The Minneapolis tech community holds strong during ‘tense and difficult time’

The city’s tech scene is reeling as U.S. immigration agents have escalated their crackdown in Minneapolis, killing several people, including at least two U.S. citizens.

Eight Minneapolis-based founders and investors told TechCrunch that they have put much of their work on hold and now spend their days focused on their communities, volunteering at churches, and helping buy food. It’s part of a grassroots effort, across race and class, that is seeing people speak out, donate money, protest, and offer emotional support to one another.

“There’s a lot of commonality between how a teacher is reacting right now and how a tech professional is reacting,” Scott Burns, an investor in the area, told TechCrunch. He said people are “very fatigued.” Burns is going to church more often to help pack food to deliver to those too frightened to leave their homes. “It was like what happens after a natural disaster,” he said of the effort.

Burns and other members of the Minneapolis tech industry told TechCrunch that the immigration raids have been very disruptive to their lives, describing a city that has seen itself united in the last several weeks in the face of escalating violence from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

How can building a company remain a focal point when ICE agents appear to be everywhere, plainclothed and armed with military-grade weapons? Federal agents have been seen searching public transportation and prowling around workplaces. They are outside homes and in parking lots. They have been spotted circling schools.

One Black founder, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect members of his staff, said he now carries his pas