Twin Cities residents officially honored with JFK Profile in Courage Award

Twin Cities residents were officially honored with the 2026 JFK Profile in Courage Award Sunday night for their response to the Trump administration's aggressive deployment of federal agents earlier this year.

"The people of the Twin Cities reminded all Americans that we cannot take our democracy for granted," Caroline Kennedy said during the ceremony.

The JFK Foundation announced in March the people of the Twin Cities would receive the award for "risking their lives to protect their neighbors and immigrant community members from an unprecedented federal law enforcement operation."

During Operation Metro Surge — the largest federal deployment of law enforcement in U.S. history — Minnesotans organized protests, pressured lawmakers and even traveled across the country to help bring their neighbors home after Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainment. Federal agents shot and killed two Twin Cities residents — Renee Good and Alex Pretti — and wounded another during the surge.

Four community leaders from the metro were on hand to accept the award: Iamam Yusuf Abdulle, co-founder of the Somali American Leadership Table; Haven Watch founder Natalie Ehret; COPAL Associate Executive Director Carolina Ortiz; and Columbia Heights Public Schools Superintendent Zena Stenvik. All four represent communities targeted during Operation Metro Surge.

"No child, no student of ours, should ever be surrounded by a group of masked armed agents on their way to or from school, separated from their family and detained without cause and without due process," Stenvik said in a statement in March. "The people of the Twin Cities and the Columbia Heights Public Schools community demonstrated our core value of integrity; they spoke up and shone a spotlight on the atrocities of Operation Metro Surge."

Though federal officials said the operation was focused on "the worst of the worst," data shows less than a quarter of the 3,800 people arrested during it were convicted criminals. President Trump and other officials said the surge was prompted in part by fraud in Minnesota, which they unjustly blamed largely on the Somali community. People of Somali descent accounted for less than 3% of arrests during the operation.