Building power to protect immigrant neighbors
Posted by Stanford Social Innovation Review on July 28, 2026
When Operation Metro Surge moved through Minnesota, it tested whether years of community organizing had built enough civic infrastructure to respond. JaNaé Bates Imari and Lilly Sasse, leaders of democracy organizations in the state, write about how communities practiced and organized for this moment, what they learned about strengthening civic engagement, and how funders can support community organizing before a crisis or threat to democracy occurs.
Communities under threat feel the stakes immediately. People are afraid. They are angry. They want to do something. Yet a surge of emotion does not automatically translate into political power. Fear isolates. Urgency scatters. A one-time mobilization can rise quickly and disappear just as fast as it came together.
In Minnesota, what looked like rapid response was, in truth, the result of organizing.
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