Amid the federal immigration raids in Minnesota to start this year, Minnesota United remained quiet on the subject. Loons supporters, which might be the most-progressive fanbase in Minnesota, took notice.

On Jan. 28, MNUFC posted on X: “Officially 1 month until the Home Opener!” And longtime, diehard fan Bruce McGuire replied: “Great. Now make a loud bold statement demanding ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) leave Minnesota immediately!”

That singular statement from the club never arrived over the month leading up to the Loons’ first game in St. Paul this season. MNUFC plays FC Cincinnati at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Allianz Field.

MNUFC will have a pre-match moment of silence for Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot and killed by federal agents in January. The Loons plan to honor others in the community during the game and supporters in The Wonderwall will have a display banner with a message on the subject.

CEO Shari Ballard said the club thought a lot about how it might respond to the ICE raids and he explained to the Pioneer Press her rationale to not issuing a statement. It includes a perspective of a “No. 1 priority” in trying to keep those within her organization safe.

Ballard didn’t want to share specifics but said a few members of the club dealt with “real issues” involving Operation Metro Surge, which had families “legit scared to death.”

“I think it is impossible for people to understand truly what it was like at the height of it — and in certain ways how it still is —unless you’ve been in the community,” Ballard said.

“I also know that you have wider degrees of freedom as an individual, in a context, to try to impact it in whatever way you feel is best,” she continued. “Either sort of behind the scenes quietly supporting your neighbors and help them get groceries and help them pay their rent and do things that you do when you’re trying to take care of people and publicly speaking out to try to draw attention to it and to get it to stop.

“You don’t, in my view, have those same degrees of freedom when you’re responsible for an entire organization — employees, players and their families, academy players and their families.”

The makeup of MNUFC’s rosters, from the MLS squad to its youth academy ranks, are the most diverse in Minnesota’s pro sports.

Ballard was one of 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies to sign onto a statement on Jan. 25, the day after Pretti died in Minneapolis. “With yesterday’s tragic news,” the joint statement said, “we are calling for an immediate de-escalation of tensions and for state, local and federal officials to work together to find real solutions.”

Ballard, a former leader at Best Buy before joining United in 2021, said she didn’t think a statement from the club was “going to solve anything.”

“There will be people that agree with it; there will be people that don’t. There will be people that said it goes too far; other people say it doesn’t go far enough,” she said. “It just would add to the volatility. And I don’t want to I don’t want to (put a) target on anybody.”

Ballard offered her own counter-argument. “If nobody says anything in a situation like that, does it just keep going on?” she asked. “I think the answer to that is yes.”

Once the whistle blows for the home opener Saturday, new Loons head coach Cameron Knowles knows his team has a responsibility to help the community.

“Our game is the best of accepting people from all around the world and different cultures,” said Knowles, a New Zealand native. “You see it in our locker room, you see it in the stands. And I think that should be a celebration of the globalism of our game. It’s certainly a responsibility for us for that 90 minutes to bring joy to the community and to represent the community in the way that we play, the effort that we put into the game, understanding that there has been real heaviness over the city for a little while.”

Briefly

The Loons were scheduled to play an international friendly against Werder Bremen later this season, but the top-tier German club pulled out of the exhibition last week, in part, due to safety concerns in traveling to Minnesota.  “We got another international friendly we’re working on, so we will have one for sure,” Ballard said.

By LEAH WILLINGHAM, Associated Press

BOSTON (AP) — The court-ordered deadline for the U.S. government to return a Babson College freshman mistakenly deported to Honduras was set to expire Friday, as her lawyers accused federal officials of stalling and said she had been pressured to board a flight that could have resulted in her detention.

Her attorney, Todd Pomerleau, said his legal team is prepared to continue fighting the case through appeals and vowed that 19-year-old Any Lucia Lopez Belloza “is not coming back in handcuffs.”

Lopez Belloza, who has no criminal record and has been studying remotely from Honduras, said she will remain there for now as her legal team continues to press for her return.

“No one should have to feel this powerless. All I’m asking is for honesty and fairness,” she said, speaking to reporters Friday via Zoom. “I’m asking to be treated like a human with rights.”

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Lopez Belloza was detained at Boston’s Logan International Airport in November while trying to fly to Texas to surprise her family for Thanksgiving. She was deported to Honduras, the country she left at age 7, less than two days later despite a court order barring her removal while her case was pending. Federal prosecutors later acknowledged in court that immigration authorities had mistakenly deported her.

In previous statements, the Department of Homeland Security has said Lopez Belloza received “full due process” and had a final order of removal issued years earlier by an immigration judge. Immigration officials did not immediately respond Friday to an email request for comment about the expired deadline and the proposed return plan.

Lopez Belloza has said she did not know she had a removal order against her and was 11 years old when the immigration case was decided. Pomerleau has said that when he initially reviewed her immigration records, he did not see an active removal order reflected in the system.

In court filings in January, government attorneys said an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer failed to properly activate an alert system that would have flagged the judge’s order blocking her removal. The administration apologized for the error but argued that the mistake did not invalidate the prior removal order.

Earlier this month, U.S. District Judge Richard Stearns ordered the government to facilitate her return within two weeks, saying the courts — not the executive branch — must determine her rights and the legality of her removal. The deadline was set to expire at midnight Friday.

Government attorneys have argued that the federal court in Boston lacks jurisdiction to undo her removal order.

Lopez Belloza and her attorney said federal officials sought to arrange a government-facilitated flight to the United States in the past 24 hours but would not clearly state whether she would be released upon arrival. Pomerleau said court filings indicate the government plans to detain her in Texas and could seek to deport her again within days.

“They’re interpreting the judge’s facilitation order to the extreme,” Pomerleau said. “The judge’s order says to facilitate her return to the United States to maintain the status quo. And in their view, the status quo is that she was in handcuffs in a jail in Texas. So they’re going to bring her back, put her in handcuffs and leave her in that same jail in Texas.”

If Quinn Hughes doesn’t sleep on airplanes, he might not get any sleep at all this week.

Fresh off his Olympic gold medal in Italy, his raucous team party in Florida, his invite to the White House in Washington, a brief stop in Minnesota, and then a big road win in Colorado, the Minnesota Wild defenseman will enjoy some time on the celebrity A-list — and several more flights — in the coming days.

After Friday night’s game in Utah, Hughes will be jetting to New York City to appear as a guest on Saturday Night Live. With that out of the way, he will fly back to Minnesota for the Wild’s afternoon game versus St. Louis on Sunday.

From there, it’s back to the Big Apple where on Monday he and his brother Jack will appear alongside Team USA women’s star Hillary Knight on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Then Hughes will fly back to Minnesota for the Wild’s Tuesday night home game versus Tampa Bay.

Even before the details of the national TV appearances were revealed, Hughes told reporters in Denver before the Wild’s 5-2 win over Colorado that the past few weeks have been “A whirlwind, and it’s just crazy.”

Younger brother Jack, who scored the winning OT goal in the finale versus Canada, plays just across the river from New York City, for the New Jersey Devils. But with them playing a 5 p.m. ET game in St. Louis on Saturday, it is up in the air whether he will be able to make it to the NBC Studios in Midtown Manhattan in time for the live broadcast of SNL.

On Monday, Fallon will welcome the trio of Olympians along with actors Nicole Kidman and Luke Thompson. The show, which airs at 10:35 p.m. Minnesota time, will also feature a cooking demo by Chef Mario Carbone.

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The peak of Timberwolves’ basketball came two seasons ago.

Fifty-six regular season wins, the best defense in the NBA by a longshot, a night-in, night-out standard of excellence that was met far more often than not.

Minnesota’s Game 7 rally past Denver in the Western Conference semifinals is forever seared into the minds of its fan base.

Its Game 2 dominance still resonates with basketball junkies near and far, as the Rudy Gobert-less Wolves held the Nuggets to just 80 points on 35% shooting on a night where defense became cool again.

Nikola Jokic was held in check to the tune of 16 points on 5 for 13 shooting. His primary defender that night? Kyle Anderson, who stripped the League MVP multiple times while also tallying nine rebounds and eight assists.

Minnesota was in imminent danger of being swept by Dallas in the ensuing Western Conference Finals. Trailing 3-0 in the series, the Wolves led Game 4 by two with five minutes to play.

Anderson had been begging Anthony Edwards to make the skip pass to the open corner shooter throughout the game.

This time, he decided to intervene.

Karl-Anthony Towns – who’d just drilled a triple the possession prior – was standing on the wing as the play developed. Anderson waved and clapped his hands to get the big man’s attention and direct him to the corner.

At this point, Edwards had taken a few probing dribbles to get near the paint on the opposite side.

“He’s out there. I was dribbling the ball,” Edwards recalled at the time. “I damn sure was about to shoot it.”

Until he made eye contact with Anderson, who was vehemently waving in Towns’ direction. That was where the ball needed to go.

Edwards obliged, passing it over the top of the defense to Towns in the corner. Anderson used his body to prevent Dallas guard Kyrie Irving from entering Towns’ air space, and Towns buried another triple to put the Wolves up by five en route to victory.

“Kyle made that play happen,” Towns said at the time. “He made a lot of plays happen.”

Perhaps more than anyone could’ve realized at the time.

Minnesota hasn’t been as good of a basketball team as it was during that magical 2023-24 campaign over the past two years. The Wolves frequently rely more on their raw ability to deliver wins over process and execution.

While the ceiling remains the same in the minds of many, the inconsistent outcomes are a byproduct of the approach. Despite being one of the healthiest teams in the NBA this season, Minnesota still finds itself sparring in the middle of the Western Conference playoff picture among teams that are not as good or not as healthy and, in some cases, both.

Minnesota currently ranks outside the top eight in the NBA in defensive, offensive and net rating. None of it screams championship contention.

Gone are the nightly displays of suffocating defense – a direct result of talented personnel, commitment to execution and hoops IQ merging at a glorious basketball crossroads to produce a defensive force no foe could replicate on that end, or withstand on the other.

The Wolves will sporadically summon the energy to crank the intensity level up to 10 for special occasions, but no longer evoke joy from making their opponents’ evenings a living hell for 48 minutes on the floor.

Not a lot has changed roster-wise between then and now, at least in the NBA realm. Gone are Karl-Anthony Towns and Nickeil Alexander-Walker, here are Donte DiVincenzo, Julius Randle and a host of young players.

The core largely remains intact. But the feeling is different. The edge, the professionalism, the unity and the joy have all frayed, just a bit – enough to lower Minnesota from truly elite to maybe just good.

Perhaps an old, familiar face is crafty enough to mend upon his arrival. Minnesota is set to sign Anderson after he clears waivers following the forward’s buyout from Memphis. After the Timberwolves – who didn’t have the available salary cap space to bring Anderson back in the summer of 2024 – aided the forward’s exit to Golden State via a sign-and-trade deal, a multi-year odyssey with numerous stops around the league have led Anderson back to Minnesota.

His lack of playing time and impact at recent stops in Miami and Utah will lead many to assume a reversion to past Wolves’ form isn’t in the cards for Anderson, but don’t be so sure. Opportunity didn’t exist in those situations for one reason or another – fit is a fickle mistress in the NBA – but the production didn’t depart from the forward’s career-long norms.

He’s still a versatile defender who can play make at a high level. Following the 2024 campaign, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch was asked how Minnesota could lessen the burden on aging point guard Mike Conley. He pointed to Edwards … and Anderson.

“We’ve got to get a better package around him, whether he’s at the one, whether he’s at the three,” Finch said at the time. “I think we can run more offense through him.”

If that still remains true, it’d be a salve for Minnesota, whose offense too frequently features only two outputs: transition or isolation.

Finch’s offensive system demands unselfishness and improvisation. Often, players prove themselves either unwilling or unable to execute it. During his previous Wolves’ tenure, Anderson was afforded the freedom to direct traffic.

“He’s just so smart. He finds the right spaces, he gets the ball to the right people. Handling, screening, he’s play-calling,” Finch said two years ago. “Yeah, I mean, it’s something.”

It’s necessary, more so now than ever before, with Conley officially aging out of a role and no real answer ever developed to replace him. It’s one void the forward could potentially fill for 15-plus minutes a night on a team that could use an eighth guy to solidify its playoff rotation.

Minnesota is operating under the assumption it’s getting the same guy that departed two years ago, and will adjust accordingly upon Anderson’s arrival.

Certainly, fifteen minutes per game isn’t enough to elevate an entire unit from good to great. But Anderson’s past impact extended far beyond his on-court contributions. The Wolves possess veteran leaders, but none as vocal as Anderson, who was willing to call out anyone, anytime, anywhere within the team setting.

If you didn’t deliver consistently on the effort and execution fronts, he’d tell you about it. And, well, this year’s team isn’t exactly the U.S. Postal Service.

Halftime or postgame butt chewings may no longer fall solely at the feet of Finch.

It’s not easy to enter a locker room mid-season and take leadership reins, but the task is more palatable when the situation is so familiar. Anderson knows these faces, and they know, love and respect his voice.

A year after inducing a Rudy Gobert mid-game punch, Anderson and the big man became as close as any two players on the team.

On many rosters, Anderson’s incoming impact would probably be marginal, at best. Perhaps that will ultimately be the case here, as well. But there’s a reasonable chance it’s more – Minnesota needs it to be.

Because, somewhere along the way, the Wolves lost their soul. Maybe Anderson — and his rare concoction of accountability, acumen and attitude — can help them find it.

For what ails these Timberwolves, that may just be the antidote.

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