Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP)I am a proud Hmong daughter of Minnesota and a community advocate first before I am anything else. So when Minnesota’s Twin Cities region was the site of “Operation Metro Surge,” the largest immigration enforcement deployment in U.S. history for the last six months, I was pretty distraught over what I could do to serve my community from afar. Both the economic and mental and physical impact on our communities would be far worse than anyone could have imagined.
But most media coverage did not initially include the impact on Asian Americans. It was not until Chongly Scott Thao’s photo of being unlawfully dragged out of his home in nothing but his crocs and underwear that went viral, when mainstream media - and society - realized this was an Asian American issue too. Seven in ten refugees in Minnesota are Southeast Asian. Four in ten are Hmong. But our community members and leaders have known that this has been an ongoing invisible crisis for a long time before the surge even began.
Since 2025, Hmong, Lao, and Khmer communities have faced a targeted crisis due to existing reparation agreements between the U.S. government and Cambodia, as well as what appear to be unofficial agreements between Laos and the current U.S. federal government. This triggered a huge rise in Southeast Asian deportations for the first time in decades. Even beyond Minnesota, a UCLA study showed that the arrests of mostly non-criminal Asian Americans grew by 67% under the current administration compared to the last administration.
And it was never only a Southeast Asian story. South Asian and West Asian families across the Twin Cities were living under the same fear, often with even less visibility in the coverage and even less infrastructure built to catch them. Afghan families who arrived after 2021, many still navigating fragile immigration status, watched enforcement sweep through their neighborhoods with almost no dedicated legal support. South Asian workers and families, some undocumented, some in mixed-status households, faced the same knock on the door with no press coverage at all.
While other rapid response funds for immigrant relief were being mobilized, AAPIP’s Twin Cities Chapter Co-Chairs already predicted the funding gap in our AANHPI communities would be exacerbated by the growing fears and needs of impacted AANHPI individuals and families. Last fall AAPIP released an updated Twin Cities funding snapshot that showed only 0.13% of philanthropic dollars in the Twin Cities go to AANHPI causes and organizations. That’s only 13 cents out of every $100. Most AANHPI community organizations operate with fewer than five staff and budgets under $500,000.
Local and other community allies across the country had reached out to AAPIP asking us whether we’d be able to set up a rapid response fund to support our Asian American communities in crisis. While we were in the process of discussing quick and effective ways to mobilize dollars towards our community, our Co-Chairs had already begun a donation-matching campaign. The total matching campaign that AAPIP achieved collectively with all of the contributions totaled $7,001 catalyzing $14,002 total directly back to the community by inspiring donors to give. Our Co-Chairs felt like we could do more and knew the need was going to be far greater than what the matching campaign could resource.
After much discussion with local community and philanthropic leaders, we launched the AAPIP Twin Cities Rapid Response fund in one week's time to begin receiving donations on Feb 1. We realized that AAPIP already had the national reach and administrative capacity to serve as a trusted intermediary in times of crisis. Our Twin Cities Chapter leaders know the organizations on the ground and were already closely connected to those community leaders. Together, we built a fund that would distribute grants as funds came in, guided by an Advisory Committee of local community and philanthropic leaders. This is what we accomplished together.
This was no small feat and we couldn’t have done this alone. We’re incredibly grateful for all the donors and funders who trusted us to steward these dollars. We know it will never be enough to undo the harm inflicted on all our communities but our immigrant and AANHPI communities are stronger and more resilient because of this crucial, timely investment.
Now, we’re calling in philanthropy to become partners in this fight in the long term. This rapid response fund showed what’s possible when we come together. We know 65% of Asians and 27% of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders are foreign-born, yet immigration funding portfolios rarely reflect the scale of need in our communities. Partners who understand that supporting AANHPI immigrant communities too is an integral part of a stronger democracy and ecosystem of thriving immigrant communities:
- Funding local community infrastructure that can respond to rapid deportations, family separations, and support real systems-change work in the long-term
- Resourcing legal defense and know-your-rights education for communities living in suspended states of fear
- Supporting grassroots organizations in rural and underinvested regions where AANHPI immigrants face enforcement with little infrastructure
- Investing in narrative change that makes our communities visible in immigration policy conversations, and
- Trust and and resource intermediaries and entities like AAPIP to move dollars quickly when communities need it most
As a daughter of the Twin Cities and someone who cares deeply about the wellbeing of Minnesotans – I want to personally thank everyone who contributed to the fund’s success and made this possible. I’m forever grateful for those who believed in us and in supporting our Twin Cities communities.
We’re looking forward to convening and celebrating our grantee partners this fall on Tuesday, September 29th to uplift the real work being done in our communities. We hope our donors, funder partners, and allies will join us.
As the work goes on, please continue to support our grantee partners. Ua tsaug ntau ntau.
Grantee Partners
- Advancement of Hmong Americans: Support direct assistance and prepare critical legal and safety documents like Delegation of Parental Authority (DOPA) forms and attorney-in-fact documentation to ensure impacted children and families are protected. Funding will also support outreach, safety planning, and resource navigation for Hmong farmers to help them make informed decisions about their operations and maintain stability.
- Afghan Cultural Society + WeCollab is providing safety planning, community advocacy, mental health and wellness activities, and capacity support for one of the Twin Cities’ newest refugee communities, where demand for services has increased significantly.
- Asian Economic Development Association (AEDA): Support direct community outreach, crisis navigation, and the coordination of relief resources for AANHPI small businesses, entrepreneurs, and independent artists in the Little Mekong neighborhood and throughout the metro region.
- Asian Women United of MN: Create more capacity and ensure adequate staff coverage, especially for night shift rotations. Expanded capacity is critical to ensure survivors can access emergency shelter, legal advocacy, safety monitoring, and healing services around the clock.
- Athletes Committed to Educating Students (ACES): Re-establish school as a safe place, to reintroduce caring adults outside the home, and to re-engage them in their learning, particularly in social emotional readiness. Adapt curriculum to focus on academic and social emotional skill retention and to recover lost learning, serving 400 students across the city of Hmong, Karen, and other Asian immigrant students.
- Cambodian American Partnership for Minnesota is expanding Know Your Rights outreach and education for Cambodian and broader AANHPI families across the state, prioritizing communities with limited access to language-appropriate services.
- Coalition of Asian American Leaders (CAAL): Support legal efforts for individuals who are under threat of being detained, are detained, or have been deported (at least 30 cases), Small business support, including technical assistance, for those impacted by the surge , Know Your Rights Training for community members and what to do if detained ; and continued advocacy at the state and federal level for immigration policies, including a pardon bill currently with the state legislature
- Communities Advancing Prosperity for Immigrants (CAPI) serves immigrants across the Twin Cities metro. Their grant supports rental assistance for families who have been sheltering in place and are at risk of losing housing.
- Filipinx Immigrant Rights of MN (FIRM) (fiscally sponsored by Indigenous Roots): Protect and empower newly-arrived teachers and educators from the Philippines by connecting them with an immigration attorney, providing a facilitated teachers’ education workshop, and other key resources to support their arrival.
- Future of Us (fiscally sponsored by Access Philanthropy): Funds will provide culturally relevant food mutual aid and essential basic needs, as well as legal system navigation support to 20–30 impacted Southeast Asian families over the next 3–6 months.
- HAP (Hmong American Partnership): HAP will build on its existing model of resource dissemination coupled with culturally appropriate navigation through two key strategies: 1) Assemble and distribute approximately 40 additional care packages for impacted households, containing essential food & items. 2) Expand community-based gift card program, providing direct financial relief to families
- Hmong Early Childhood Coalition: To support culturally and linguistically responsive programming for Hmong families, including parent education workshops, community engagement activities, resource navigation, and translation services.
- India Association of Minnesota is delivering community forums, translation services, civic education workshops, and culturally responsive wellness sessions for South Asian community members affected by ongoing policing activity.
- KOM (Karen Organization of MN): Linking impacted individuals to immigration legal services including Congressional case workers, Assisting clients to apply for rent and utility assistance, and accompanying families on PARRIS interviews lasting sometimes up to 7 hours per interview
- Lao Assistance Center of MN: Rapid response navigation, culturally grounded case management, housing stabilization support, appointment accompaniment, referrals to vetted immigration attorneys, and coordination across social service, public benefits, and school systems.
- ManForward: Working with Hmong, Lao, Viet and Khmer men and masculine folks in the Twin Cities who have final removal orders by 1) supporting them in navigating the immigration systems, legal support, and providing supportive services for them and 2) providing education to the other men and masculine program members on how ending state violence (ex. immigration/deportation efforts) is connected to gender based violence.
- Minnesota8: Funds will be used to directly support families impacted by detention and deportation through emergency mutual aid (including rent, food, transportation, and childcare), as well as to strengthen staff capacity to coordinate urgent legal defense in partnership with trusted immigration attorneys.
- MN Zej Zog (Sib Hlub Sib Pab) is coordinating food access in the West Metro – a region underserved by existing food shelf resources – by partnering with Asian-owned grocery stores to provide rice and noodles to families identified through local school districts.
- MORE: Increase weekly food distribution shelf support and basic care supplies in support of 800-900 English-language-learner students and community members who transitioned to remote learning since the federal surge.
- Organization serving primarily youth, families and individuals in recovery across the Twin Cities requested to remain anonymous: Provide immediate legal assistance, emergency basic needs support and culturally responsive emotional support for individuals and families in crisis, particularly those in recovery or living with mental health challenges who face additional barriers to stability.
- Peb Lub Neej Women’s Food Sovereignty and Healing Co-Op (fiscally sponsored by Indigenous Roots): Funds will support two urgent priorities: (1) providing staffing support to help farmers access housing stabilization, legal referrals, food assistance, transportation, and mental health resources and (2) hosting value-added production workshops and shared kitchen access so farmers can generate income through shelf-stable products without relying on high-visibility public markets.
- SEAD Project: Provide culturally rooted language and cultural curriculum courses to individuals facing immediate deportation to Laos.
- SEWA-AIFW: Mitigate harm at the individual family level and small business support by providing direct financial assistance for legal and rental assistance, as well as culturally specific mental health and basic needs, and ensure the free health clinic remains open.
- The Urban Village works with Karen, Karenni, Lisu, Mon, and Burmese families in East Saint Paul. Their grant provides emergency rent and utility assistance for families who lost income during ICE deployment.
- Tibetan Foundation of Minnesota: Support students who shifted to remote learning and expand outreach efforts by translating essential legal information into Tibetan and prepare community members who have volunteered to serve as trained constitutional observers.
- Transforming Generations is a gender justice organization serving Hmong families in Saint Paul. Their grant funds legal support including application fees and document preparation. They also provide direct mutual aid for rent, essential supplies, and culturally specific family needs.
- United Hmong with Disabilities provides disability advocacy and resource navigation for Hmong individuals with disabilities, a population with compounded vulnerabilities during ICE deployment. Their grant supports culturally responsive case coordination and community education.
- Vietnamese Social Services of Minnesota (VSSMN): Know‑Your‑Rights education, immigration case navigation guidance, safety planning, and culturally grounded, trauma‑informed wellness support for families and elder health recovery efforts.
- Youth Leadership Initiative (YLI): Support impacted families cover basic needs like groceries, partial rent and utilities, transportation costs, and medical needs. YLI also engages young people through a trauma-informed approach, and incorporates mental health and wellness practices into programming so that youth have a safe space to process fear, stress, and uncertainty.