Walk through Ward 1 today and you'll see what makes this place worth fighting for. Apartment buildings full of families from East Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia. Parents working two jobs to give their kids something better. Neighbors who came here looking for safety and a chance to build, and stayed because somebody made it feel like home. That's not a side story about Ward 1. That is Ward 1.

During Operation Metro Surge, our ward felt it. Masked agents stopped our neighbors outside grocery stores and restaurants. Our kids stayed home from school. Our families stopped going to work. Minneapolis banned ICE from staging on city property. Fridley stayed quiet. And while Ward 1 families were hiding in their apartments, the city was handing out grants to local businesses to install Flock license plate readers, the same surveillance network that investigations have found ICE quietly accessing through local police, thousands of times across the country, to track immigrants. I'm not running because I always wanted to be a politician. I'm running because this is my community, my family came here for the same reasons most of Ward 1 did, and I watched what Operation Metro Surge did to my neighbors. Nobody on the current council is going to fix it. End the camera grants. Pass a separation ordinance like Minneapolis. Stop pretending silence is neutral.

Trust is not built with statements. It is built when families know that the person representing them actually understands what they are living through. That means a council member who shows up year round, not just during election season. I will host community events every three months so Ward 1 residents have a direct line to me — to ask questions, raise concerns, and hold me accountable. I will be in the neighborhood, talking to my neighbors and constituents, because that is what showing up actually looks like. When people feel seen by their government they engage with it. When they feel surveilled or ignored they disappear from it. Ward 1 deserves better than that.