A social media threat is circulating about local schools, which St. Paul police said they don’t believe is credible.

The threat led two charter schools in St. Paul to close on Thursday. Community School of Excellence and HOPE Community Academy both posted on social media that they made the decision to close “to ensure the safety of all students and staff.”

St. Paul Public Schools are open. The district was “made aware of nationwide rumors circulating within our school communities, alleging possible violence at schools throughout Minnesota and the Twin Cities,” the district said in a Wednesday night letter to parents. “The information is spreading through social media, primarily on TikTok and Snapchat.”

Investigators have been working with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and St. Paul Public Schools security, said Sgt. Mike Ernster, a St. Paul Police spokesman.

“We will continue to monitor and work with our law enforcement partners,” he said. “We are prepared to take steps, if needed, to make sure the children in our schools remain safe.”

Hmong College Prep Academy, a charter school in St. Paul, is open Thursday, writing to parents they’ve have “a police presence on campus as an extra precaution.”

Many of the messages being shared on social media are copied from posts outside the SPPS district, according to the district’s letter.

The district said they take “every alleged threat seriously. We work closely with our local, state and national law enforcement partners to evaluate every threat. We do not believe that this threat is credible, and there is currently no danger to any SPPS campus.”

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“La imposibilidad de conseguir una cita para el asilo tiene profundas consecuencias en la vida de los migrantes”, afirma Sophie Bah Kouyate, gestora de servicios de African Communities Together. “Sin acceso a estas citas, los migrantes quedan a menudo en un estado de limbo, incapaces de obtener un estatuto legal o acceder a servicios esenciales”.

Este artículo se publicó originalmente en inglés el 11 de septiembre. Traducido por Daniel Parra. Read the English version here.

En una fresca mañana de finales de agosto, los inmigrantes llegaban al Centro de navegación de recursos para solicitantes de asilo (AAHC por sus siglas en inglés), se reunían junto a la escalera y esperaban a ser llamados.

El personal del lugar se asomaba a la puerta y preguntaba a la siguiente persona por qué estaba allí. Los motivos eran variados: algunos inmigrantes trataban de resolver dudas sencillas sobre cómo cambiar la dirección en el Servicio de Ciudadanía e Inmigración de Estados Unidos (USCIS por sus siglas en inglés), o averiguar cuándo empezaban las clases.

Para otros, había más en juego: habían programado citas para solicitar asilo, con carpetas de documentos cruciales bajo el brazo.

El AAHC, situado en el centro de Manhattan dentro de las instalaciones de la Cruz Roja Americana, ayuda a los nuevos inmigrantes neoyorquinos a completar y presentar solicitudes de asilo, estatus de protección temporal y autorización de trabajo desde 2023. Se han presentado más de 67.000 solicitudes de este tipo, según informaron funcionarios de la administración de Eric Adams la semana pasada, y en julio recibió un premio al servicio público de la American Bar Association. 

“La ciudad de Nueva York ha hecho más que cualquier otra localidad del país para gestionar la crisis de los solicitantes de asilo, y una parte clave de ese trabajo es ayudar a nuestros recién llegados a dar sus siguientes pasos hacia la independencia ayudándoles a presentar las vitales y complicadas solicitudes de autorización de trabajo, TPS y asilo”, dijo entonces el alcalde Eric Adams en un comunicado. 

Pero cumplir los requisitos para obtener una cita en el AAHC no es tan sencillo. Los inmigrantes deben estar en el sistema de albergues o haberlo abandonado recientemente, y deben tener derecho a autorización de trabajo, TPS o asilo, explicó la alcaldía.

Si bien el personal de los refugios son el canal principal para programar citas en el Centro de navegación de recursos para solicitantes de asilo de la ciudad, una red de organizaciones comunitarias y proveedores de servicios jurídicos también puede remitir casos de migrantes para aplicar por asilo. 

“La ciudad reconoce que los proveedores de servicios comunitarios pueden encontrarse con residentes elegibles en refugios que no han podido hacer citas a través de su administrador de casos”, dice un conjunto de directrices de la Oficina de la Alcaldía para Asuntos del Inmigrante (MOIA por sus siglas en inglés). “Para solucionar esto, la alcaldía aceptará referidos para citas de organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro contratadas por la alcaldía”.

Sin embargo, esas directrices estipulan que estas organizaciones sólo pueden referir a inmigrantes que estén “a menos de 4 semanas de la fecha límite de presentación de su solicitud de un año”, dice un documento que resume las normas, obtenido por City Limits.

Según la ley federal, los inmigrantes que solicitan asilo deben presentar su solicitud en el plazo de un año desde su llegada más reciente a los Estados Unidos. Según el USCIS, si presentan el formulario después de un año, no podrán optar al asilo, salvo en determinadas circunstancias.

“NO remita a personas a las que les falten más de 4 semanas para cumplir el plazo de un año para la solicitud de asilo”, reitera el documento.

Sin embargo, para las organizaciones de base comunitaria que no disponen de un brazo legal para ayudar directamente a los inmigrantes con los que trabajan, esta restricción les ha impedido referir a los recién llegados, retrasando todas las ventajas económicas que conlleva la solicitud de asilo: solicitar un permiso de trabajo tras 150 días de haber enviado la solicitud, ser autosuficiente más rápidamente y optar a determinados programas públicos.

“Muchos experimentan un mayor estrés y ansiedad debido a la incertidumbre sobre su futuro y al miedo constante a ser detenidos o deportados”, afirma Sophie Bah Kouyate, gestora de servicios de African Communities Together, una de las varias organizaciones de base comunitaria de la red ASLAN —por sus siglas en inglés—, un grupo de proveedores contratados por la ciudad para prestar asistencia jurídica a los nuevos inmigrantes.

“La imposibilidad de trabajar legalmente obliga a algunos a aceptar empleos mal pagados e inestables, lo que puede acarrearles dificultades económicas y dificultar su manutención y la de sus familias. Esta situación también afecta a su salud mental, provocando sentimientos de desesperanza y depresión”, añadió Bah Kouyate.

Además, solicitar asilo puede afectar a la capacidad de un inmigrante para acceder a un refugio en la ciudad de Nueva York. 

Tras un acuerdo legal alcanzado esta primavera, la ciudad ha dificultado que los migrantes adultos sin hijos prolonguen su estancia en los refugios más allá de los 30 o 60 días iniciales, alegando falta de espacio y recursos. Más de 64.000 migrantes se encuentran en el sistema de acogida de la ciudad después de que más de 210.000 llegaran a la ciudad en los últimos dos años.

Haber solicitado asilo es uno de los criterios que pueden hacer que una persona pase otra temporada en un albergue y, como reveló City Limits el mes pasado, también puede suponer una estancia más larga en un albergue: otros 60 días en lugar de 30.

La oficina de MOIA explicó que la directriz aplica a los proveedores que forman parte de la red ASLAN, así como a las siguientes iniciativas: ActionNYC (una línea telefónica de asistencia jurídica en materia de inmigración financiada por la ciudad), los sitios satélite (una red de organizaciones comunitarias que prestan servicios en los cinco condados), la Haitian Response Initiative (Iniciativa de Respuesta Haitiana que es un grupo de ocho organizaciones comunitarias que prestan servicios a los neoyorquinos de origen haitiano), los centros del Departamento de Servicios para Pequeñas empresas y los centros para jóvenes sin hogar del Departamento de Juventud y Desarrollo Comunitario de la ciudad de Nueva York.

“MOIA trabaja con socios comunitarios aprobados —contratados en virtud de los programas de la ciudad que figuran en el documento— para asegurarse de que están equipados para identificar y remitir a las personas elegibles al AAHC, cuando una persona no ha podido hacer una cita a través de su administrador de casos del refugio”, dijo el portavoz MOIA Shaina Coronel en un comunicado.

Cuando se le preguntó por qué las organizaciones de base comunitaria sólo podían remitir a personas que estuvieran a punto de cumplir el plazo de presentación del primer año, MOIA remitió las preguntas a la alcaldía, que a su vez dijo que las remisiones de las organizaciones son sólo una vía de las muchas existentes. 

Pero las organizaciones de base comunitaria que hablaron con City Limits dijeron que los criterios les dejan pocas opciones cuando los clientes no están en el rango estipulado.

Los miembros de la red ASLAN, como New York Legal Assistance Group, que presta servicios jurídicos, dijeron que cuando migrantes recién llegados llaman a sus puertas los remiten a talleres “pro se”, una ayuda menos individualizada que la que se podría obtener en el AAHC, pero en la que los solicitantes pueden rellenar el papeleo por sí mismos bajo la supervisión del personal de la organización.

Por el contrario, las organizaciones de base comunitaria que no ofrecen servicios jurídicos y no pueden remitir a la persona al AAHC atienden la necesidad de la persona diciéndole que vuelva al refugio, si está en uno, y pida allí una cita al AAHC.

“La imposibilidad de conseguir una cita para el asilo tiene profundas consecuencias en la vida de los migrantes”, afirmó Bah Kouyate. “Sin acceso a estas citas, los migrantes quedan a menudo en un estado de limbo, incapaces de obtener un estatuto legal o acceder a servicios esenciales”.

La alcaldía no dió datos sobre cuántas remisiones de casos dentro del plazo de cuatro semanas han realizado las organizaciones que contratan con la ciudad.

Según los datos compartidos por la supervisora de la línea directa de ActionNYC, Elizabeta Markuci, entre junio de 2023 y junio de 2024, el programa recibió más de 50.000 llamadas sobre todo tipo de casos de inmigración. Durante ese tiempo, refirió 244 casos en el rango al AAHC.

Además, refirió a otras 2.900 personas a programas distintos del AAHC, como el servicio de ayuda a los tribunales de inmigrantes de Catholic Charities, que ofrece consultas sobre inmigración y representación legal a inmigrantes en los tribunales de inmigración de Nueva York.

Markuci, directora de servicios de atención telefónica, formación y desarrollo de políticas en la división de servicios a inmigrantes y refugiados de Catholic Charities Community Services, advirtió que los datos no ofrecen una imagen clara de la población recién llegada a la ciudad, ni de cuántos inmigrantes pueden haber llamado que no se acercaban al plazo de un año de llegada.

Aquella mañana de agosto afuera del AAHC, City Limits habló con varios inmigrantes que habían conseguido una cita. Algunos, como la colombiana Andrea, quien pidió que no se utilizara su nombre completo por miedo a poner en peligro su caso, dijeron que no había sido fácil y que había llevado varios meses.

“Hablé muchas veces en el refugio”, dijo refiriéndose al personal en las carpas para adultos migrantes en Randall’s Island donde se alojaba. “No hay gente disponible, me dijeron, venga otro día”.

Al venezolano Jesús Escalante, de 38 años, recibir una cita le había llevado menos de un mes. “En cuanto llegué, la gente del refugio de Queens me ayudó”, dijo Escalante.

Mientras tanto, los inmigrantes que llevan más tiempo fuera del sistema de acogida no pueden optar a los servicios del AAHC. Deben pagar ellos mismos los honorarios de un abogado o buscar organizaciones que presten servicios pro se.

Este fue un punto de discordia para los defensores de las personas sin hogar el mes pasado, tras conocer el plan municipal de desalojar un campamento de inmigrantes durmiendo a la intemperie en Randall’s Island, incluidos algunos cuyo plazo de acogida había expirado. 

“Muchos clientes se han visto obligados a vivir a la intemperie porque el sistema de refugios no les ha ofrecido la ayuda que necesitan”, dijeron Legal Aid Society y la Coalition for the Homeless en una declaración conjunta antes de la retirada de campamentos prevista por la ciudad.

“Aunque podrían volver a entrar en el refugio después de completar una solicitud de asilo, la ciudad no les ha ofrecido un medio para acceder a las citas en el Centro de navegación de recursos para solicitantes de asilo, por lo que los clientes se quedan sin opciones de refugio seguro”, dijeron los grupos.

Para ponerse en contacto con el reportero de esta noticia, escriba a Daniel@citylimits.org. Para ponerse en contacto con la editora, escriba a Jeanmarie@citylimits.org.

St. Paul’s Office of Neighborhood Safety has been adding staff since it started in 2022, and some city council members asked Wednesday about continuing to pay for them when grant funding ends.

The office has five life coaches with the goal of interrupting gun violence by connecting “high-risk individuals to resources,” Director Brooke Blakey told the city council at a budget presentation. They’re doing one-on-one work, “not just handing them pamphlets … and saying, ‘Make a phone call.’”

Blakey started as the office’s only employee. There is funding this year for 12 workers and Blakey hopes to hire an additional nine employees, though Mayor Melvin Carter’s proposed budget for next year only allows for an additional two workers.

Brooke Blakey, St. Paul Office of Neighborhood Safety director, speaks to the St. Paul City Council on Sept. 11, 2024. (Screenshot from video of meeting)

ONS’ total proposed budget for next year is just under $4 million, with $2.9 million from the city’s general fund and the remaining from grant funds, which is $246,000 more than the current budget. Carter’s proposed 2025 budget for the whole city would grow to $854.9 million, a $25 million increase over the present year, if the council approves it without major changes.

City council member Nelsie Yang asked at Wednesday’s meeting if Blakey would be coming to the council in the future to ask for funding for employees when grant funding ends next year. Blakey said she plans to make that request next year for the 2026 budget. She also said ONS will continue applying for grants.

During Yang’s time on the council, she said there’s been a lot of “one-time money coming in” through grants for various city departments.

“What are we going to do to keep these positions going?” she said. “… The work is really important, and I feel what is really tough for me … (is) I want to see continued funding for it, but we’re also in a position where we don’t have that money freed up, and typically it would mean we have to raise property taxes for it.”

Council President Mitra Jalali said ONS is “unique as compared to other departments, in that so much of the growth and the ability to do the work in the department has been through one-time funding sources — it’s federal funds, it’s state public safety aid, it’s things that we’ve eagerly seized upon.”

“If we want to invest in the department in an ongoing way, we do have to get clear on transferring from those one-time funds into uses that we can explain to our constituents and that meet those frontline needs,” she said.

Carter’s budget proposal for next year includes a 7.9% increase to the city’s tax levy — or $16.5 million — the sum total of all property taxes collected in the city limits from all property types. For a median-value, single-family home in St. Paul, there would be a $200 property tax increase next year, based on combined city, county and school district property tax levies. At least another $100 would be for higher trash, water, sewer and recycling fees.

Gun violence down this year

Yang also said at Wednesday’s meeting that she wants ONS to be successful, but she said, “I’m questioning whether the investments that we’re making is really producing the type of outcome and the type of community safety that I personally would like to see for my ward and and also citywide, too.”

She said she’d also like to see improved communication, “really laying out that long-term plan for the department.”

Blakey responded that she’s made multiple presentations that lay out ONS’ strategic plan and said she’d like to meet with Yang to answer more of her questions.

Council member Rebecca Noecker said she agrees that Blakey has been willing to present to the city council, but she said she’d like to be included in more conversations. For example, Blakey’s presentation included a proposed one-time $200,000 investment next year to enhance the city’s camera infrastructure in the downtown area. Noecker, who represents downtown, said she first heard about that in Carter’s budget address last month.

The Office of Neighborhood Safety describes itself overall as aiming to make St. Paul safer by addressing root causes, implementing preventive measures, and responding to shootings and homicides and “providing immediate and long-term support to individuals and families and communities,” Blakey said.

Gun violence is down in St. Paul year-over-year. Homicides have deceased, as have non-fatal shootings and reports of shots fired without injury, according to the police department.

St. Paul announced Project PEACE in July 2022, which is ongoing. There have been 203 referrals to Project PEACE this year. The aim has been to reduce retaliation for street crime by connecting individuals and families impacted by gun violence with mental health support and other holistic intervention services. Part of the effort is the police department’s Operation ASPIRE, which has officers working on prevention, intervention and enforcement involving gun violence.

ONS has been “dedicated” to finding employees who “have the lived experience to be able to have the empathy and exchange with individuals who are experiencing probably the worst time in their lives, and then how to transition out of that space,” Blakey said.

Frederick Melo contributed to this report.

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Growing up in St. Paul’s Frogtown neighborhood, Nehemiah Jett would walk past the light fixture store near University and Victoria avenues and pay it little mind. Nor did it draw his attention when it became vacant. And then a concerted community effort to save the century-old structure from demolition and position it for stage performances and arts programming caught his imagination four years ago, putting him on a path to become the building’s new communications and relationships manager.

“Finding out individuals did notice it and they fought to save this place, it makes me proud to be from Frogtown,” said Jett, whose grandmother used to participate in neighborhood parades wearing an inflatable frog attached to her straw hat. “Frogtown is where my family is from. It has a rich history to it, and yet it’s kind of frowned upon.”

Tyler Olsen-Highness recently threw open the doors to the $6.5 million reinvention of the building recently referred to as the Victoria Theater Arts Center, directly across from the Green Line’s Victoria Street light-rail station, and there’s already change afoot. The history-laden structure, like the nonprofit that runs it, was renamed “825 Arts” this spring in an effort to distance itself from the colonial legacy of Queen Victoria.

“We found that as we were talking with people about the ‘Victoria Theater,’ they would say, ‘oh, well I’m a dancer, I’m not a theater person’,” said Olsen-Highness, executive director of the space he said will welcome “825 different types of art.”

As of late August, the brick-faced former silent theater, cabaret and light fixture shop is now a multi-level community arts hub, offering a 120-seat theater, meeting rooms and a sizable front lobby with enough room to sport a smaller stage of its own at 825 W. University Ave., along the border of the Frogtown and Rondo neighborhoods.

The front lobby of 825 Arts, in the former Victoria Theater at 825 University Ave. W. in St. Paul, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. The center is up and running after a 12-year, $6.5 million rehabilitation. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

On tap is a guided group arts project using the digital world known as “Minecraft,” a 12-week jump-rope intensive dubbed “Rondo Double Dutch,” artist circles and private events. In early October, the zAmya Theater will tour the musical production “A Prairie Homeless Companion,” which showcases the lives of the less fortunate in the fictional town of Miserable Falls, Minn., using both satire and true stories of rural homelessness. Wonderlust Productions, Ten Thousand Things Theater and “Divas and Drag” have also booked stage time.

“People are excited and inspired by the space and are signing up,” said Olsen-Highness, who began fundraising and organizing for the arts center more than a dozen years ago. Some might even say its grand opening last month was the culmination of a solid century of work, given that its history winds up from the silent movie era of the early 1900s, through Prohibition and on to University Avenue’s heyday as a retail destination.

A silent theater and ‘Moonshiner’s Dance’

Built around 1917, the building is recognized for its Beaux Arts-style brick and terra-cotta façade, as well as some interior historical flourishes, like a pastoral mural that winds across multiple walls and likely dates back to at least the 1920s, when the silent theater became a restaurant and cabaret. On the second floor, two box-like openings in an interior brick wall were likely inlays for silent film projectors.

“We really worked hard to preserve whatever historical artistic elements were left in the building, whether it was a really intricate wall stenciling from the old building, or the full-building-height pillars with decorative capitals,” said Olsen-Highness on Tuesday.

The two-story structure even holds a footnote in the history of early 20th-century American folk music.

In 2011, the St. Paul Historic Preservation Commission designated the property a locally-designated Heritage Preservation Site, in part because of one particular song — the “Moonshiner’s Dance Part One” — that was recorded by Frank Cloutier and the Victoria Cafe’s house orchestra in 1927. The upbeat, whooping medley of cabaret-style jazz and polka was included in the 1952 “Anthology of American Folk Music,” a seminal collection of the nation’s genre-defining folk tunes from the 1920s and ’30s.

The folk anthology would go on to inspire the likes of Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and the Grateful Dead, among other singer-songwriters of the tumultuous 1960s. It would also, in a roundabout way, help save the building from demolition some 60 years later.

The main performance area at 825 Arts, in the former Victoria Theater at 825 University Ave. W. in St. Paul, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. The center is up and running after a 12-year, $6.5 million rehabilitation. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

After serving as a cabaret in the 1920s and early 1930s, the Victoria Theater was eventually remodeled into a light fixture shop, which closed in the late 1990s. Building owner Bee Vue planned to sell the property in 2008 to a nonprofit developer interested in demolishing the structure and installing a parking lot, but that plan was shelved in the face of intense community opposition.

After gaining local historic status, the building was acquired in 2014 by the Twin Cities Community Land Bank, which held onto it until the arts coalition then dubbed the “New Victoria Theater Project” had completed enough fundraising to purchase it outright. For Olsen-Highness and others attached to the reinvention of the Victoria Theater, the past decade has been a painstaking labor of love.

About half the $6.5 million funding came from foundations and private fundraising, and the other half was public funding through the city and state.

Jett, the nonprofit’s relationships manager, said the center will soon debut low-cost artist memberships — perhaps as low as $10 — allowing creatives from different disciplines to access the space, workshop pieces and qualify for a $500 production award, with a new recipient chosen each month by an artist circle. He foresees local acts — perhaps future Bob Dylans, Soul Asylums and Lizzos — getting their start at 825 Arts.

“We hold about 120 seated, which is enough if you want to do something intimate, like a private event,” Jett said. “Any performer’s objective is to perform at larger and larger venues as they progress, and we want to be one of their first.”

From the Victoria Theater to 825 Arts

825 Arts, in the former Victoria Theater at 825 University Ave. W. in St. Paul, on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024. The center is up and running after a 12-year, $6.5 million rehabilitation. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Built in 1915, it was one of three silent movie theaters owned by Henry Breilein along University Avenue. It was designed by Franklin Ellerbe and features a Beaux Arts-style brick and terra-cotta façade. Its history:

• 1924: The theater was remodeled into the Victoria Cafe, a dance hall featuring cabaret-style floor shows and Chinese cuisine.

• 1927: The house orchestra recorded “Moonshiner’s Dance,” which was included on the 1952 collection called the “Anthology of American Folk Music.”

• 1930s to late 1990s: The Victoria served as a light-fixture shop.

• 2008: Owner Bee Vue considered selling the property to a nonprofit developer interested in demolishing the Victoria and building a parking lot. The developer backed out amid community opposition.

• 2011: The St. Paul Historic Preservation Commission designated the property an official Heritage Preservation Site.

• 2014: The Twin Cities Community Land Bank bought the Victoria from Bee Vue, giving an arts coalition additional time to raise funds and acquire it outright.

• 2024: Once dubbed the Victoria Theater Arts Center, the structure opens to the public as “825 Arts,” a multi-space community arts hub featuring two stages and youth programming.

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