ST. PETER, Minn. — Pastors read Bible verses and a choir sang hymns, giving it the feel of a standard church service. The timing, social-justice themed scriptures, and songs and excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.’s writings set it apart. 

While demonstrators marched in downtown Minneapolis and businesses closed across Minnesota in protest against Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Trinity Lutheran in St. Peter and other Minnesota churches opened their doors for prayer Friday.

These services, held by dozens of Christian congregations in Greater Minnesota and the Twin Cities, coincided with “ICE Out of Minnesota: Day of Truth & Freedom,” a day of pause from regular activity, organized by faith leaders, unions and community groups. 

Related: Minnesota protesters brave subzero temps to oppose federal immigration enforcement

During a time when community members are feeling real fear, said Trinity pastor Scott Kershner, churches showed a commitment to the common good. “It’s to provide an opportunity for people to gather, to gain hope from coming together, to lift up our neighbors and support one another in a challenging time,” he said.

Church leaders respond to ICE activity

Some leaders of mainstream churches have been actively responding to Operation Metro Surge, the Trump administration’s largest immigration crackdown yet. After an ICE agent killed Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis on Jan. 7, ISAIAH, a coalition of faith organizations, organized vigils and demonstrations.

About 100 clergy members got arrested Friday after an ICE Out demonstration at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. They chose the airport because ICE’s deportation flights take off from there, and clergy wanted airlines to call for an end to the federal government’s operation in Minnesota.

As outspoken as many Minnesota church leaders are against ICE, protestors also recently targeted a church where an ICE official reportedly serves as a pastor. Three activists were charged by the Trump administration after a demonstration at Cities Church in St. Paul. 

Related: St. Paul’s Women with Walkers protest ‘the best way we can.’

Friday’s service at Trinity Lutheran, part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, wasn’t a protest or rally, Kershner said, but rather a way to hold space for spiritual support. Nine clergy members from area churches came together for the event.

John Odegard, pastor at Grace Lutheran in Mankato, said in an email that a service at his church on Friday was in part a response to the increasing number of people who are upset about ICE’s tactics.

“People in our community are afraid to do normal things because they do not know if they will be racially profiled as they simply try to go about their day,” he stated. “In addition, there are many in our community who have expressed to me that they feel helpless to do something meaningful in the face of so much hurt.”

Mankato and St. Peter, like other Greater Minnesota cities, saw spikes in ICE activity after Operation Metro Surge launched in December. Some St. Peter residents are afraid to leave their homes right now, said Bill Nelsen, a retired pastor who attended Friday’s service.

“We have people who are watching out for each other, and particularly for our Hispanic and East African folks,” he said.

Nelsen co-founded St. Peter’s Good Neighbor Diversity Council with Mohamed Abdikadir, a local imam. The community group, under new officers, recently voted to create an emergency response fund to support the needs of residents from vulnerable communities.

‘Foundational’ work

Spaces for prayer are important amid all the hurt that Minnesotans are feeling, Odegaard said. A church can be a space for grieving, hope and resilience.

“My hope is that we will also be able to provide a little push for people to take even small actions of love toward their neighbors,” he said. “That active love is central to my faith, and it is what will help lead us forward. Faith should be a catalyst for a changed life, one that is focused on loving others in tangible ways.”

As in St. Peter, services in Mankato, including one at Hilltop United Methodist, came together through a group effort from congregants and faith leaders. Other congregations scheduled services in Minneapolis, St. Paul and surrounding suburbs, plus Rochester, Duluth, Moorhead and other Greater Minnesota cities.

In the 1960s, Nelsen served as a Civil Rights activist in Alabama under King’s leadership. Friday’s service included readings from King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” reminding Nelsen of the Civil Rights leader’s eternal hope for common good.

“You don’t give up,” he said. “You keep working on it in any way you can.” 

Among the scriptures at Friday’s service, a passage from Leviticus stated its readers “shall not oppress the alien.” The alien, it continued, “shall be to you as the native-born among you; you shall love the alien as yourself.” 

A faith leader representing more conservative Christian churches also cited scripture in calling for compassion toward immigrants. Lucas Woodford, a Minnesota district president of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, pointed to verses from the Book of Matthew about loving a neighbor as yourself and welcoming strangers in a public letter following Good’s death. 

Church teachings can equip people for moments like now, said Elizabeth O’Sullivan, pastor at the Congregational United Church of Christ and Spirituality Center in Austin. She led a service at her church Friday.

“It seems very foundational to the church to respond when our community members are afraid and literally hungry,” she said. 

She geared her service toward children, aiming to be a night of fun and connection for people who desperately needed it. Prayers focused on calls for peace, for a time when people can live without fear and with dignity, and for a place where might doesn’t equal right, she said.

“These are really divided times,” O’Sullivan said. “There’s room to have different ideas about what would constitute a good immigration policy, and still say this is too much.”

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Unlike some of her peers, Jessica Herod has not had staff detained by federal immigration agents, hecklers defecate in front of her door, or armed state investigators entering her daycare. 

Still, Herod is worried. She is co-founder and chief operating officer of Olu’s Beginnings, a child care center in North Minneapolis where 75% of the children enrolled depend on federal funding. 

Earlier this month, the Trump administration announced that it suspended $467 million in annual payments to Minnesota that enable low-income parents to access child care. The unprecedented federal funding freeze, which is now tied up in court, “would affect me significantly,” Herod said. “I would have to do layoffs and merge classrooms.”

Ever since Nick Shirley uploaded a YouTube video, produced with assistance from Minnesota House Republicans, claiming that Somali immigrants in Minneapolis take taxpayer money to run phony daycares, the state’s child care industry — one not exactly known before for fanning the flames of political conflict — has been in survival mode.

“Over the last few weeks, we have been so demonized,” said Dawn Uribe, who runs four Spanish immersion preschools under the name Mis Amigos. “It’s been heartbreaking.”

Here is a breakdown of the immediate and long-term obstacles for Minnesota’s child care centers and the families that use them. 

What is it like now to run a child care facility in Minnesota?

It was a week ago, Uribe said, that Immigration and Customs Enforcement grabbed a Mis Amigos’ facilities and maintenance specialist from a suburban Home Depot and tossed him into a van.

According to Uribe, the employee, whom she declined to name for publication, was flown to Texas and awaits a bond hearing. Uribe said that the employee has legal working papers. A message left with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement about the arrest was not returned. 

Other day care centers reported that employees are scared to show up for work and parents do not want to drop off their children because of ICE agents.

“People are terrified,” said Clare Sanford, chair of government relations for the Minnesota Child Care Association.

ICE, of course, has hit many areas of Minnesota’s economy. But day care centers face added challenges. 

Shirley, a right-wing content creator and self-described citizen journalist, purported to show nine different day care centers that collected public money without providing child care. 

But the Department of Children Youth and Families, the state agency that administers taxpayer money toward child care programs, responded that the daycare centers Shirley profiled are, in fact, caring for children. 

Nonetheless, child care operators have faced bomb threats and copycat videographers in front of their facilities. 

One operator claimed that a car circled their clinic, a man jumped out of the vehicle, defecated on the sidewalk in front of the entrance, and drove away. 

(Most child care operators declined to use their name for this story, because they fear reprisal. One said that her sibling — a federal government employee — warned her, “We’re in a really scary place right now so just bite your tongue.”)

On Jan. 2, the Department of Children Youth and Families (DCYF) emailed child care providers, “We are aware that some licensed child care centers have received harassing or threatening communications following recent media coverage” and counseled providers to reach out to local law enforcement.

(The defecation victim did reach out to the St. Paul Police Department, which is investigating the incident.)

But despite exonerating the care centers in the Shirley video, on Jan. 6 DCYF initiated site visits to investigate facilities across the state. DCYF took the extraordinary step of partnering with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension on the probes. 

Some child care clinics have chafed at the use of Bureau of Criminal Apprehension site investigators, which they say has led to the spectacle of state agents brandishing firearms in a daycare as they comb through invoices and children’s attendance records. 

Mike Ernster, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said “that agents are armed as per BCA policy as a regular part of their duty as licensed police officers in Minnesota. However, our agents were there to interact with the business owners and staff supporting DCYF administrative inspections, not to interact with the children.”

What about the federal payment freeze?

Let’s first explain how this funding normally works. 

Minnesota gets a total of $467 million in yearly federal assistance toward child care, according to figures provided by DCYF.

The child care programs stemmed from President Bill Clinton and Congressional Republicans wanting to “end welfare as we know it” in the 1990s. The programs are meant to reward parents who demonstrate that they work or are in job training.

“Many of the families are experiencing significant hardships and challenges like fleeing domestic violence or facing eviction,” said Diana Azevedo-McCaffrey, senior policy analyst at the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal leaning think tank in Washington D.C. 

In Minnesota, DCYF and the state’s 87 counties run two child care assistance programs — family investment and sliding fee.

Families earning less than 67% of the state’s median income qualify for family investment, which is coupled with working with a job counselor on an employment plan. As of 2025, over 9,000 children and 4,800 families are enrolled in Minnesota family investment.

Families who make less than 47% of state median income can get a sliding fee, which may involve a co-payment. In 2025, a bit over 14,000 children and 7,000 families get assistance through sliding fee – with around 2,300 families on the waiting list. 

“We have a child care shortage,” Sanford said. “Infant and toddler spots are always hardest to find.”

Fifty-one percent of Minnesota families accessing these programs identify as Black, according to state figures, with 25% White and 6% Hispanic. 

Child care providers get more money from a parent paying out of pocket than from a parent enrolled in child care assistance. Still, over 4,000 child care providers across Minnesota are licensed to accept at least one family on assistance. 

For some, like Olu’s Beginnings in north Minneapolis, families on assistance reflect the day care’s surrounding community. Other providers, such as Mis Amigos, see setting aside a few slots for low-income parents part of their mission.

“We have always chosen to serve families who receive public support because we believe high-quality education should be accessible to all,” Uribe said. 

How is this threatened funding freezing affecting Minnesota child care right now?

Except for anticipation of what comes next, it is not. 

Minnesota, California, Colorado, Illinois and New York sued Jan. 8, right after the Trump administration announced it was shutting off child care funds. The states argue that the executive branch cannot cancel payments already appropriated by Congress. 

The New York federal judge on the case, Arun Subramanian, granted a stay until this Friday, which means states can draw down from the federal funds it has until then. Subramanian will hear arguments from both sides on Friday, at which point the judge may make a more lasting ruling or issue another temporary stay.

In the “vast majority” of Trump administration funding freeze cases, courts have ruled against the administration, said Peter Larsen, an assistant professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law.

However, Larsen added, the Trump administration could defy the court order as it has in cases involving National Institutes of Health grants and Consumer Finance Protection Bureau funding, among other subjects. 

If the court ruled for the Trump administration, Minnesota would surely appeal the decision, Larsen said, but the state would probably be out of federal child care funds in the interim. 

DCYF informed providers Jan. 9 that it can finance child care assistance for “several months” without additional federal funding. But DCYF has not answered weeks worth of questions from providers (and reporters) about when it last drew down from federal funds and how much reserves it has on hand. 

“We are just getting told to sit tight,” Herod said. 

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WASHINGTON – A federal judge this week temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Agriculture from plans to freeze $129 million in funds to Minnesota, a cutoff that would have impacted the state’s food stamp program.

Citing fraud, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins announced the freeze last week. Last month, she also threatened to cut off all Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funding for Hennepin, Ramsey, Washington and Wright counties because the state has not recertified all the recipients in those counties.

Rollins also said all federal money to implement the food stamp program in Minnesota, which totals almost $900 million a year, could be in peril.

But U.S. District Court Judge Laura Provinzino granted the state a preliminary injunction that bars the USDA from cutting off any funds to Minnesota, including the $129 million announced last week – at least for now.

“We have won yet another battle in the Trump administration’s war on Minnesota,” Attorney General Keith Ellison said in a statement. “Before any of us in the state are Republicans or Democrats, we are Minnesotans, and it should shock and disgust us that this president is trying to take food off the table of half a million of our neighbors.”

Yet the issue won’t be resolved until Provinzino rules on a lawsuit Ellison filed against the USDA last month after Rollins demanded the SNAP recipient recertifications.

In Minnesota, counties administer the SNAP program and, according to Rollins’ directive, each of the four counties involved would have to review the eligibility of tens of thousands of recipients – as well as conduct in-person interviews – within 30 days. If the counties did not comply, their residents would lose benefits.

The state told the court it would be impossible to recertify the 100,000 households in those counties in the amount of time Rollins allotted, and that all Minnesota food stamp recipients are periodically recertified.

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State Sen. Grant Hauschild announced he would run for a second term to represent District 3, which includes portions of Cook, Itasca, Lake, Koochiching and St. Louis counties.

Operation Metro Surge is fanning out far beyond the boundaries of the Twin Cities metro that the Trump administration says it’s targeting.

Most eyes, understandably, have been on Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s activities in Minneapolis since an agent killed Renee Nicole Good in the city Wednesday. Already before this the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was open about Minneapolis being the “metro” referred to in the operation’s name, centering it as ground zero for the agency’s biggest immigration crackdown yet.

But as protests against ICE intensified in the Twin Cities over the weekend, so, too, did the agency’s presence in Greater Minnesota, with a flurry of reports coming in from Rochester, Mankato and other cities.  

Related: Minnesota and the Twin Cities sue the federal government to stop the immigration crackdown

ICE’s scaled-up presence outside the Twin Cities has been particularly noticeable in southern Minnesota, said Ryan Perez, organizing director at COPAL, a Latino advocacy group.

“People get the misconception that that’s the whole operation,” he said of ICE in the Twin Cities. “It’s called Operation Metro Surge, but the reality is arrests are happening across the state.” 

ICE descends on southern Minnesota

David Perdomo and observers in Rochester saw agents attempting to apprehend people in the immediate days after Good’s death. Near the city’s Ear of Corn Water Tower, he said, an officer appeared ready to break through a vehicle window with a hammer until constitutional observers arrived. Agents never presented a signed warrant to the person in question, who was ultimately allowed to leave. 

Incidents like this are becoming more common in Rochester this year, said Perdomo, a local COPAL organizer. In response, groups are delivering food to families too afraid to leave their homes. 

“This time most of the officers are identified as ICE police on their vests,” he said, a change from previous ICE activity in the city. “What hasn’t changed is that the cars they are using are unmarked.”

Rochester lawmakers acknowledged the increased presence of federal agents. Sen. Liz Boldon, DFL-Rochester, released a statement saying she joined her colleagues in demanding ICE leave the city and state immediately. Rep. Luke Frederick, DFL-Mankato, did the same at a press conference Friday in Mankato.

“I will do everything I can with my colleagues to make sure that our values lead, and everything we can to reinforce the message that ICE does not belong in Minnesota,” Frederick said.

Administrators on a Greater Mankato ICE Watch page on Facebook spent the weekend posting about ICE agent and vehicle activity in Mankato, St. Peter, St. James and more southern Minnesota cities where sizable numbers of Hispanic and/or Somali residents call home. Locals submit tips about where agents are operating, what hotel they may be staying at and the usually out-of-state license plates they swap out on vehicles. 

The goal is to alert people to ICE’s activities so vulnerable people can steer clear. A confirmed sighting prompts a request for volunteer observers to go and document it.

Likeminded groups have popped up around the state to do similar work since Trump took office. They’ve never been busier than over the last week.

Related: Did Kristi Noem’s comments after an ICE agent killed a Minneapolis woman lead to the agent’s identification?

A group based in Duluth, Twin Ports Rapid Response, is on high alert for federal agents. Curt Leitz, one of the volunteers who runs the group, has been following the ramp up in immigration enforcement in southern and central Minnesota and expects it to happen in his city before long.

“Everyone is kind of waiting for the second shoe to drop up here,” he said.

Although northern Minnesota doesn’t have as many large concentrations of migrant workers as other parts of the state, Leitz knows of reports around Duluth and the Iron Range. Given the number of federal agents deployed in Minnesota, Leitz said there’s no reason to expect they won’t come to Duluth. 

ISAIAH, a community organizing group, organized the Friday press conference in Mankato, held across the street from Mankato East High School. Coinciding with a Rochester event, the messages at both were focused on keeping ICE out of schools. ICE agents caused chaos outside Roosevelt High School in Minneapolis hours after Good’s death.

Heather Bakke, a teacher in St. Peter, was with students on a field trip Friday when their phones started blowing up about ICE being in the city.

“Students on the field trip were worried about their siblings and friends back at school,” she said. “When I returned to school I could see many students in tears and walked past classrooms where students of color were huddled together wondering what they should do.” 

ICE operations are taking a toll on classrooms, she said.

“Every day educators are walking into classrooms where there are empty seats,” she said. “We wonder if these students have been taken, or if they’re staying home out of hear, or if they’re staying home to take care of younger siblings since their parents are gone.”

Meeting the quota

Operation Metro Surge feels like a numbers game to Perez. The federal government sent 2,000-plus agents into a state with nowhere near the biggest immigrant population in the country. 

DHS is using Minneapolis to brand the operation because it wants to portray the metro as crime infested, Perez said. To get the numbers that the Trump administration wants, though, it can’t limit itself to just the metro. 

Local news outlets are covering ICE activity in Greater Minnesota, but some of it goes under the radar, Perez said. Most of it doesn’t break through in the Twin Cities when so much else is happening.

“The public narrative is focused on Minneapolis and within the Twin Cities, but activity has definitely, highly escalated in Greater Minnesota,” Perez said.

COPAL and the groups in Mankato and Duluth are able to alert communities to ICE operations because volunteer observers are on the ground submitting tips to them. Within minutes of a reported traffic stop in Mankato, the local ICE watch page had photos and descriptions of the incident. 

Good’s killing sent a chilling message to observers around the state. Perez said brave people will continue to uphold the constitution and civil rights by making sure ICE follows the law.

“They’re playing that role in a place where politically it may be frowned upon,” he said of observers in Greater Minnesota. “They’re driving through the towns, talking with neighbors, having the backs of people.”

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The Trump administration determined the Biden administration did not properly notify Congress when it implemented a 20-year mining ban in the Superior National Forest.

State Sen. Susan Pha, DFL-Brooklyn Park, has been gathering plants like Solomon’s seal, fiddlehead fern and stinging nettle for years.

It’s a tradition she learned from her parents and one she’s passed to her children. And like many in Minnesota, for a long time she didn’t realize gathering plants is legal in some areas and restricted in others. 

“You know that you’re taking what you need from the earth, and you’re enjoying that. But at the same time you feel like you’re doing something wrong,” she said.   

She was speaking at the October meeting of the Sustainable Foraging Task Force, which she chairs and helped create through legislation.

In over 20 hours of public meetings since August, speakers have reiterated that foraging is a way humans have gathered food for thousands of years. 

Today, the practice holds significance for many people, across cultures. And the potential for state-level changes has revived calls to ensure people have access to foraged foods. 

Like other lawmakers, Pha got involved with creating a task force after advocates contacted her in 2023 with concerns about potential Department of Natural Resources (DNR) restrictions on mushroom foraging. 

But the issue had been on her radar long before that. 

Pha said community members wanted clarity on whether they could legally gather Solomon’s seal and fiddlehead fern in state parks. When she asked the DNR to clarify, it led to a permit fee. 

Related: Edible urban weeds found to be safe, healthful, abundant — and they’re free

She said that’s what her constituents feared, and why some didn’t want her to contact the state in the first place. The plants they gather are not only helpful for reducing inflammation, but traditionally gathered by Hmong and other East Asian communities.

“I said to the DNR, that really eroded trust with our community,” Pha said later in an interview. 

Where is foraging OK in Minnesota? It’s complicated 

In February, Assistant DNR Commissioner Bob Meier told lawmakers about large groups of people, as many as 80 to 100, coming to a single park to forage.

“We are concerned about our state parks being loved to death, which began the work in 2023,” he said, referencing potential changes that never materialized. “To say that we don’t support foraging is just false.”

Concerns like those renewed a broader debate about the public’s ability to gather foods and medicinal plants that grow abundantly on state lands.

To name a few: acorns, blueberries, burdock, choke cherries, chicken of the woods, dandelions, morels, ramps, wild asparagus, wood sorrel and more. 

Unless otherwise stated, Minnesota law says people can’t “disturb, destroy, injure, damage, deface, molest, or remove any state property.” 

And that “state property” includes plants.

There are caveats. “Fruiting bodies” like mushrooms and berries are fair game to gather in state parks and forests, assuming it’s for “personal use.” That term has no strict definition.

State forests do allow foraging for plants. But it’s complicated. 

The DNR charges at least $25 per plant species, permits for which must be purchased in-person.

Plus, the rules are entirely different for city, county and tribal lands — which the task force isn’t focused on. But it’s still relevant given many local park systems (including Minneapolis’) also prohibit plant foraging, and less-restrictive state forests aren’t close to the cities.

There’s ‘no smoking gun’ for over-foraging

Since meetings began in August, the task force has discussed nuances like where you can forage, for how much, and who gets to decide.

But it’s clear the task force is trying to answer whether there’s evidence the land is being harmed as the result of an increase in foraging, whether from tour groups, commercial sales or simple public interest. 

The answers are all based on anecdotes, but generally suggest no.

“There’s just not a lot of data or research regarding foraging or harvesting on our state lands, whether it has a positive or negative impact,” Pha said.

She said there are a handful of cases showing people have foraged in large quantities for commercial use, but those are rare.

Task force member Peter Martignacco, president of the Minnesota Mycological Society, put it this way: “There’s been no smoking gun that says, ‘Hey, here’s what we’ve gotta watch out for.’”

JJ Williams, a parks manager with Washington County Parks, said foraging is a known activity that both holds meaning for the public and has been happening illegally in the park system.

Last year, the county created a free permit system to allow it. So far, it’s issued 55 permits for a park system that sees 1.9 million visitors yearly, Williams said in the November task force meeting.

Bradley Harrington, director of tribal relations for the DNR, shared an anecdote about the prairie turnip. Although it’s under threat, he said that’s not because of foraging but modern-day industrial agriculture and urbanization. 

It’s gathered based on Indigenous knowledge: only after the plant has seeded, ensuring the seeds spread after the turnips are picked, with no over-harvesting in a single area. Foragers spend no more than four years in one area, he said.

“And this is just traditional ecological knowledge that has been with our people for millennia,” Harrington said at the October meeting.

Deeply rooted biases

For some, the idea that foraging could be harming the land is laughable. 

Samuel Thayer, a forager and author on the subject, told the task force in October that a few highly publicized cases “have people fearful that foraging in general is destroying the landscape.” 

“When in fact we see the opposite effect,” he said.

In an interview, Thayer said he was referencing the general over-harvest of wild ginseng, goldenseal and ramps. Those issues are unique to commercial foraging and have been applied broadly to people who forage for personal use, he said. 

(Media coverage, which surged after the 2008 recession and again with COVID-19, hasn’t helped. The portrayal of foraging in the news as subsistence practice or luxury fad has even been studied in academia).

Those fears reinforced a preexisting bias, Thayer said. That’s what he suggested in his task force testimony when quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, who wrote in 1871 that “the first farmer was the first man.” 

In other words, the first man did not hunt, fish or gather. 

He’s not alone. A widely cited journal article details a long history of restrictions on foraging by the U.S. government, beginning with its treatment of Indigenous peoples during colonization and later with trespassing laws after the Civil War that targeted African Americans, among other examples.  

Many advocates point out the U.S. is uniquely anti-forager even compared to other countries today. 

France, for example, trains its pharmacists in mushroom identification, recognizing both their medicinal values and potential for poison. Sweden embraces “allemansrätten,” or the Right of Public Access to land. 

“Pick berries, mushrooms and flowers from the ground — all completely free of charge,” reads the country’s official tourism webpage. “The only thing you have to pay, is respect for nature and the animals living there.”

Among the task force members is Nibi Ogichidaa Ikwe, who was appointed by the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council as an Ojibwe representative. At the November meeting, she referenced a need to uphold tribal sovereignty and treaty rights. 

Related: Great Lakes pollution threatens Ojibwe treaty rights to fish

“Many have also asked if we would please consider allowing space for tribal members only, because our way of life depends on these traditional medicines,” she said, mentioning kinnickinick and dogwood. 

Ikwe said it’s important to educate the broader public about that topic itself. 

Repeatedly, speakers have pointed out that gathering wild foods and medicines is a way of life for Indigenous people, and one still restricted as a result of current laws. 

To exercise treaty rights, you have to be enrolled in a tribe — which many Indigenous people are not.

“I’m just asking for education so that those medicines remain there, as a gift from our Creator, forever, for the next seven generations,” she said. 

As always, there’s more nuance to consider

For one, part of the DNR’s job is to manage the needs of specific plant species, like ones that are invasive, endangered or highly sought-after. It’s why permits exist already for certain species, like wild rice and ginseng. 

And as general interest in foraging rises — like on social media — there’s a potential for inexperienced foragers to dig up a plant’s roots, or aid in the spread of invasive species.

Someone could also end up gathering foods in a delicate wildlife management area, or one that’s been sprayed with pesticides. 

Meier, the DNR official, said the state agency recognizes the mental, physical and spiritual value of being outside and harvesting something you can eat. 

That’s been lost in the conversation, he said. 

“In the conversation, it’s like, ‘We want to be able to harvest as much as we want, wherever we want.’ And that’s just not the way foraging goes. You have to take some, leave some for other people, leave some to come back next year,” Meier said.

The DNR is also bound by the Outdoor Recreation Act, a law that essentially spells out the uses of public lands, including to prevent “material disturbance of the natural features of the park or the introduction of undue artificiality.” 

Meier also specified that the DNR’s initial concerns were about the impacts of foraging on specific sites and state parks, not all of Minnesota’s lands. (There are 235,000 acres of state parks and 4.2 million acres of state forests).

He cited issues like foragers creating trails off the path, trampling plants and harvesting incorrectly in ways that prevent regrowth. Those problems were concentrated in state parks, especially ones close to metro areas, he said.

“Our system is not set up against foragers, I wouldn’t think, in any way. You just need to understand what you can and can’t do, where you want to do it,” Meier said. “The mission statement of the DNR is to work with Minnesotans to enjoy the outdoors, basically, to sum it up.” 

Foraging recommendations are due Feb. 28 

Ikwe, the Ojibwe representative, told the task force a story about children eating wild strawberries. When the berries fell from their hands, the seeds planted in the ground.

“When you harvest in a responsible way, and give those little gifts back to the earth, you can actually create more,” Ikwe said. 

And perhaps that’s the biggest throughline: Everyone agrees on the need to strengthen people’s connection to nature while preserving and nurturing it.

More foraging could help in that goal — if it’s done with care. 

Sammie Peterson, the food systems manager at Prairie Island Indian Community, addressed a few questions about regulation during her public comment in November. But Peterson also described a “legitimate crisis of disconnection” between people and the natural world, and a fear-based approach to nature that underscores life today.

“Foraging, specifically, I feel like is a way to address this disconnection problem on almost every single level,” Peterson later said in an interview. 

The task force can’t fix all those issues. 

But it has until Feb. 28 to submit its recommendations to the DNR and Legislature. They won’t have any formal effect other than being put on public record as potential changes the state could make.

Among the possibilities are more research about the impacts of foraging and initiatives to educate the public that are rooted in traditional ecological knowledge; changes to permits, new permits, or none of the above; streamlined rules to clarify regulations across different types of land. 

Perhaps, just making the rules easier to understand.

“We’re hoping that in the end, we’ll be able to create those clear, simple and fair rules and recommendations for foraging on our state lands, and that we’ll be able to give people access — more access — but at the same time protect our natural resources, our state lands, for many generations,” Pha said.

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The Jake Haapajoki Memorial Cup is Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026, in Baxter. Funds raised will go toward scholarships for students entering the mental health field.

Unprecedented minimum wages for thousands of workers in Minnesota nursing homes had been set to go into effect Jan. 1. 

But adoption of this new law is indefinitely delayed. The reason is that the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS) has not yet filed paperwork with the federal government that is necessary to enact the law. 

“I want to acknowledge that this is a little disappointing as we’ve heard from so many workers in the industry that the coming minimum wage increases had given them some hope,” said Jamie Gulley, who is the chair of Minnesota’s Nursing Home Workforce Standards Board and is also president of SEIU Healthcare Minnesota and Iowa. 

Gulley spoke at a monthly meeting of the workforce board Thursday in St. Paul. During the meeting, representatives for both workers and nursing home executives stressed the need to tell their members that implementation of these historic wage rules would likely be delayed for months. 

A 2023 state law created the workforce board. The workforce board teamed up with the Minnesota Legislature on a law to pay all nursing home workers at least $19 an hour. 

However, the law is contingent on the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services providing $18 million to Minnesota’s Medicaid program, money that would go to nursing home operators to help pay for the wage hikes. The state also chips in $18 million. 

The minimum wages are statutorily required to kick in 30 days after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services greenlights Minnesota’s plan. But Kristy Graume, director of state government relations at DHS, said that DHS had not known about this part of the law. 

“We weren’t fully aware of the state rule that required approval by Dec. 1,” Graume said at the meeting. “We certainly share in your frustration and we apologize.”

Related: Minnesota has a plan to turn around nursing homes’ staffing crisis. Nursing home operators say it’s a death knell. 

In fact, Graume said that DHS had just started on Monday a 30-day public comment period regarding this rule change for nursing homes. 

Shortly after that public comment period ends, DHS would then submit the funding request and Medicaid rule change for federal approval, Graume said. 

At that point, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has 90 days to review Minnesota’s request for funding and change in Medicaid policy. 

Mehmet Oz, director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, has threatened to withhold Medicaid payments to Minnesota unless DHS addressed what Oz called “systemic fraud.”

But Graume said that DHS “don’t foresee any significant concerns” coming from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Graume added that federal approval of changes to Minnesota Medicaid are typically mere formalities. 

Messages left with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were not returned. 

Setting a wage floor for a specific industry is a relic of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal that has been resurrected by labor unions in blue states over the last 10 years. 

Minnesota is the first state to specifically focus on the nursing home industry. The state has a long history of social programs that provide generous end-of-life services. 

But 36% of nursing home workers leave before a year on the job. And nursing home workers are one of the lowest paid occupations in the state with some level of unionization, according to Gulley.

The $19 floor is for employees without nursing home credentials such as housekeepers, chefs and dietary aids. The wage floor climbs to $20.50 in 2027.

Certified nurses have starting minimum wages between $22 and $27 depending on their occupation. 

Lobbyists for nursing home operators have fought these new wages tooth and nail, including an unsuccessful lawsuit that argued nursing homes were forced to choose between following state laws and federally enforced collective bargaining agreements. 

These operators say that they will ultimately comply with the new law, but that they need to draw from the $36 million pot of money to comply. 

The money “is the only realistic mechanism that allows providers to fund and sustain the higher minimum wages,” said a spokesperson for LeadingAge Minnesota, a nursing home industry lobbyist. 

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