BUSTED! in the Land of 10,000 Lakes

I recently went back to my beloved home state of MN for a conference. What better way to visit than on work's dime!

After a two-night stay at the downtown Minneapolis Hilton, and two days of an extremely boring conference where everyone there seemed to contribute to our nation's obesity epidemic by drinking way too much soda (one girl there drank three cans of coke before 8:30am!), I made my way to the sweeter of the Twin Cities, my hometown of St. Paul.

That's when things started to get interesting. The first evening I think I saw enough people I went to high school with to qualify as a high school reunion. It isn't quite as frightening to me as it used to be and everyone generally seems much nicer (and less sober) than they did back in the day. Some people also have children that are over 10 years old. Very disturbing. I also met some dude who used to live up the block from me. His nickname is "Tuffy." Enough said.

I was staying with a friend of mine and the next morning I wake up to get some water. I hear all of these voices, which is strange since my friend had said she had a conference call from home that morning. I thought the voices were really loud for a conference call, but maybe my friend is going deaf and had the volume on high. So I walk into the dining room and there are like 6 people sitting at her table. Definitely not a conference call. And most of the people sitting were in S.W.A.T. gear with POLICE written across the front. We thought it was a drug bust (my friend has tenants living upstairs and you never know when people might be running a meth lab in their apartment.) Well, turns out to be Immigration & Customs Enforcement coming for her upstair tenant's cousin. The tenant is a political asylee from Cameroon who's in law school. He's here legitimately. We're not sure about the cousin but supposedly he's here legitimately also. But they still took him away in cuffs. Everyone was in their pajamas (not the cops) and they almost took him away without shoes. Rude. At this point, he is still being detained and may possibly be deported. It's very scary what limited rights immigrants have here.

I am sure the police thought it was interesting that not only did my friend have two African refugees in her house, but then some Asian girl walks in during the bust. They didn't even ask me for my ID.

Needless to say, I am glad I didn't get deported. Although I am not sure where they would deport me to since I am U.S. citizen...