Note: Many of the people in this story requested we not use their full names. They all said they feared retaliation from ICE.
On the morning of January 17 in southern Minneapolis, something very ordinary happened: a 12-year-old girl got her period for the first time.
Everything that happened after that was out of the ordinary.
For the last two weeks, federal immigration agents have been on the streets of Minneapolis, conducting one of the largest crackdowns in the Trump administration's mass deportation campaign. The Department of Homeland Security says it is getting criminals off the street; many immigrants and people of color who spoke to NPR say they are terrified of going outside.
That's howthe simple act of obtaining a menstrual pad for a pre-teen's first period turned into an underground operation involving a faith leader, multiple neighbors and a clandestine network of Minneapolis volunteers.
When E. (her first initial) woke up that morning and noticed she had her period, like many girls, she freaked out a little.
But unlike many girls, E. has been hiding in her house for the last few weeks.
She hasn't even been going to school.
E.'s family is undocumented, and her neighborhood has been heavily targeted for immigration raids.
She thought about walking to the corner store to get menstrual pads, but says she was worried about being intercepted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. She called her dad at work.
"I told her, 'do not go out into the street. You have to stay inside,'" E.'s father said.
He's a single father, and he told NPR that over the last few weeks he's been so afraid of being picked up by ICE that he isn't going outside unless a volunteer can take him where he needs to go. This is how he gets to work. It's why he couldn't rush home to help his daughter when she called him.
Instead, he called his pastor – Hierald Osorto, who says he's increasingly been dealing with these sorts of crises.
"These things that we take for granted, you know, normal things that happen in people's lives and with their bodies — you have to think about all these additional ways to provide support and care."
When Pastor Hierald, as he's referred to by his congregants, hung up with E.'s dad, he immediately called Lizete, a community leader within the church.
She says E.'s dad sounded scared.
"He said, 'Lizete, help me please. My daughter is alone in the house. She's bleeding a lot.'"
Lizete told him to stay calm — but she herself wasn't. She was too nervous to venture out into the streets on her own.
"I feel so trapped right now. I feel tied down," she told NPR. "Any other day, I would have grabbed some pads or stopped by a pharmacy and gone myself."
So Lizete called a neighbor, Ade.
"The phone rang. It was Lizete. She said there was a girl, who was scared and crying," recalls Ade.
Ade, too, wanted to help. But since the killing of Renee Macklin Good by an ICE agent two weeks ago, she's been trying to stay inside as much as possible.
So Ade called her daughter Fanny.
Fanny is a U.S. citizen, but she still worries about driving around Minneapolis and being racially profiled. "I am Hispanic," she says. "They're still going to want to take me."
The Department of Homeland Security denies allegations of racial profiling.
Immigrants we spoke to in Minneapolis say this is a calculation they've been making every day — sometimes multiple times a day: is it safe to go outside? To go buy groceries? To go to church? To see a doctor?
Often, they decide it's not.
Because of this, there's a noticeable lack of traffic — cars, pedestrians — even people on buses — in certain immigrant neighborhoods.
But there are some people outside: volunteers standing guard on street corners looking out for agents so they can alert their neighbors with whistles, and secret chat threads.
NPR spoke to one watcher, a 69-year-old woman who asked to be referred to by her initials: J.B. She was standing in the blustering wind.
"To be honest, I'm scared," she said.
Like many volunteers NPR spoke to, J.B. said that fear has led her to become more resolute.
"I don't care if it's 20 below. We'll dress for it. We'll be here. This is way more important than a little chill air," she said.
Ade and Fanny say those street watchers help them feel safer. So they decided to do it.
They grabbed some pads from their house, and together, carefully, made their way to E.
"We drove in through the back alley," Ade recalls. "It felt safer than parking out front, where there's been ICE agents."
E. let them in through the back door.
And that's how, after several hours, five people and a citywide network of volunteers got a 12-year-old girl her first menstrual pad.
The next day, E. spoke to a nurse at an underground clinic for immigrants who are too scared to go to the doctor these days.
The nurse explained how periods work — what to expect and how to manage symptoms.
Lizete, the community leader who coordinated the whole operation was at the clinic.
E. asked Lizete, "Am I sick?"
Lizete shook her head. "This isn't a disease," she told her. "You aren't sick. It will happen once a month. It's totally normal."
Lizete reminded her that even though it's hard to talk to her dad about this stuff, E. has an army of women behind her.
"We are made of a strong material," Lizete said. "Even if we are drowning, we will find a way to stay afloat and get to the shore."
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