it comes to being welcoming as a community."

He pointed to the community's response to Crossroads Center stabbings where hundreds of residents came together for a Unity Rally following the attack. Though many people were “anticipating in what a lot of cases would have been a backlash," Kleis said, "we actually didn’t see that here in St. Cloud. We actually saw a pretty united front."

Kleis also views sustained economic growth — like rising property values, upgrades to the city's bond ratings and stores like Costco moving in — as a sign of the city’s welcoming atmosphere. “Those indicators tell a different story," he said. "Those are facts. Those aren’t anecdotal." 

To move or stay

Sitting in her family's coffee shop, Farhiya recalled growing up with her high school classmates who bullied Somali students and older residents who yelled at her to leave. 

She hears the same racist taunts in St. Cloud today.  

“I have to constantly remember my identity and who I am every single time I walk out of my house,” she said. “That’s because I’m told to go back to my country. I’m told that I don’t belong here. I’m told I shouldn't be here. I’m told I take money from the government for free. I’m told I get brand-new cars from the government. I’m told I don’t pay taxes, which is ridiculous. How do you not pay taxes in America?”

In interviews with more than a dozen members of the Somali community, many shared similar experiences, telling stories about customers hurling racial epithets at them in the grocery store, residents trying to tear off their hijabs or patrons refusing to receive services from Somali workers. 

Their experiences reflect Farhiya's view that everyday encounters with discrimination remain all too common for many Somali residents. She said it's even worse for older Somali residents, especially those who can't speak English. 

When she was younger, she tried to brush off insults, holding back her emotions and going on with her day. But Farhiya said it becomes harder and harder to put up with it. 

Shamso Iman, Farhiya’s younger sister, said her family has talked about moving away. Their mother is the only one in the family who always says no. “Our family is very close. If one moves we’re all moving,” she said. 

That conversation has become even more challenging, Shamso said, because she sees progress in St. Cloud, like the drivers who stopped to help shovel her car out in the middle of a snowstorm or the customers who come into the coffee shop to ask questions and learn about her culture. 

“For me honestly, I see a difference, a huge difference,” Shamso said. “The older we get, the better it gets here.”

But Farhiya wonders if that will happen in time for her and her family to stay. 

“I would like to to be this optimist and say 'You know what? We are going to do better and we’re going to change,'” she said. “But at the same time are we going to change fast enough for us to be able to live here like everybody else?”

COMING NEXT:  Although St. Cloud continues to wrestle with racial tensions, the city has been fertile ground for efforts aimed at combating hate. Read about how residents, community groups and some city leaders have worked to spread a more inclusive message. 

How we did this project

USA Today Network reporter Austen Macalus spent two months reporting this story with the help of St. Cloud times photographers Dave Schwarz and Zach Dwyer.

Macalus relied on data from the U.S. Census' American Community Survey, the Minnesota Department of Health and the Minnesota Demographic Center. His reporting was also aided by previous coverage by St. Cloud Times journalists.

Macalus interviewed more than four dozen people, including: Somali residents, pro-refugee advocates and anti-refugee proponents; city leaders, state officials and local elected officials; researchers from the state Demographic Center and St. Cloud State University, and national experts on Islamaphobia; faith leaders, community activists and political organizers; people who’ve lived in St. Cloud most of their lives and those who recently arrived.