Valentina Oropeza, BBC Mundo
Pastor Sergio Amezcua received an urgent phone call.
The young man jumped from a third-floor window when he saw uniformed men searching for undocumented migrants in his building, he was told.
"He was washing clothes in the laundry room and when he heard a noise in the hallway, he broke the window and jumped to escape," said Amezcua, 46, in a telephone interview from Minneapolis, where he leads the evangelical church "God Speaks Today."
The injured young man walked a whole kilometer until neighbors offered him shelter, the pastor says.
"When he was helped, he was without shoes or a shirt, just in shorts - in sub-zero temperatures, he was knocking on people's doors and crying."
Amezcua says that since the first week of December, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents began conducting raids across the state of Minnesota in the United States, he has been receiving calls about different cases every day.
In December, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that by the end of 2025, the US would have more than 2,5 million undocumented migrants leaving.
More than 605.000 people have been deported, amid a national offensive launched by President Donald Trump's administration against undocumented immigrants.
Amezkua remembers certain incidents in particular.
A woman from his church knelt with a baby in her arms in front of ICE agents, begging them not to take her husband, as captured in a video that went viral on social media.
In another case, a man hid in a building for four hours, in sub-zero temperatures, to avoid a raid.
"They call me to ask for help in finding family members who have been detained, to see if we can get them a lawyer, or to ask for food, milk and diapers," explains Amezcua.
"Agents are hunting down ordinary people when they leave their apartments to take out the trash... It's terrible what's happening in Minnesota."
However, on February 12, representatives of the Trump administration announced that ICE will end its operation in Minnesota.
Tom Homan, the chief of operations in charge of immigration enforcement, said Trump had approved his request to end the operation, adding that he would remain in Minnesota "a little longer to oversee the withdrawal of agents and ensure its success."
State of protest
Amezcua was born in Mexico.
He arrived in Minnesota 24 years ago and became a US citizen.
More than a decade ago, he founded a church that holds services in both English and Spanish, mostly for people of Latino descent.
Although Minnesota is home to less than one percent of the approximately 14 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, according to estimates by the Migration Policy Institute, the Trump administration has ordered the largest deployment of ICE agents in this state.
Officials say the goal of the initiative, dubbed "Operation Metro Wave," is to restore public safety by arresting and deporting undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
The administration's tactics led thousands of people across the country to take to the streets to protest.
Federal agents shot and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis last month.
The measures affect both migrants with clean records and American citizens.
- What is ICE in America and what powers do agents have to use force?
- Minneapolis on the verge of shooting: Large protests over ICE agents and second murder in a month
- Life in ICE Detention: Testimony of a Serbian Truck Driver from America
Liam's arrest
Discontent has particularly grown since an ICE official was photographed holding Liam Conejo Ramos, a five-year-old boy arrested on January 20 along with his father, Adrian Conejo.
"Why are they arresting a five-year-old? Don't tell me that child is going to be classified as a violent criminal," said senior education official Zena Stanwick at the time.
"ICE did not intend to arrest a child," the Department of Homeland Security said in a social media post in response to the allegations.
A few days later, Liam and his father were released from the Texas detention center they had been transferred to and returned to Minneapolis.
However, many say there is still a pervasive sense of fear - despite the alleged withdrawal of ICE officers in response to widespread protests.
Amezcua warns that migrants have decided to retreat to their homes and limit their movements to avoid encounters with ICE patrols.
"Eighty percent of my congregation doesn't come to Mass for fear of ICE."
"I'm talking about citizens, people who are here legally and don't want their children to go through such trauma," says Amezcua.
The pastor feels fear even in his own home, through his teenage daughters.
"When a package arrives, the delivery people often have their faces covered because of the cold, and my daughters are scared because they think they're ICE."
"The trauma is collective and affects everyone, not just migrants, but also people born here."
'We help anyone who asks'
Amezcua first encountered the challenges of coordinating humanitarian aid for church members during the COVID pandemic, when families were forced to stay home due to quarantine.
Since ICE has been patrolling the streets of Minneapolis, a pastor has been leading an operation to bring food to migrants who fear being caught on the street and then deported to their home countries.
Help is advertised through the church's social media accounts.
And through his personal chat, the pastor is inviting people to sign up to receive a food donation over the next seven days.
“We provide assistance to more than 100.000 people in our community, distributing between 175 and 200 tons of food per week,” he explains.
The food is paid for by members of the church, soup kitchens and foundations that support them, he adds.
Amezkua says the church trains volunteers who offer to deliver food.
Currently, 4.000 people are helping with this initiative, but the operation is often difficult.
"I can't give details, but if they see ICE following them, they turn around and don't deliver the food."
A helping hand for one family usually consists of vegetables, fruit, pasta, sauces, protein, milk and cheese.
"It varies a little every day, but it includes tortillas, flour, dough, oil, sugar, salt, soap, diapers, baby formula and toilet paper."
The morning we spoke, he was facing a new challenge - securing a truck and a warehouse to store the products.
"We have a lot of help available, but we have nowhere to store all this raw material," he says.
Members of the flock don't just avoid going to the supermarket.
Many have also stopped sending their children to school and do not go to the hospital when they get sick.
“It's a collective initiative,” says the pastor.
"We are here to help, not to confront the government. We don't ask who has documents. Whoever asks for help, we give it to them."
- How Trump's world order is affecting Europe ahead of key defense conference
- Minneapolis on the verge of shooting: Large protests over ICE agents and second murder in a month
- Trump's Controversial 'Committee for Peace': What is it, who did he invite and who accepted it?
- The man who shapes Trump's most controversial political decisions
- Trump deletes video showing Barack and Michelle Obama as monkeys
- Trump threatens to sue comedian Trevor Noah over Epstein joke at Grammys
Bonus video:
