by Shane Hachey and Liz Collin
Hundreds of migrants are staying at “shelter sites” across the Twin Cities metro. Having been sheltered in Minnesota for months, these migrants are largely families who are staying at various Minneapolis area hotels.
Alpha News traveled to multiple shelter sites and talked with migrants and hotel staff on the ground.
At a La Quinta Inn and Suites in Brooklyn Park, dozens of rooms have been rented out to migrants for months. A manager of the hotel confirmed that Hennepin County is paying for the migrants to stay at the hotel. According to the manager, the hotel has been renting out 40 to 50 rooms for the last six months on the government’s dime.
Mostly providing lodging for families, the Brooklyn Park La Quinta does not shelter single individuals. Further, migrant families are not the only people being sheltered at the hotel. Other families experiencing homelessness are also staying at the hotel as part of Hennepin County’s “shelter-all” program.
The manager of the hotel told Alpha News that everyone staying at the hotel is “legal” as far as he knows. When asked again, he said: “I don’t want to lie to you. I don’t know.”
He stated that the arrangement is essentially one in which Hennepin County is the customer, and the county keeps track of information regarding those who are staying at the hotel.
“We are not supposed to ask [the families] questions because the county’s paying,” said the manager. “That’s between them.”
In Plymouth, the Red Roof Inn has also become a shelter for migrants. A clerk at the hotel confirmed that Hennepin County brings the migrants to the hotel. The current group of migrants staying at the Red Roof Inn has been there for roughly three months.
“At first we gave them 50 [or] 60 rooms,” said the clerk. However, that number has “gradually decreased” as migrants have slowly moved out. According to the clerk, Hennepin County was still utilizing four or five rooms when Alpha News was on site.
Just like at the Brooklyn Park La Quinta, Hennepin County makes the arrangements for migrants to stay at the hotel. Staff of the hotel do not have information on the names or identities of individuals brought in by the county, nor how long any of them stay.
In Minneapolis, the former LuMinn Hotel, now owned by the county, is another shelter used by Hennepin County to house migrants. Workers at the site told Alpha News they were instructed to not answer any questions regarding the use of the building. Instead, the staff members were told to refer any inquiries to representatives with Hennepin County. Located across the street from Minneapolis City Hall, the hotel had the shades drawn on every window, with curtains drawn over the large windows near the sidewalk.
Hennepin County confirmed that roughly 430 families (over 1,400 people) are being sheltered by the county. However, not all of these individuals are migrants. The county estimates that over 50% of these people are “new arrivals.”
David Hewitt, director of housing stability for Hennepin County, told Alpha News that Hennepin County has seen an “increase in demand from families that are new arrivals to the US, starting from late 2022.” Additionally, Hewitt said the county has “added a number of sites to meet the need for emergency shelter for all families in our community.”
In December, the number of people being sheltered by Hennepin County was higher, but those numbers have gone down as “families have moved out and into housing at a higher rate than new families have come into the system.”
In 2023, the shelter budget for Hennepin County was about $9.5 million. In 2024, the county’s shelter budget ballooned to $22.5 million. In addition to providing shelter, Hennepin County “helps all families experiencing homelessness access school and healthcare resources.”
Local government is not the only entity that is sheltering migrants in Minnesota; private enterprise also plays a significant part.
At a Holiday Inn in Bloomington, employees on site confirmed that the building is being used as a shelter run by a private organization, Primus Incorporated. Alpha News reached out to Primus Incorporated for information on the building, but the organization refused to answer any questions.
A sign on the building states in Spanish that the shelter is not accepting new families and encourages interested parties to contact Hennepin County to find available shelter.
At 1st Avenue and Lake Street in Minneapolis, migrants line up looking for work of different kinds. Alex, a 33-year-old, told Alpha News that he works construction and shows up at the aforementioned corner every day. From Chiapas, Mexico, Alex left his family and has been in Minnesota for six months.
Minnesota has seen a significant influx in the number of migrants who have shown up in the state recently.
In January, Alpha News reported that Minnesota’s only immigration court has a record-breaking backlog of cases. At the end of fiscal year 2023, the Fort Snelling Immigration Court in Bloomington had 32,105 backlogged cases, according to an immigration court tracking program run by Syracuse University.
Additionally, Minneapolis Public Schools (MPS) recently confirmed that approximately 2,500 Spanish speakers have been enrolled in the school district in the past 12 months. According to MPS, “These students are not necessarily new-to-country but the majority are.”
Luke Sprinkel contributed to this report.
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Shane Hachey is a journalist and blogger based in the Twin Cities. He covers national politics, race, and local issues. Prior to that, he studied history at Columbia and law at Harvard Law School, and he was an Army Military Policeman for five years stationed in Germany, Yugoslavia, and Fort Hood, Texas. Liz Collin has been a truth-teller for 20 years as a multi-Emmy-Award-winning reporter and anchor. Liz is a Worthington, Minnesota native who lives in the suburbs with her husband, son and loyal lab.
Photo “Migrants” by Alpha News.
