In Worthington, fear becomes a fixture of immigrant lives as feds crack down

WORTHINGTON - The day before Katie’s fifth birthday, some official-looking men came to her family’s door. The little girl got excited, thinking it was some kind of an early present. She did not understand that the men were ICE agents.

Her older sister answered. Her mom walked to the door.

“When I got to the door and saw it wasn’t my husband, I thought to myself, ‘It’s them,’” the mother, Carolina, said in Spanish. “My biggest fear is they come and get us. What is going to happen to our children?”

That was Wednesday. On Thursday, as rumors swirled in this immigrant-heavy southwest Minnesota city about a raid at the local meatpacking plant, Katie spent her fifth birthday locked indoors with her parents and three siblings. The family, who asked that their last names not be used, said the federal agents were looking for someone who used to live there. But the visit spooked the family enough that the father didn’t go to work, and they decided against heading to a local Guatemalan store for Katie’s present.

Fear is one of the tactics as the federal government cracks down on immigration, and in Worthington, Minn., a meatpacking town of 14,000, it appears to be working.

Worthington was already on edge, watching a Trump administration that’s pledged to deport a million undocumented immigrants this year, mass protests and scattered violence nationwide after recent raids in Los Angeles followed by a militarized response, and an ICE raid Tuesday in nearby Omaha where nearly 100 employees of a meat production facility were detained.

“A reliable source in law enforcement has confirmed that this Thursday JBS will be raided,” read a note, in English and Spanish, that shot around Worthington. “They will be looking to pick up 500 people.”

No raid materialized at the JBS pork processing plant, which employs more than 2,000 people. But truth didn’t much matter in the jittery context.

Photos from the Omaha raid were portrayed online as photos from Worthington. One JBS employee estimated about 300 workers in Worthington stayed home Thursday. Day laborers working in construction and on nearby farms didn’t show up at work either. Immigration attorneys and advocates conducted a “Know Your Rights” webinar during lunch hour.

“Ever since the Omaha raid and what happened in L.A., people have been really tense,” said Andrea Duarte-Alonso, a local educator whose father works at JBS. ”What’s going to happen to local events? It’s summer. What happens with the Worthington Windsurfing Regatta this weekend? Will ICE agents be there?”

ICE has in fact increased its presence in Worthington this week, said local attorney Erin Schutte Wadzinski of Kivu Immigration Law. She confirmed at least three instances where ICE agents conducted welfare checks on children, something ICE has never done here before.

At the small home of Katie’s family, not far from the JBS plant, the birthday girl stared up at her Guatemalan father, Adrian, who has been in Worthington for 18 years. Nearby were figurines of the Last Supper and a Bible verse on the wall: “I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,” it read in Spanish.

“It’s no longer the American dream to me,” Adrian said in Spanish. “It’s turning into a nightmare.”

Anxiety spread this week in immigrant communities throughout Minnesota.

In central Minnesota, leaders at nonprofits supporting immigrants say community members are hesitant to go to their jobs or even public spaces like Walmart.

“We are worried all the time,” said Ma Elena Gutierrez, director of Fe y Justicia (Faith and Justice). “The community feels frustrated, feels worried, and — because there is so much in the news — is asking, ‘Is this going to happen here in Minnesota?’”

Even refugees from African countries here legally and with right-to-work documentation are worried if they haven’t lived in the country long enough to qualify for permanent residency status.

A restaurant owner told Abdi Ibrahim, program manager at the St. Cloud-based Center for African Immigrants and Refugees, that he was struggling to hire waiters and cashiers because “there is too much exposure in this role,” Ibrahim said.

Rebecca Hernandez, 15, will be a 10th-grader at Worthington High School next year. She plays right field for the softball team, and she loves the Mexican American singer Ivan Cornejo. She is a citizen; her Salvadoran parents are not.

“Every day I’m so worried I might not see them again,” she said. “Many times it’s just a rumor. But still I get a queasy feeling in my stomach. They’d be taking my family away from me. And who is going to work [at JBS] if they take all the workers?”

Worthington, one of the most diverse cities in Minnesota, has seen a massive demographic shift in the past generation. In 1990, 94% of the population was white. Now it’s less than half, and 44% is Hispanic, mostly from Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras and El Salvador.

“There’s 64 languages spoken here, and I can say hello in a dozen of them,” said Bill Keitel, who owns the Buffalo Billfold Co., a leather goods store where four naturalized U.S. citizens from Mexico sewed leather wallets Thursday. “There are thousands of towns this size struggling to survive. Our immigrant populations have provided the economic boost to keep this community going. We’re a red county, and we have to reconcile: Do we want workers?”

The demographic shift hasn’t always been smooth in a county that voted for President Donald Trump by more than a 2-to-1 margin in 2024. But in Worthington, the influx of immigration has spurred growth: The population is more than a third bigger than in 1990, and in the thriving downtown Tipicos Marisol, a Guatemalan clothing store specializing in elaborate sequined dresses, abuts Hers & Mine Boutique, where American flag hats and shirts nodded to the upcoming July 4 holiday. The Long Branch Saloon Dance Hall sits down the block from Top Asian Food & Deli.

Schutte Wadzinski, who was raised in Worthington and started an immigration law firm here several years ago, remembers where she was when the JBS plant was raided in 2006.

“It haunts this town,” she said.

The community has put together an emergency management plan should a raid occur. The Catholic Church serves as a sanctuary. Attorneys have worked to ensure plans are in place for children if their parents are deported.

“It’s important, especially in a community as diverse as Worthington, to understand immigration is personal and not political,” Schutte Wadzinski said. “The challenge is trying to connect the dots. There’s a disconnect between how they vote and the immigrant neighbor they know personally.”

At Tipicos Marisol, Celia Lopez sat at a sewing machine and made alterations to a dress. She escaped domestic abuse in Guatemala and crossed the Rio Grande when her youngest was 5. She’s lived in Worthington seven years.

“We work. We work,” she said in Spanish. “My kids grow up, then they work. This country means a lot to me. I felt safe here. It’s very sad. I don’t feel as protected as before.”

Her youngest child, now 16, worked beside her. He has two summer jobs: helping here plus 30 hours a week at Walmart.

“I’m a little bit afraid and desperate,” she said. “If they come and get me, what’s going to happen to my children? Honestly, I’m not sure what I would do. Do I fight it with a lawyer? But I’ve always survived. I’ll find out a way to make it.”

Jenny Berg of the Minnesota Star Tribune contributed to this story.