I fled the devastation of Somalia’s 1991 civil war. I lost everything. When I came to the United States, I came for safety and a future. For a while, life finally felt steady. I worked, I built a home, and I believed my children would grow up without the kind of fear that shaped my childhood.
But now, that old fear is rising again in Minnesota, and it is frightening how familiar it feels.
When you have lived through war, fear does not disappear. It only goes quiet when life becomes stable. And when instability returns, your body remembers before your mind can explain it. That is where I am now: trying to stay calm for my children while uncertainty keeps tightening around our days.
The reason is ICE.
There is an ongoing immigration crackdown in Minnesota, and Somali families are living under it. People are being deported. People are being taken. And what makes it even worse is this: the fear is not limited to those without status. Even people who are legally here feel unsafe, because in our community we keep hearing about stops and questioning that do not always seem to respect the difference between undocumented, documented, and fully legal.
So now I live in a way I never wanted to live again.
This is the part that breaks me most. My kids should be thinking about school, friends, books, and recess. Instead, school has become connected to fear, not learning. Some mornings I cannot send them. Not because I do not value education. I do. Education is one of the reasons I fought so hard to build a life here. But I cannot ignore what is happening around us, and I cannot ignore the warnings that move through our community every day. The fear is not just inside my head. It is in messages from friends saying be careful, avoid certain areas, do not go alone, keep your documents with you.
Imagine being a mother and realizing the safest choice, some days, feels like keeping your children home. That is what ICE has done to our routine. It has turned simple things into risk.
I hate saying this, but it is true: we carry passports. Not once in a while. Not only for travel. Not for official appointments. We carry them because we are scared of being stopped and needing to prove ourselves on the spot. It changes how you leave the house. I check the door. I check the street. I check my phone. I check our documents. And in the back of my mind there is always the same thought: what if today is the day someone asks questions and does not listen to answers?
This fear hits harder because it is older than this moment. I remember being a little girl and feeling fear as a normal part of life. I remember instability, loss, and the truth that safety can vanish without warning. I remember what it does to families. I remember the way it makes adults quiet and children watch their faces for clues.
That is why this moment is so painful. I did not come here to relive those feelings. I came here to leave them behind. But now, when I look at my children, I feel that same protective panic rising again. I worry about their future. I worry about what they are absorbing from my stress, even when I try to hide it.
Children notice everything. They notice when I change routes. They notice when I tell them to stay close. They notice when I pause before opening the door. They notice when I keep them home from school. And I hate that they are learning this kind of caution so young.
Some outsiders say, if you are here legally, you are fine. But inside the community, it does not feel that simple right now. The fear is that people can be questioned, stopped, or caught up in something even when they are lawful residents or have legal papers. That fear grows every time someone shares a story, every time someone says they asked for documents, every time someone says it happened to someone legal too. Whether every story is perfect or not, the result is real: people stop trusting normal life. People start carrying passports. People stop going out. People keep their kids home.
This is not just about immigration policy. It is about what daily fear does to human beings. It turns parents into constant guardians. It turns children into quiet observers of adult stress. It turns school into a question mark. It turns a document into a lifeline. Most of all, it turns home into something that feels temporary.
I worked hard to build a life here. I did what I was supposed to do. I believed in the promise that if you follow the rules, you can live in peace and raise your children with stability. Right now, that peace feels fragile.
I am telling my story because I want people to see what this is doing to Somali families in Minnesota. Deportations are not just removals on paper. They ripple through homes. They shake communities. They make children afraid to go to school. They force families to carry passports in their pockets like they are carrying their right to exist.
I came here to escape fear. Now my biggest wish is simple: that my children can walk to school without it.