A collection of intimate writings first published by Literary Hub in the Letters From Minnesota series that recounts the lived community experience of facing—and resisting—ICE violence during Operation Metro Surge
The history of America is a history of occupations. But what happens when an imperial nation, defined by endless expansion, runs out of frontier? It turns inward. It occupies itself.
American Occupation is an urgent compilation of reflections and accounts that emerged during the shocking, months-long ICE operation in Minnesota. In December 2025, the Department of Homeland Security launched Operation Metro Surge, and thousands of ICE and border patrol agents in paramilitary costumes descended on the Twin Cities. Their brutal, unconstitutional campaign resulted in the terrorization and disappearance of countless US citizens and immigrants, the murders of legal observers Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and the mobilization of vast, intricate mutual aid networks, massive protests, and staggering acts of courage during one of the coldest Minnesota winters in a decade.
Two days after Alex Pretti was killed on January 24, 2026, Literary Hub published the first of forty-four Letters From Minnesota, an online rapid response series that invited novelists, journalists, poets, and memoirists to document their experiences under occupation. An immigrant mother makes a plan with her young children in case she’s detained by ICE. A Powderhorn Park resident witnesses the traumatic abduction of two neighbors at a bus stop. A professor chronicles the relentless federal violence throughout her family’s journey from Mexico to California to Minnesota, among other harrowing stories and accounts.
With twelve new contributions, American Occupation offers a mosaic of deeply personal and defiant testimonies detailing the creative solidarity and resolve of Minnesotans confronting fascist cruelty. Contextualized in the history of the US government’s abuse of power against its own civilians, American Occupation reveals the grim reality of yet another American administration in thrall to its own mythologies—and the long arc of resistance and compassion of ordinary people.
Contributors: Angela Ajayi, Anonymous, Charles Baxter, Victoria Blanco, Jennifer Eli Bowen, Katherine Packert Burke, Zeke Caligiuri, David Aiona Chang, Dana Chiueh, Heid E. Erdrich, Nick Estes, Nimo Farah, V. V. Ganeshananthan, Shannon Gibney, Dobby Gibson, Sarah Green, Molly Beth Griffin, Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl, Marian Hassan, Hedgiee, Laurie Hertzel, Carolyn Holbrook, Siri Hustvedt, Đenise Hạnh Huỳnh, Andrea Jenkins, Michael Kleber-Diggs, Ed Bok Lee, Josina Manu Maltzman, Will McGrath, Jim Moore, David Mura, Nia Navarro, Sahra Noor, Kara Olson, Peter Pearson, Angela Pelster, Bao Phi, Kaia Preus, Susan Raffo, Marcie Rendon, Kate Romero and Gustavo Romero, Sean Sherman, Sun Yung Shin, Gabriela Spears-Rico, Michael Torres, Kawai Strong Washburn, Sana Wazwaz, chaun webster, Diane Wilson, A. E. Wynter, Kao Kalia Yang, Ahmed Ismail Yusuf, Michelle Zamanian.
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