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When federal immigration agents pounded on the door of his Minneapolis<\/a> home, the oldest son in a family of 10 knew he had to move his siblings to a safer place. <\/p>\n Their mother, a 41-year-old Indigenous Ecuadorian office cleaner without a known criminal record besides minor traffic offenses, had been detained in early January because she entered the country illegally. Her eldest children feared they would be next, leaving behind their 5-month-old brother and six other children under 16 years old.<\/p>\n \u201cThe immigration agents were knocking on our door very late at night, and that\u2019s when I became afraid,\u201d said the 20-year-old son, speaking on condition of anonymity out of fear additional family members could face deportation. \u201cI\u2019m afraid that I\u2019ll be taken and my brothers and sisters will be in the hands of the government.\u201d<\/p>\n That’s when the family contacted Feliza Martinez, a friend from church, who rallied a group of volunteers to quietly move them to a safe house in south Minneapolis. <\/p>\n Martinez is one of the countless Twin Cities residents aiding immigrants like Melida Rita Wampash Tuntuam\u2019s family, prompted by word-of-mouth appeals for help \u2014 mostly ordinary people appalled by the aggressive tactics of federal agents who have broken down doors without warrants<\/a> and violently clashed<\/a> with protesters during the Trump administration\u2019s crackdown<\/a>. <\/p>\n As more than 2,000 federal agents scour Minneapolis-St. Paul for immigrants to detain and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security reports more than 3,000 arrests since early December, residents have organized to monitor, disrupt and protest the crackdown<\/a> in the streets and in less visible ways. <\/p>\n These Minnesotans have paid rent for immigrant families whose breadwinners are afraid to go to work, delivered home-cooked meals and arranged for regular check-ins and emergency custody arrangements to make sure children are cared for in case their parents are detained. Christian nonprofit Source MN has expanded its food bank program to provide for hundreds of sheltering immigrant families.<\/p>\n \u201cI do receive calls every single day from families and they’re terrified, and we’re just trying to help them as much as we can,\u201d said Martinez, a mother of five who has been taking time off her job on a factory assembly line to volunteer for Source MN. \u201cI just try to bring hope \u2014 like, \u2018We\u2019re here with you.’\u201d<\/p>\n Snow covered the street as the Wampash Tuntuam family arrived at the safe house. A stream of visitors brought snacks, baby supplies and coloring books for the children. They assembled bunk beds and carried in mattresses. <\/p>\n The younger siblings settled in quickly, nestling on the couch in pajamas to share a bag of Cheetos and opening a coloring book to draw butterflies. The house soon sounded like any other filled with the shrieks and giggles of small children at play.<\/p>\n But Wampash Tuntuam\u2019s older children, fidgeting on the couch, still worried about their future. They told The Associated Press that their mother gave the address of their rental home to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, who said they wanted to send a social worker to check on the younger children. Instead, armed masked immigration officers appeared and surrounded the house twice.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s when we knew they hadn\u2019t sent a social worker but agents to detain us,\u201d recalled Wampash Tuntuam\u2019s 22-year-old daughter, who spoke on condition of anonymity because she and three other family members have final orders of removal. Her 20-year-old brother and other siblings are working on obtaining legal status. The two youngest children are U.S. citizens. <\/p>\n Martinez, a devoted Christian, said she voted for President Donald Trump in the past three elections because of his hard-line stance against abortion and gender-affirming care for youth. The granddaughter of a Mexican immigrant supported deporting violent criminals and had not paid much attention to reports of family separations in the first Trump presidency.<\/p>\n