Under
the Cover of Tear Gas
Like
countless other leaders at Minnesota-based
organizations, Chris Knopf has spent the first
part of 2026 trying to support his staff as best
he can. Knopf is the executive director of a
Minnesota nonprofit group with two-dozen
employees, many of whom have been impacted by
the federal assault on the Twin Cities.
One
staffer was at the scene when masked federal
agents shot and killed Alex Pretti. Another
staffer has a child in the same school attended
by Liam Ramos, the five-year-old whose abduction
by immigration agents sparked national outrage.
Some of Knopf’s staff members have spent time
out on the streets with whistles and cell phones
observing ICE kidnappings or taking shifts
guarding preschools from ICE incursions.
Knopf’s
staff is doing all this work to protect their
neighbors even as they spend time at their day
job trying to prevent another federal attack on
Minnesota — an attempt by Congress to open the
way for a pair of giant copper mines on the edge
of the famed Boundary Waters Canoe Area
Wilderness.
Knopf
is the executive director of Friends of the
Boundary Waters, an environmental group that
has spent 50 years protecting the labyrinth of
lakes that is the country’s most popular federal
wilderness. He sees a clear parallel between the
siege of the Twin Cities and the effort by
mining corporations and Republicans in
Washington, DC, to dig up the North Woods. “This
assault on the Boundary Waters is part and
parcel of the Trump administration’s assault on
Minnesota,” Knopf said in a recent interview.
“And so we in Minnesota need to stand up for
ourselves, just as we’re doing with ICE right
now.”
In the second instalment of his
new column, The Lookout, Jason Dove Mark writes
about the Trump administration’s efforts to
revive plans for two copper mines on the edge of
a beloved wilderness.
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