With customers and workers alike fearful of being detained by federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, all eight sites went on hiatus on Jan. 7, closing their doors due to plummeting sales and a lack of staffing.

Five of the family’s eateries will serve food again by the end of the week, though some will still offer take-out only and keep their doors locked to screen customers. The Los Ocampo on Arcade Street on St. Paul’s East Side, which is situated in an area heavily monitored by ICE, will remain shuttered.

“Right now we’re in survival mode,” said Ocampo on Monday, predicting smaller mom-and-pop Latin businesses will go bankrupt. “They’re hurting bad.”

As she visits with shop keepers at Hmong shopping centers, restaurant owners in the Latin and ethnic Karen communities, and immigrant grocers, St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her hears the same story again and again. Even naturalized U.S. citizens are afraid to leave their homes, fearful that they won’t have the language skills to avoid detainment by federal agents.

As a result, many immigrant businesses have reported losing 60% or more of their sales. Some have already closed their doors, scared of being raided by federal agents, or keep their shops locked so they can screen every visitor at the door.

“Closing a business happens very quickly, but starting one up can take years, which means this is going to impact us,” Her said. “Even if (ICE) were out of here in another couple of months, this is going to have a lasting economic impact.”

Shop Local, Stand Together campaign

With rents and utilities coming due but little income in sight, some restaurants, grocers, hair salons and other immigrant-owned businesses have turned to the online fundraising platform GoFundMe.com to appeal to the public for help.

Taqueria El Charrito, which closed its doors in early January, is “a beloved, family-owned restaurant on the West Side of St. Paul that has served as a gathering place for the local Latino community,” reads a GoFundMe solicitation created by a longtime customer. “It has provided not only food, but jobs, stability, and cultural connection.”

“For many of the workers at El Charrito, missing even one paycheck can mean falling behind on rent, losing access to food, or facing housing insecurity,” reads the posting, which is being shared on Facebook. “The financial strain is becoming overwhelming.”

With their workers and personal livelihoods in mind, more than 1,000 chefs and restaurant owners have signed an open letter to Congress pleading for an end to Operation Metro Surge and a reform of ICE operations. That letter was delivered to the Senate last Thursday by U.S. Sen. Tina Smith.

‘Shop Local’

Alarmed by plummeting sales at neighborhood shops and immigrant-owned businesses during Operation Metro Surge, the St. Paul mayor recently joined leaders of the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic and Development and the Minneapolis Foundation to promote the governor’s “Shop Local, Stand Together” campaign.

Gov. Tim Walz has declared February “Shop Local” month in hopes of spurring customers who feel safe doing so to spend their dollars at locally-owned businesses, including ethnic grocers and restaurants that have lost customers nervous about leaving home.

“Supporting local, small, and immigrant-owned businesses is an act of community support and an investment in the dignity, stability, and vitality of our neighborhoods and local economies,” reads the gubernatorial proclamation, issued toward the end of January.

“Support doesn’t have to be complicated; it can start with where you shop and eat,” it goes on to say. “Simply showing up and making a purchase is significant, and people in Minnesota who feel safe doing so can play a meaningful role in strengthening their communities by prioritizing local businesses … and encouraging others to do the same.”

Economic Response Fund

Along a similar vein, the Minneapolis Foundation has launched an Economic Response Fund, readying an initial $4 million for grants to support impacted small businesses in St. Paul and Minneapolis with payroll, rent, staffing and inventory needs.

The fund, which may grow in time, is backed by 28 Minnesota companies, including Allianz, Allina Health, CHS, Ecolab, General Mills, Land O’ Lakes, Securian Financial, Target and Xcel Energy.

Grants will be distributed through community organizations, with further details soon to be announced. Business owners interested in learning more can visit the foundation website at minneapolisfoundation.org.

The foundation is asking companies and individuals to contribute to the fund at mplsfdn.org/erf.

Ethnic restaurants, markets

To promote both efforts, Her, DEED Commissioner Matt Varilek and Minneapolis Foundation President and Chief Executive Officer R.T. Rybak met with representatives of the Neighborhood Development Center and a series of ethnic restaurants and markets on Jan. 29 at the Los Ocampo site on Dale Street and University avenue.

Officials were joined by the founders of the Afro Deli restaurants, CentroMex grocery on St. Paul’s East Side, the Mexican restaurant Oro by Nixta in Minneapolis, World Street Kitchen in Minneapolis, La Michoacana desserts and The Perfect Coffee on St. Paul’s Rice Street.

The business owners noted that immigrants are, often by necessity, heavily driven entrepreneurs, leaning on family and ethnic networks to launch small businesses that become the lifeblood of neighborhood business corridors. Without them, entire neighborhoods may suffer.

It wasn’t lost on them that the economic crisis unfolding for ethnic entrepreneurs during Operation Metro Surge is like a localized earthquake that tears some businesses apart while leaving others standing, seemingly oblivious.

The pandemic, and to a lesser extent the racially-tinged riots of 2020, “affected the whole world,” Ocampo said. “It didn’t matter your skin color or your accent. Now, it’s based on skin color and accent.”

For some business owners, there are hints of normalcy on the horizon, at least here and there. On Tuesday, after being out of service for a month, the Los Ocampo near the University of St. Thomas on Marshall Avenue in St. Paul was scheduled to flip its lights back on, the latest in a series of gradual re-openings for the family-run chain.

Still, a hair salon in a property the Ocampo family owns on Lake Street in Minneapolis has yet to welcome back customers, or pay its January rent.

“Every small business on Lake Street that’s a mom-and-pop, those are the ones I think are going to hurt really bad,” Ocampo said.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security claims that ICE has more than 1,360 arrest detainers for “criminal illegal aliens” in their custody, or wanted individuals released by state prisons into the community instead of into federal control.

“They are not random and they are not political,” said Greg Bovino, U.S. Border Patrol head, during a Tuesday press conference about the detentions. “They are about removing criminals who are actively harming Minneapolis neighborhoods.”

State officials push back on ICE claims

However, officials with the Minnesota Department of Corrections don’t agree, calling the numbers grossly inflated — evidence of what they call “operational incompetence” at best or, at worst, “deliberate propaganda designed to inflame public fear rather than inform it.”

In fact, non-citizens in the state prison system measure in the hundreds, not the thousands, according to state officials, who have repeatedly called federal tallies incorrect.

The state Department of Corrections issued a lengthy and strongly-worded written statement Wednesday pushing back on multiple DHS claims that it says conflate state prison operations with those of county jails and federal enforcement activity, reflecting “a fundamental misunderstanding of Minnesota’s correctional system.”

“DHS claims that ‘ICE has more than 1,360 arrest detainers for the criminal illegal aliens in their custody,’ yet has provided no methodology, jurisdictional breakdown, or time frame explaining how they arrived at this number,” reads the statement.

Violent offenders

The Department of Corrections took a closer look at 37 individuals highlighted in news releases issued by DHS over the past month. In each written release, DHS claimed the violent offender was now in custody as a result of the federal crackdown that began around Jan. 4, no thanks to the state.

In reality, according to the Department of Corrections, most of those individuals were never in the custody of the state prison system, though some were in fact transferred from a state prison to ICE, as requested through an immigration detainer.

DHS “has not identified a single instance where DOC released someone in violation of an ICE detainer,” reads the statement from the Department of Corrections. “DHS’s ‘Worst of the Worst’ lists include numerous individuals with no Minnesota prison custody and, in many cases, no Minnesota criminal record.”

Some entries, in fact, appear to be cases of mistaken identity, reflecting similar names that do not match mugshots and other identifiers provided by DHS.

While individual county sheriffs and county jails may operate under separate arrangements with ICE, state law requires the Department of Corrections to notify ICE when a person committed to the state prison system is not a U.S. citizen.

As a result, according to the department, “DOC also honors all ICE detainers and coordinates transfers when ICE requests pickup. ICE alone determines whether to place a detainer and is responsible for arranging custody transfer.”

In some cases, ICE released the individual back into the community, according to the state.

The Department of Corrections called on DHS to explain its data sources and clean up its “Worst of the Worst” lists to “accurately reflect verifiable Minnesota criminal histories and DOC custody status.”

Both federal immigration officials and the state Department of Corrections plan on holding press conferences Thursday where the issue is likely to be revisited.

“They were getting ready for work, and all of a sudden their house was surrounded by men with drawn guns saying, ‘Oh, it’s OK. It’s just some paperwork that needs to be fixed. Just open the door,’” said Graupman, executive director of the International Institute of Minnesota.

The mother did as she was told, and her 20-year-old son was immediately removed from the home, the latest in a growing number of planned detentions involving recent immigrants with lawful refugee status who have applied for but not yet received their permanent residency, otherwise known as their Green Cards.

Before long, Graupman said a distraught Sudanese family arrived at the International Institute with a similar story — their son was gone.

Transported to Texas

The refugees are quickly transported to the Whipple Federal Building at Fort Snelling, “and within 24 hours, they’re taking them to Texas, with no due process, no access to an attorney, and no clarification of what’s going on,” Graupman said.

Graupman, whose St. Paul-based nonprofit helps resettle refugees in Minnesota, received an explanatory memo on the matter from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security less than a week ago. DHS, it said, is “reexamining” the refugee status of 5,600 Minnesotans who have entered the country legally but have not yet been granted their Green Cards, which provide proof of permanent residency for non-citizens.

The pipeline cases, according to the memo, will be put through “vetting enhancements,” including fresh background checks, re-interviews and merit reviews — all part of Operation PARRIS, or “Post-Admission Refugee Reverification and Integrity Strengthening,” an offshoot of the federal fraud investigations that got underway last year in Minnesota.

The memo says Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, will be heavily involved in the process, but it makes no specific mention of planned arrests. Another Twin Cities-based nonprofit, the Advocates for Human Rights in Minneapolis, estimated that as of early this past week at least 100 people had been detained.

“Minnesota is ground zero for the war on fraud,” reads the Jan. 9 memo from DHS. “This operation in Minnesota demonstrates that the Trump administration will not stand idly by as the U.S. immigration system is weaponized by those seeking to defraud the American people. American citizens and the rule of law come first, always.”

The efforts build on a presidential executive order issued last January and a presidential proclamation from last June that require federal agencies “to identify and implement new vetting enhancements to safeguard the nation from foreign terrorists and other public safety threats.”

‘They took my son, they took my husband’

How Operation PARRIS has played out this past week for clients of the International Institute, Graupman said, has been nothing short of terrifying, with no evident focus to her on any one ethnicity or particular country of origin. Despite the stated goal of keeping Americans safe, criminal history, or the lack thereof, appears irrelevant, she said.

“Today we’ve probably had a dozen families that have been impacted by this,” said Graupman on Tuesday. “We’ve had people walk in all week, and they say, ‘they took my son, they took my husband.’ It started this weekend.”

The target — 5,600 Green Card applicants — roughly reflects the number of refugee arrivals in Minnesota in the past three years, Graupman said, and those individuals have already been through a gauntlet of some 14 to 15 health and background checks to enter the country.

“They’re inferring that they’re fraudulent applications, but I have a hard time believing that because of the thorough screening that people go through to get here,” Graupman said. “They have biometric scanning, DHS checks, FBI checks, USCIS checks. The checks go on and on and on.”

She added: “These are people here with legal status. What the common denominator seems to be with all these families is they haven’t been in the country that long. The Trump administration has a list of 40 countries they’re not processing Green Card applications for. They’re on pause.”

Growing restrictions

Those restrictions are growing. The Trump administration announced this past week that it would suspend immigrant visas from 75 countries, including Afghanistan, Iran, Russia and Somalia, beginning Jan. 21.

In an interview Wednesday, a woman who has been living in Minneapolis since civil war reignited in her home country of Sudan in 2023 said ICE agents came to her parking lot on Friday and photographed her car. Five agents returned Monday and stationed themselves at her front door, back door and window, asking to be let in.

The woman, who said she has been trying to fix a typo showing an erroneous date of entry to the U.S. on her Green Card, declined to open the door and demanded to see a warrant signed by a judge. After repeating their demands, the agents said they would return.

“We were so scared because we were at home and the kids are at school,” said the woman, who lives with her brother’s family, including four children. “If something happened to us, we don’t know what would happen to the kids.”

Ethnic Karen refugees living in fear

George Thawmoo, a co-chair of the Karen Organization of Minnesota, said there’s a number of reasons why refugees might not apply for a Green Card within a year of arriving in the U.S., as required by immigration law, or might fail to file to get their Green Card renewed. Some immigrants are simply overwhelmed by the experience of moving to a new country, they’ve lost supporting paperwork, or they fear and don’t understand the system.

Those issues amount to paperwork errors that could be easily be corrected, he said, and have nothing to do with national security.

He said ICE agents removed an ethnic Karen man from a laundromat and transported him to federal detention. They followed another Karen man home from a son’s haircut appointment on Saturday and gained entry into his apartment complex in St. Paul, where they asked to interview his wife, a mother of four children who has lived in the U.S. since 2024.

Shortly after the man let them in, she was detained and flown out of state for processing. She leaves behind a 4-month-old baby, and clearly not by choice, he said.

“She’s in Houston now,” Thawmoo said.

Neighbors and other observers in the area blew whistles, honked horns and yelled outrage, with some recording the detention from a distance, but the agents — wearing military-style fatigues and equipment — got the 57-year-old into a vehicle and drove away.

“ICE drove him around for nearly an hour, questioned him, and fingerprinted him,” said his sister-in-law, Louansee Moua, in a social media post shared widely on Facebook. “Only after all of that did they realize he had no criminal history and no reason to be detained. They then dropped him back off at his apartment like nothing happened.”

“We believe they were looking for someone who previously lived there, but instead of asking for identification, they chose violence, intimidation, and humiliation,” she wrote.

In a subsequent interview, Moua said the family has lived in the location for two years and were not ICE’s intended targets.

A review of court records shows Thao has no criminal record in Minnesota.

Federal authorities say they were looking for sex offenders

A reporter’s email inquiry to an ICE Midwest field office was not immediately returned on Monday, but Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, shared an explanatory message on X claiming the agents were looking for two convicted sex offenders who both have final orders of removal from an immigration judge.

The two offenders — “the definition of the WORST OF THE WORST” wrote DHS on X — were identified as Lue Moua, who is wanted for sexual assault of a minor, rape, kidnapping, and domestic violence, and Kongmeng Vang, who is wanted for sexual assault and gang activity.

“The US citizen lives with these two convicted sex offenders at the site of the operation,” she wrote. “Both of these sexual predators remain AT LARGE in St. Paul. We will be providing the public with photos and descriptors to help us locate and apprehend these public safety threats.”

Moua said her brother-in-law, who lives on St. Paul’s East Side, has never committed a crime, and was still in mourning from losing his elderly mother around Christmas. “They live alone,” she said.

Naturalized citizen

Thao’s mother, Choua Thao, had been a renowned nurse during the Laotian Civil War, she said, where she was one of the first Hmong medical professionals to assist Americans and to be trained by the CIA during the “Secret War.” She helped run two hospitals that tended to American soldiers and Laotians alike.

She delivered a pair of premature twins and adopted one of them — ChongLy “Saly” Thao — while giving his twin sister to another nurse to raise.

“Choua ensured all her children became naturalized U.S. citizens,” Moua wrote. “She believed deeply in doing things the right way, in protecting life, dignity, and family. To see her son treated like this, in front of family, with weapons drawn, is beyond traumatic. This is not about politics. This is about basic human rights, due process, and accountability.”

Moua said she has since contacted the ACLU, the Minnesota Attorney General’s office and left emails and messages with multiple attorneys.

She’s also created a GoFundMe account to help cover legal and health costs for her brother-in-love, who suffers from severe psoriasis. As of noon on Monday, the online fundraiser had raised about $12,000 at tinyurl.com/ChongLy2026.

“No family should experience this,” she wrote. “No child should witness this. And no U.S. citizen should be treated this way.”

Last month, the Trump administration suspended Temporary Protected Status for Somali immigrants in Minnesota — of which there are estimated to be around 400. Now immigration enforcement actions are expected in the Twin Cities for those with deportation orders.

Kassim Busuri, a former appointee to the St. Paul City Council who was born in Somalia, described the planned enforcement action as a political stunt, as only a few hundred of the 80,000 or so Somalis in Minnesota have TPS.

“We know Donald Trump is just playing with emotions. The numbers he’s thinking about, about illegal immigration and criminals — ask the police department. Most will say Somalis are model citizens and role models,” said Busuri, who is a volunteer executive director at the Minnesota Da’wah Institute, a Muslim community organization.

‘Division and chaos’

Around 73% of Somali immigrants are naturalized U.S. citizens, per the U.S. Census Bureau. Jaylani Hussein with the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Minnesota told the Associated Press that 95% of Somalis in the state were U.S. citizens.

At a Tuesday Cabinet meeting, Trump called Somali immigrants “garbage,” saying they “contribute nothing,” and that he didn’t want them in the U.S.

“Their country is no good for a reason,” said Trump, who has blamed Somali immigrants and Gov. Tim Walz for fraud in Minnesota.

The planned sweeps and Trump’s suspension of TPS come after an unconfirmed report that fraud funds in Minnesota may have ended up funding a terrorist group in Somalia. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent on Monday said the matter is now under investigation by his department.

“Everything is being put into the media to make us look bad,” Busuri said. “He’s pitting the community against each other. Trump is trying to start a ruckus in Minnesota, and cause division and chaos, as usual.”

Former Acting U.S. Attorney Joe Thompson has said fraud in recent years could top $1 billion. Nearly 80 individuals have been charged in the Feeding Our Future case involving as much as $250 million in federal pandemic relief money administered by the state Department of Education. A number of the defendants in that case are Somali.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota also is prosecuting fraud cases in autism and housing stabilization service programs funded by Medicare and administered by the Minnesota Department of Human Services.

Local response

On Tuesday, state and local leaders, including Walz, St. Paul Mayor Melvin Carter and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, pushed back against what they have called the demonization of Somalis by Trump.

“Targeting Somali people means that due process will be violated. Mistakes will be made. And let’s be clear, it means that American citizens will be detained for no other reason than the fact that they look like they are Somali,” Frey said. “For decades, the Somali community has added greatly to our city. The economic fabric, their hard work, their leadership. It has made Minneapolis a better place.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has described the Trump administration’s recent targeting of Somalis as “political scapegoating.”

Amina Deble, came to the U.S. 25 years ago and, like many Minnesota-based members of Somalia’s diaspora, became a citizen a few years later. Deble owns the Oasis Mediterranean restaurant in the West Bank/Cedar-Riverside neighborhood of Minneapolis and raised six kids to adulthood in Minnesota.

“I just want to say thank you to the governor and the mayor, Jacob Frey, all the leaders who are standing up for the rights of Somalis,” she said. “If there’s fraud in this community, there’s specific people who did that, and for those specific people, we’re more than happy for them to face the law, just like other Americans.”

Deble noted that, like her, many Somali immigrants in Minnesota are naturalized U.S. citizens and have little to worry about.

“I don’t think they will have fear,” she said. “Those who aren’t, I think they’ll go through the law. The governor has already spoken about this, the mayor, others.”

ICE raids

The upcoming Twin Cities immigration sweep follows higher-profile immigration raids this year in the Twin Cities, which drew protests and resulted in clashes between demonstrators and police. Two November raids in St. Paul resulted in law enforcement using chemical spray and rubber bullets.

St. Paul has a separation ordinance barring the city from working with federal immigration enforcement, though last week, the St. Paul Police Department responded to a protest during an immigration raid on the city’s East Side.

Carter said his office was working with city police to work on “facilitating peaceful protests” in the future.

“The last thing that we need is federal agents coming to town attempting to turn us against each other … to turn us against ourselves,” the mayor said at a news conference Tuesday with Frey. “The last thing we need is federal agents coming in town to create chaos and challenge for us.”

Carter urged anyone with concerns in St. Paul to reach out to immigrant and refugee services, a list of which the City Attorney’s Office compiles on the city’s website.

Ramsey County sheriff: ‘We don’t do immigration enforcement’

Ramsey County Sheriff Bob Fletcher said his agency hasn’t been involved with any recent immigration raids or protests, but that his office is in the process of reviewing recent events to develop a policy on how deputies should approach potential future incidents.

Fletcher said his agency patrols six cities that contract with the county, and that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could eventually show up in one of them — like Arden Hills, Little Canada or Vadnais Heights.

“We don’t do immigration enforcement,” Fletcher said. “We have very little — really — very little contact with ICE, but we want to be prepared for when an incident does occur.”

Asked about the Trump administration’s plans for targeted enforcement action against Somalis, Fletcher said he believed only a “very small number” would be affected.

“To my knowledge, there are very few Somalis who aren’t citizens,” he said. “I’m guessing ICE is also targeting other communities.”

Somalis in Minnesota

The first Somali refugees started to arrive in Minnesota after the collapse of the regime of President Siad Barre in 1991 and an ensuing civil war that forced close to a million Somalis to leave the country. Many still live in refugee camps in Kenya.

Minnesota became a popular destination for Somali refugees for several reasons, including quality of education, safety and affordability compared to other regions of the U.S., according to Jane Graupman, executive director of the International Institute of Minnesota.

Once a few families were in the state, more were attracted to the area. Many Somalis had first moved to the U.S. and later relocated to Minnesota. Church communities were particularly welcoming to Somali immigrants and played a significant role in helping them resettle.

“I think they felt supported by this community,” said Graupman, who has worked for the International Institute for 36 years. “They definitely found Minnesota to be a place where they thought that there was a future for their families and their community.”

Lutheran Social Services of Minnesota, Catholic Charities and the Minnesota Council of Churches were among the faith-based groups that helped. The International Institute also played a role.

Today, there are around 80,000 Somalis living in Minnesota, more than in any other state. The vast majority live in the Twin Cities, and most are citizens.

“Across sectors, they’re very integrated into our community,” said Graupman, noting large Somali participation in the health care workforce among other fields. “To have a president say Somalis are contributing nothing to our country — it couldn’t be further from the truth.”

So she hauled in bricks and dirt. She planted flowers. And then she added stones. And kept adding. And for three decades hence, her stone tapestry grew and grew.

”I’m a rock lover,” said Logan, a former cotton sharecropper from Mississippi, in her signature southern twang on Tuesday. “I’m not going to lie. If I see a rock I like, I try and roll it in my car on a 2-by-4.”

Her art-driven installation has grown so large, the front of her home in the 1300 block of Sherburne Avenue has commanded the attention of the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections, and not in a good way.

According to a written notice, a city legislative hearing officer will address the city council on Dec. 6 and recommend that Logan be given until Dec. 22 to clean up the boulevard items, specifically the “planters, wood, metal cans, large rocks and miscellaneous debris” recently cited by a DSI inspector.

‘I’ve never had a complaint’

Based on her conversation with the visiting inspector about three weeks ago, Logan takes that to mean even the decorative, freestanding bench she placed atop a raised mound of soil along her boulevard must go. That strikes her as unfair, given the number of benches, statues and knee-high or even waist-high planters she’s spotted in boulevards throughout other parts of the city, including some city-owned structures.

“I have never had a complaint,” Logan said. “When the inspector came around, he must have had a bad day.”

While her yard itself appears safe from city regulators, for now, though Logan said she’s readying to hire an attorney if that should change. Still, Logan recently appealed the city’s abatement order for her boulevard in her careful handwriting, filling six pages of short spiral notebook paper.

In them, she explained she is 70 years old, and that the stones on her boulevard don’t extend into the street and wouldn’t be of issue to plow trucks and city vehicles, one of the concerns raised to her by the DSI employee.

“I just want to make a stand for the next person,” said Logan, interrupted by a supportive honk and wave from a neighbor driving by. “I’m from down south. I don’t know how to bring it down to finesse. I’m just saying what I’m feeling.”

City asks residents to remove obstructions

Logan was out on her boulevard on Tuesday, sweeping up soil and removing stones and decorative drift wood by hand. Still, she said she was taken aback that her neighbors up and down the street also received letters from DSI telling them to remove potted plants from the boulevard, even though their large plastic pots appeared no more than 18 inches tall or thereabouts.

“Approximately 16 other properties on Sherburne also received letters advising them to remove obstructions from the boulevard, in accordance with city code,” said Casey Rodriguez, a DSI spokesman, in an email on Tuesday. “Generally boulevards should be clear of installations or obstructions (benches, large rocks, etc.) that would impede access to buried utility lines. This also keeps the tree roots clear and provides a place to shovel snow in the winter.”

On its website, the city of St. Paul indicates that plantings can grow up to 36 inches without a permit, provided they do not hang over the sidewalk, curb or street. Within 30 feet of an intersection, 10 feet of a street section with no parking lanes, or five feet of an alley or driveway, the height limit is 18 inches.

Based on that policy, it would seem that several of the freestanding items in both Logan and her neighbors’ boulevard gardens could arguably pass muster with City Hall, though that’s not entirely clear.

Petition in support

In early November, a petition in support of Logan drew 150 signatures “in just a few hours,” according to a written statement from Justin Lewandowski, a community organizer with the Hamline-Midway Coalition.

Lewandowski, who lives within walking distance of Iris, said the discontent speaks to a larger issue of communication with City Hall and the city’s neighborhood services. He’s hopeful the council will soon clarify rules around portable planters in boulevards.

“From my understanding after a conversation with the inspector, no structure whatsoever is allowed,” said Lewandwoski on Wednesday.

“Given the boulevard art has been in place for close to 30 years without prior issues, we ask for consideration of a grandfathering provision that would exempt Iris’s boulevard from certain regulations,” reads the petition. “The quick support from our neighbors has been a clear signal of how much this art means to our community. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about our identity and how we, as residents, engage with each other and with city policy.”

Dec. 6 meeting

Some city officials on Tuesday predicted that the Dec. 6 discussion with the city council might touch on whether to offer Logan more time to remove her boulevard stones, likely until after spring thaw.

Logan hopes they’re right.

“I said to that (hearing officer), don’t you know once the snow falls, the rock freezes to the ground?” said Logan on Tuesday, appearing at once resigned and resolute in front of the remaining stones in her boulevard.

“This shall pass. I’m over it,” she said, adding later: “I’m going to the City Hall meeting on Dec. 6.”

So she hauled in bricks and dirt. She planted flowers. And then she added stones. And kept adding. And for three decades hence, her stone tapestry grew and grew.

”I’m a rock lover,” said Logan, a former cotton sharecropper from Mississippi, in her signature southern twang on Tuesday. “I’m not going to lie. If I see a rock I like, I try and roll it in my car on a 2-by-4.”

Her art-driven installation has grown so large, the front of her home in the 1300 block of Sherburne Avenue has commanded the attention of the St. Paul Department of Safety and Inspections, and not in a good way.

According to a written notice, a city legislative hearing officer will address the city council on Dec. 6 and recommend that Logan be given until Dec. 22 to clean up the boulevard items, specifically the “planters, wood, metal cans, large rocks and miscellaneous debris” recently cited by a DSI inspector.

‘I’ve never had a complaint’

Based on her conversation with the visiting inspector about three weeks ago, Logan takes that to mean even the decorative, freestanding bench she placed atop a raised mound of soil along her boulevard must go. That strikes her as unfair, given the number of benches, statues and knee-high or even waist-high planters she’s spotted in boulevards throughout other parts of the city, including some city-owned structures.

“I have never had a complaint,” Logan said. “When the inspector came around, he must have had a bad day.”

While her yard itself appears safe from city regulators, for now, though Logan said she’s readying to hire an attorney if that should change. Still, Logan recently appealed the city’s abatement order for her boulevard in her careful handwriting, filling six pages of short spiral notebook paper.

In them, she explained she is 70 years old, and that the stones on her boulevard don’t extend into the street and wouldn’t be of issue to plow trucks and city vehicles, one of the concerns raised to her by the DSI employee.

“I just want to make a stand for the next person,” said Logan, interrupted by a supportive honk and wave from a neighbor driving by. “I’m from down south. I don’t know how to bring it down to finesse. I’m just saying what I’m feeling.”

City asks residents to remove obstructions

Logan was out on her boulevard on Tuesday, sweeping up soil and removing stones and decorative drift wood by hand. Still, she said she was taken aback that her neighbors up and down the street also received letters from DSI telling them to remove potted plants from the boulevard, even though their large plastic pots appeared no more than 18 inches tall or thereabouts.

“Approximately 16 other properties on Sherburne also received letters advising them to remove obstructions from the boulevard, in accordance with city code,” said Casey Rodriguez, a DSI spokesman, in an email on Tuesday. “Generally boulevards should be clear of installations or obstructions (benches, large rocks, etc.) that would impede access to buried utility lines. This also keeps the tree roots clear and provides a place to shovel snow in the winter.”

On its website, the city of St. Paul indicates that plantings can grow up to 36 inches without a permit, provided they do not hang over the sidewalk, curb or street. Within 30 feet of an intersection, 10 feet of a street section with no parking lanes, or five feet of an alley or driveway, the height limit is 18 inches.

Based on that policy, it would seem that several of the freestanding items in both Logan and her neighbors’ boulevard gardens could arguably pass muster with City Hall, though that’s not entirely clear.

Petition in support

In early November, a petition in support of Logan drew 150 signatures “in just a few hours,” according to a written statement from Justin Lewandowski, a community organizer with the Hamline-Midway Coalition.

Lewandowski, who lives within walking distance of Iris, said the discontent speaks to a larger issue of communication with City Hall and the city’s neighborhood services. He’s hopeful the council will soon clarify rules around portable planters in boulevards.

“From my understanding after a conversation with the inspector, no structure whatsoever is allowed,” said Lewandwoski on Wednesday.

“Given the boulevard art has been in place for close to 30 years without prior issues, we ask for consideration of a grandfathering provision that would exempt Iris’s boulevard from certain regulations,” reads the petition. “The quick support from our neighbors has been a clear signal of how much this art means to our community. It’s not just about aesthetics; it’s about our identity and how we, as residents, engage with each other and with city policy.”

Dec. 6 meeting

Some city officials on Tuesday predicted that the Dec. 6 discussion with the city council might touch on whether to offer Logan more time to remove her boulevard stones, likely until after spring thaw.

Logan hopes they’re right.

“I said to that (hearing officer), don’t you know once the snow falls, the rock freezes to the ground?” said Logan on Tuesday, appearing at once resigned and resolute in front of the remaining stones in her boulevard.

“This shall pass. I’m over it,” she said, adding later: “I’m going to the City Hall meeting on Dec. 6.”