AAUC held its second Town Hall, “Fighting the Fear,” on February 19, 2026, drawing participants from across the country to discuss the recent ICE incursion in Minnesota and how communities are organizing to protect their civil rights.
Yen Marshall, President of AAUC, opened the gathering by framing the moment as one that demands understanding before action. “We cannot resist what we do not understand,” she said, setting the tone for a wide-ranging conversation that moved from on-the-ground stories of neighborly courage to a deeper analysis of authoritarian tactics being employed nationwide.
“We are not alone”
Speaking from Minneapolis, the epicenter of the crisis, AAUC founding president and board chair SK Lo described both the trauma and the solidarity she had witnessed firsthand. She spoke with urgency about how fear has settled into the daily lives of Minnesota’s immigrant communities, even as ICE activity has slowed. “The fear they created simply hasn’t gone away,” Lo said. “It still lingers in our homes, our workplaces, and the decisions we want to make about how to stay safe.”
Lo had joined Minnesota Indivisible, participating in a rally organized in January despite bitter cold weather, and described a wave of creative, peaceful resistance across the Twin Cities, from an SOS sign lit with lanterns on what was once Lake Calhoun, to “ICE Out” signs placed near the airport so arriving passengers could see them, to the formation of a singing resistance group whose voices, Lo said, remind the community that “music can carry the truth other than fear.”
Following the first AAUC town hall, Lo and others helped distribute a community guide on constitutional rights and personal safety. Her message was ultimately one of collective strength. “If we stand together and share our knowledge and remind each other of our rights and our dignity, then I think we would have a way of overcoming the challenges facing us,” she said.
“Minnesotans have really impressed me”
Christina Morrison, editor-in-chief of Minnesota Chinese World and founder of the Association of Sino-American Neocultural Exchange, brought the perspective of a journalist who covered the ICE incursion across six or seven reports while also living through it as a community member. What she witnessed, she said, was something she had never seen in her 25 years in Minnesota.
“I saw extraordinary efforts of neighborly support by Minnesotans,” Morrison said, describing neighbors buying groceries for people too afraid to leave their homes, co-workers covering shifts for those who feared coming in, employers supporting struggling small businesses, and residents passing out whistles and joining secret chat groups to document and track ICE activity.
She shared a personal account from January 15th, when two Chinese restaurant workers were detained and quickly transferred to Texas. Within hours, community members formed a WeChat group called “Community Safety,” with members contacting the ACLU in Texas, reaching out to the Chinese Consulate General in Chicago, and working through every available channel to secure the men’s release. Though their efforts were ultimately unsuccessful, Morrison said the story illustrates the speed and determination of community response.
“What happened in Minnesota has really encouraged people in other places,” she said, noting that protesters in Boston were heard chanting, “We are not cold, we are not afraid. Minneapolis has taught us to be brave.” She closed by reminding attendees of the constitutional importance of state authority: “The states in the U.S. have considerable autonomy and power at the state level. Not to allow federal overreach in areas where the states have the final control by design.”
“We can decide the kind of America we want to be”
Professor Yolanda Moses, a cultural anthropologist at UC Riverside, offered historical context, placing the current crisis within a long arc of American struggles over identity, belonging, and power. From the nation’s founding, she argued, the central question has always been the same: whose America is this?
“This country has only been dealing with issues of true integration for less than 100 years,” she said, tracing the line from the abolition of slavery through the Civil Rights Act of 1965 to today. She urged everyone to read Project 2025, describing it as a blueprint for those who “want to purge the country from unwanted people.”
Moses drew a direct line from the murder of George Floyd, which she said “woke up white America” to the reality of state violence, and to the current wave of community resistance in Minnesota. She called on participants to move beyond conversation and into coordinated, nonviolent action, pointing to organizations like Indivisible as vehicles for that effort.
“We’re going to have to act in unison,” she said. “And we’re going to have to be non-violent, because that is what has worked.”
“We Want a Truth Commission to be set up”
Rajeev Singh, a board member of the Hindu American Foundation, brought a perspective shaped by both concern and a call for rigorous inquiry. He emphasized that while the Hindu American community is deeply troubled by recent events, they are pressing for something specific: accountability through investigation.
“We want a truth commission to be set up,” Singh said. “We want Minnesota, Minneapolis to be investigated impartially just like we had an inquiry after 9/11. This is just big enough. This is our future at stake.”
Singh also raised pointed questions about the nature of ICE itself, who is being recruited, and whether the agency is being shaped into a force that serves narrow political interests rather than the public. He expressed deep alarm at the killing of community members by federal agents without prior arrest or due process. “No arrests made, no rounding up. We go straight to shooting people. That is what worries me. That is what we have to get investigated.”
He acknowledged the urgency of street-level action and is hearten by what he sees in Minnesota. AAUC has the opportunity right now is bring together people with diverse backgrounds in advocacy, policy making, academia to do the same.
“We are in plain sight”
David Capelli and Carla Mays, co-founders of #SmartCohort, a California-based organization focused on equitable civic development and AAPI leadership, joined from Vancouver, British Columbia, where they had already expanded operations in anticipation of what they saw coming.
Mays, who has an Afro-Indigenous background and grew up in Wisconsin with an Afghan-born mother, connected the current moment to generations of forced displacement. For her and many of her peers, she said, safety means not just legal protection but the freedom to build a life without fear. For some, that increasingly means looking beyond U.S. borders.
“We are professionals. My mother graduated from Columbia University as a medical doctor,” she said. “It’s important that people live their truth, don’t hide their accent, be proud of who they are.”
At the same time, she spoke candidly about a generational divide in how Asian Americans and mixed-identity communities are responding to the current climate, with younger people increasingly exploring options for relocation and international mobility. “We are part of the new American diaspora,” she said. “And we need to look at what getting safe looks like in 2026.”
“So proud to be Minnesotan”
Chen Zhou, based in Minnesota, brought an intimate view of how the ICE incursion has shifted attitudes within the Chinese community, including among those who were initially supportive of stricter immigration enforcement.
“When it first started, a lot of people thought it was a good thing,” he said. “But when you see how it’s carried out, you realize this is just brutal. This is not what we signed up for.”
That recognition, he said, has become a unifying force. Local police chiefs spoke out about how ICE operations have changed. Mayors came forward. The Council on Asian Pacific Minnesotans organized community gatherings at the local Asian Mall to support struggling small businesses. Lunar New Year celebrations at Burnsville Mall and other venues drew large crowds, both as cultural affirmation and as acts of economic solidarity.
“I’m so proud to be Minnesotan right now,” Zhou said. “So many people came out to demonstrations and told their immigrant neighbors, ‘If you don’t feel safe, don’t go out. We are here, we will go on.’ It’s minus 20, 30 degrees, and they’re out there.”
Zhou recently wrote an article for AAUC News, “When Fear Replaces Freedom.”
“We are trying to hold onto each other”
Rio Saito, director of the Japan America Society of Minnesota, described the unique situation facing Japanese nationals and expats living in the Twin Cities. As non-U.S. citizens, many face the prospect not of detention in Texas, but of immediate deportation, and the sense of vulnerability is compounded by the novelty of the experience.
“We are realizing that our faces can be targeted by the faceless so-called federal agents,” Saito said. “For many of us, it’s a very new concept.”
The Japan America Society has responded by hosting online and in-person networking events — spaces for community members simply to check in with one another. Saito also took comfort in the outpouring of support from outside the Asian community, particularly from white neighbors and allies standing up on their behalf. “To see how many non-Asian people out there are trying to make things better on behalf of us. That, by itself, is comforting to know that we have friends out there.”
Saito and her colleagues, she said, are holding on to each other and holding on to hope.
“We must resist!”
AAUC Vice President and retired attorney Jack Hanna presented “The Authoritarian’s Playbook,” an ongoing document he and Ted Fong have developed and published on aauc.us/playbook. It is a framework for identifying the specific tactics the Trump administration has employed to concentrate power and suppress dissent, drawn from historical patterns seen in authoritarian regimes worldwide.
The first tactic Hanna identified is the use of false pretexts to justify illegal actions. The administration invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law, to authorize mass deportations by claiming that immigrants constitute a national “invasion.” It used a fraud case involving Somali immigrants as justification for deploying ICE into Minneapolis, and declared Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. in a state of rebellion to justify sending in the National Guard. “These are false pretexts,” Hanna said flatly, “and they must be refuted.”
Closely related is the tactic of blaming and scapegoating without proof, such as accusing Renee Good of being a domestic terrorist and Alex Pretti of being a would-be assassin to justify their killings. Other examples included scapegoating migrants for housing costs and job losses, and labeling critical news organizations as “the enemy of the American people.” The goal, Hanna explained, is to demonize perceived opponents and normalize violence against them.
The administration also relies heavily on distraction, what Hanna called “flooding the zone,” releasing a relentless torrent of outrageous statements and executive actions designed to exhaust attention and prevent people from focusing on any single abuse of power. Controversies over annexing Canada or renaming the Kennedy Center serve this purpose. “They use culture wars and imagined threats to motivate the base and distract from policy failures,” he said.
Then there is simply lying, whether it’s about the 2020 election, the economy, the price of eggs, about settled wars that are worthy of earning the president the Nobel prize. Hanna noted authoritarians lie loudly, repeatedly, and without shame, because repetition makes falsehoods stick.
Weaponizing government agencies for retribution has become a defining feature of the administration’s approach to dissent. Investigations have been launched against FBI Director James Comey, New York Attorney General Letitia James, and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell. Subpoenas were issued to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. Law firms representing opponents have been extorted and stripped of federal contracts. Hanna urged communities document every retaliatory action, support targeted individuals with legal defense funds, and build coalitions that present unified resistance.
Hanna noted that blatant hypocrisy does not faze the administration. Championing the Second Amendment while condemning Alex Pretti for carrying a legal firearm, pardoning a convicted the former president of Honduras, convicted drug trafficker while kidnapping Venezuela’s president on drug charges — these double standards announce that the rule of law does not matter.
In conclusion, Hanna reiterated Yen Marshall’s earlier point that “we cannot respond to things we don’t understand.” The Authoritarian’s Playbook explains the administrations tactics and offers concrete ways for the community to take action.
Moving Forward Together
Yen Marshall closed the town hall by expressing gratitude to all who spoke and reminding participants that understanding is the foundation of effective resistance. “Fear isolates,” she said, “but solidarity transforms, and that’s what AAUC stands for.”
The next AAUC Town Hall is scheduled for March 19th and will focus on AAPI contributions to U.S. progress and democratic values, timed to coincide with the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Community members are invited to submit nominations and present their perspectives. Register here.
