How HR leaders can respond to traumatic events in Minneapolis and beyond

On Jan. 25 more than 60 CEOs of Minnesota-based companies issued a statement calling for “an immediate deescalation of tensions” in the state. It came one day after two Customs and Border Patrol agents killed Alex Pretti, and more than two weeks after Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent.

For some business leaders and other members of the public, the statement didn’t go far enough. It didn’t specifically call out ICE, nor mention the names of Good and Pretti. “What they issued was hollow, and it was one of the more disappointing moments that I’ve had when I read it as a business person in Minnesota,” Fred Haberman, founder and CEO of Minneapolis marketing and communications firm Haberman, told the Minneapolis / St. Paul Business Journal.

Whereas many CEOs and other corporate executives issued statements within the week following the murder of George Floyd in 2020, the response to violent ICE operations in Minneapolis and beyond has seemed more muted. Many company leaders are more fearful of the current Trump administration than they were during his first term, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported, and have been pressured to dismantle DEI programs they put in place after Floyd’s death five years ago.

HR and mental health experts say there are ways for leaders to support workers affected by ICE operations, even if they don’t want to speak on the events publicly.

Assessing workers’ needs. HR teams should first acknowledge that the needs of their workers may differ depending on how directly their lives are likely to be affected by ICE, said Jaye Johnson, an Atlanta-based HR and total rewards consultant whose clients include employers in the restaurant and hospitality sectors, said.

“If you have, let’s just say, a corporate office where people want to go protest, that is handled completely different from your majority hourly workforce who is scared to go to work…I think that the focus for companies should be on those who are directly or potentially directly impacted by the agents that are out there,” she told HR Brew. She noted that hourly workforces tend to have large shares of minority and immigrant employees.

Employers can understand that some employees might use their paid time off to attend anti-ICE rallies, but supporting workers who fear being targeted due to their immigration status will likely look different, she continued.

Workers should know how to access resources such as counseling or Employee Assistance Programs if available to them, she said. Employee Assistance Programs are typically confidential, and workers may be more open to using these services if they’re aware of that. Legal benefits from vendors like RocketLawyer or MetLife Legal may also be worth investing in for workers who may need immigration assistance, she added.

Flexible scheduling can help workers feel more comfortable, as well. “If an employee is afraid to go to work, maybe they’re afraid to work during the morning, but they feel a little bit more comfortable later in the day,” she said.

Even if managers don’t want to take a personal stance on ICE operations, they can still help workers feel safe “by communicating calmly and consistently,” as well as “setting clear expectations for how concerns will be handled,” Johnson said via email. “They can acknowledge stress, encourage use of support resources, and focus on psychological safety through respectful behavior, non-retaliation, and predictable processes,” she added.

Processing what’s happening. Footage of both Good’s and Pretti’s deaths was shared widely across the internet, allowing people to view these traumatic events in real-time. Exposure to trauma, whether continuously on social media, in the news, or witnessing directly, can prompt the nervous system to go into overdrive, said Jessica Watrous, chief clinical officer with mental healthcare platform Modern Health. This means workers might not have the same cognitive or emotional resources to navigate their workday as they normally would. “We can just have a hard time concentrating on the work at hand,” she said.

The impact of ICE violence is most certainly more acute for workers who are directly affected or have had family members who’ve been targeted. A 2018 analysis of two federal immigration enforcement policies that were in place from 2000–2012 found that Latino immigrants’ mental health worsened during this time period. Mental health scores among this population dropped by nearly 15%, for example, due to Section 287(g), a program that gives local law enforcement the authority to work with ICE on immigration enforcement. More than 1,400 local agencies currently participate in this program, according to ICE.

More recently, immigrant families expressed “resounding levels of fear and uncertainty” due to restrictive immigration policies taken during the first Trump administration, according to focus groups conducted by KFF.

Mental health tools like therapy can be an important resource for workers, though Watrous recommended that HR teams think about a broader spectrum of offerings in light of the various ways employees may be affected. She noted that it’s “way more difficult…to figure out how a new benefit works in the midst of a crisis,” and encouraged employers to be proactive when designing and communicating about such resources.

Middle managers can be crucial partners for HR as they seek to support employees, said Colin H. Mincy, a consultant who previously served as chief people officer of Human Rights Watch. Ideally, leadership should encourage all managers to point staff to “all the benefits, the services, counseling, and support that are available to them and their dependents.”

“I think the worst answer is not to do anything, and the appropriate answer is to really understand what it is your employees need, determine what the organization is willing to do to meet that need and regularly engage and check on people,” Mincy said. “What’s happening in Minneapolis and LA and other parts of the country are not just affecting the immigrant population. It’s affecting neighborhoods and communities right there,” he added. For workplace leaders, “it’s so beyond what we prepare ourselves to have to strategize and navigate. But for the worker, this is a moment of reckoning where we are looking out for each other and for our neighbors.”