Contributor – Tamara Zurakowski
Nursology.net Advisory Team Member

There are benefits to being a procrastinator. I first started this blog back in January, when the Twin Cities of  Minnesota, where I live and work, were under siege by ICE. Operation Metro Surge was launched on December 1, 2025, with 2,000 ICE agents descending on the area. The reason for this influx was not clear, with a variety of federal agencies providing unique and disparate explanations that are devoid of any coherent message, but immediate attention was focused on the large and vibrant Somali community in the area. Residents, whether citizens or not, documented or not, criminal or not, began to be apprehended by armed and masked agents  (Nelson, 2025).  Local news media began to report on detentions, transportations, deportations, violent encounters, and lack of any recognizable professional law enforcement behaviors. Everyone was on edge, with many people locking themselves in their homes, refusing to leave for groceries, worship, healthcare, school, or jobs. Businesses closed, as both employees and customers were too afraid to leave their home.

Living and teaching amidst civil unrest was not covered anywhere in my education. As the director of a pre-licensure program, I am well-versed in addressing many of the barriers that can prevent implementing curricula – but this was a new one for me. Students STILL fear leaving their homes, and a number have shared heartbreaking stories of family members who have been deported. Colleagues have told me that  nursing students in their programs withdrew because they are too afraid to attend on-campus activities, or clinical education sites. Many programs, including ours, offered some degree of distance education while tear gas and flash bangs disrupt their campuses (Quinn, 2026).

Here’s where the benefits of procrastination came in. When I first started writing this, I was almost entirely focused on what my responsibilities as a nursologist and nurse were in the face of an occupation. Now that I have had time to think and observe, I have noted that, in a counterintuitive way, and despite the tremendous toll the federal actions were taking on everyone, there are signs of improved community health all around me. As Effie Hanchett wrote “The basic resource of a community, as of any living system, is energy, the capacity to do work” (1979, p. 40). Energy becomes power when the community can control the amount and direction of energy flow, and community health arises from new patterns of energy, and the synergy of energy and goals.

As immigrant neighbors made their needs known, people stepped up to do shopping, contributed to food pantries, delivered boxes of food and household supplies, did laundry, and paid rent (Anderson, 2026; Simonton, 2026). Restaurants became de facto food depots, meeting needy patrons at the backdoor with whatever they had. Elaborate communication systems evolved to pass on information about where ICE was, and what they were doing. Neighbors came together to get children to school, cooked congregate meals in the evening, and made plans for childcare in the event a parent was detained. Strangers donated frequent flyer miles to families that had members detained by ICE in distant states, and legal aid offices for people caught up in ICE detentions increased their workload. The needs of individuals, families, and groups were in synergy with neighbors who had the energy of money, time, and resources to meet those needs, and the common goals of a healthy community became visible.

The worst was yet to come. Renee Good, a resident of Minneapolis, was shot and killed on January 7, 2026, by ICE agents. More ICE agents arrived, and began roaming the streets. Elementary and secondary schools closed their doors, and started distance education because students were afraid to come to school. Children as young as two years of age were apprehended (Fields, 2026). Then, Minnesotans staged a general strike on January 23, 2026 with businesses, schools, and stores closed, and over 50,000 people gathering in Minneapolis (Hughes,2026). Energy was everywhere, and being deployed towards the common goal of protesting the presence of ICE agents, and their actions The next day, Alex Pretti, a nurse at the Minnesota VAMC, was shot and killed by federal agents. “Minnesota Nice” was rapidly replaced by “Minnesota Ticked Off”.

In the past two months, an expanding awareness of the human and environmental energy fields, a hallmark of community health (Hanchett, 1988), has continued in the Twin Cities. Community members continue to participate knowingly and willingly in changing patterns of energy flow, more permeable interior boundaries, and less permeable boundaries with other fields, such as the federal government. As SNAP, Medicaid, and housing support funds from federal sources have become less available, one grassroots organization in Minneapolis raised $19 million for the needs of immigrant families (Erdahl, 2026). Fundraisers are advertised to help not only immigrant families, but the businesses that were decimated during the ICE invasion (Nelson, 2026). Energy in the community changed its pattern to offset the decreased flow from outside.

Federal agents continue to be active, protesters continue to voice their feelings, and neighbors continue to care for neighbors. I have become reconnected with my community health roots, and now can see the improved health of Twin Cities communities as manifested in new patterns of energy flow. I have heard many people say they have met people they have lived near for years, and have now come to know them as “neighbors”. My role as both nursologist and nurse is to get out of the community’s way, and support the work they are doing on their own behalf. The goal is for the community to experience maximum wellness, as indicated by dynamic energy flow that is controlled by the community itself. The Twin Cities community doesn’t need me to tell them what to do, because they know. This past weekend, over 100,000 members came together to voice their needs and ideas, accompanied by politicians, celebrities, singers, organizers, activists (Hildebrandt, 2026), and some very welcome sunshine. What they need me to do is to provide the energy of resources and knowledge, and assist in the change process – as it is requested. This was also noted by Nancy Milio (1971) while working with another beleaguered community during the 1960s in Detroit. She learned that communities do not take well to being told what their health should look like, but are accepting of assistance when they ask for it. Her epilogue (Milio, 1971, p. 197) sums it up perfectly*:

Health is wholeness, unfolding.

It is pink skin covering a wound.
It is a book in the hand of a ghetto-dweller, and soul music on the lips of the suburbanite.
It is the preschooler’s first whoop in day care.
It is knowing,
Not only I and You
But We.

Health is wholeness, unfolding.

And it is present
Only when we continue to seek
In ourselves, in our institutions,
Together with others.
A sharing which is significant,
In the possibilities of man,
A growing awareness of self,
And the feeling of self-worth
Which is the result.

*Some dated language is included, and may now be offensive to  some.

Sources

Anderson, B. (2026, February 9). Hungry families, ICE and secret grocery networks in Minneapolis. New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/09/dining/minneapolis-ice-grocery-stores-hunger.html

Erdahl, K. (2026, February 26). The grassroots online platform is trying to help drive donations to help stave off a wave of evictions following Operation Metro Surge. KARE11, https://www.kare11.com/article/news/local/breaking-the-news/stand-with-minnesota-website-aiming-to-help-immigrants-avoid-eviction/89-9bbfdb25-6bb9-451f-bea8-84ab0eac699b#:~:text=That%20help%20came%20through%20a,GoFundMe’s%20and%20our%20Venmo%20accounts..

Fields, A. (2026, January 25). Kobuchar: ICE agents in Minnesota ‘outnumber’ Minneapolis, St. Paul police. The Hill, https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/5705426-ice-agents-outnumber-minneapolis-police-klobuchar/.

Hanchett, E. (1979). Community health assessment. Wiley Medical Publishers.

Hanchett, E. (1988). Nursing frameworks and community as client: Bridging the gap. Appleton & Lange.

Hildebrandt, E. (2026, March 29). Minnesota State Patrol estimates 100K attended No Kings protest. The Minnesota Star Tribune, https://www.startribune.com/minnesota-state-patrol-estimates-100k-attended-no-kings-protest/601649376.

Hughes, T. (2026, January 29). A city under siege: Why Minneapolis is at the center of so much chaos. USA Today, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2026/01/26/minneapolis-ice-immigration-enforcement-crisis/88364618007/.

Milio, N. (1971). 9226 Kercheval: The storefront that did not burn. The University of Michigan Press.

Nelson, D. (2026, March 21). List of Twin Cities businesses holding fundraisers amid ICE surge. Bring Me the News, https://bringmethenews.com/minnesota-lifestyle/list-of-twin-cities-businesses-holding-fundraisers-amid-ice-surge.

Nelson, S. (2025, December 26). Court records provide glimpse into Twin Cities ICE operation. The Minnesota Star Tribune, https://www.startribune.com/court-records-provide-glimpse-into-twin-cities-ice-operation/601551412.

Quinn, R. (2026, January 27). Remote class and escorts: Twin Cities universities respond to ICE, CBP, protests. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/safety/2026/01/27/minneapolis-area-universities-respond-ice-cbp-protests?utm_source=Inside+Higher+Ed&utm_campaign=2c21afcbeb-DNU_2021_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_1fcbc04421-2c21afcbeb-199145477&mc_cid=2c21afcbeb.

Simonton, A. (2026, February 16). In Minneapolis, community care is the model for resistance. Prism, https://prismreports.org/2026/02/16/minneapolis-mutual-aid-neighbors-resistance/.

About Tamara Zurakowski

I was raised in nursing and nursology as a devout Rogerian, and completed a graduate minor in physics to expand my understanding of Dr. Rogers’ work. I have since learned to value many theories and frameworks for nursing practice. I have spent most of my 48 years in nursing as an educator, and am currently professor and program director of the MSN-Entry Level program in the School of Nursing, St. Catherine University, St. Paul, MN.