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Minnesota opens Office on American Indian Health
A new team within the Minnesota Dept. of Health will make a concerted effort to solve Native American health disparities.
ST PAUL, Minn. — The Minnesota Department of Health is stepping up efforts to improve health care for Native Americans, with the new Office of American Indian Health.
Public health leaders gathered on the Capitol steps Wednesday to celebrate the formal launch of the agency, which will partner with tribal clinics and urban non-profits that serve Indigenous families.
“American Indians nationwide and in the state of Minnesota have lower life expectancies, and higher chronic disease incidents, and higher maternal mortality, higher suicide rates, higher poverty rates than the general population,” Dr. Brooke Cunningham, MD, the Minnesota Commissioner of Health, told the crowd.
“We are finally catching up to some of the solutions, about emphasizing cultural ways of knowing, traditional practices, traditional healing.”
The new agency will have 10 staff members spread out across the state, and a budget of $9 million per year to begin. Much of that money will go to medical providers as targeted grants and partnership arrangements.
Longtime Native health practitioner Kris Rhodes will lead the new office, which will also gather and analyze data to pinpoint which healthcare strategies are working and which ones aren’t.
“When it comes to American Indian Health Data, a lot of times our data isn’t included because of small numbers, or because of lack of access,” Rhodes said.
“It’s really important our office be able to support the data experts at the Department of Health to improve data access for tribal communities.”
Rhodes points to the homeless encampments as the most visible reminder of the inequities Native Americans face when it comes to housing, employment, income and healthcare outcomes.
“But our communities have everything we need to thrive and move forward when we lean on our culture, our language, our land, and our people,” Rhodes said.
Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan spoke of her father, the White Earth Ojibwe activist Marvin Manypenny who passed away in 2020. Flanagan said her dad struggled in an underfunded health system.
“He suffered from heart disease and diabetes, and he lost a leg. And then we heard from a healthcare professional at another system who said, ‘We don’t think that was necessary.’ That can’t happen! That can’t happen anymore!”
The new office will work on a variety of approaches to solving disparities in health outcomes, taking a more holistic approach that includes housing.
“People ask me what’s the most important? Is it your language? Is it your land? Is it your people? And it’s like, to all of us, we know, it’s all the same thing,” State Rep. Alicia Kozlowski said.
Rep. Kozlowski, a member of the Fond du Lac band of Ojibwe, helped push through legislation to create funding for the new office. She said it will improve health outcomes for all Minnesotans.
“Going forward from here we have the hope for more audacity. We have the audacity to say show us the money, we need the resources, and the funding, and the capacity to get this office up and running, to do this work across the state!”
Dr. Antony Stately of the Native American Community Clinic in Minneapolis said it was important to celebrate a milestone when it come to addressing gaps in healthcare for Native people. But he said this effort needs to be sustained.
“These inequities have been longstanding and intractable for decades,” Stately told the group of public health leaders.
“Establishing the Office of American Indian Health will help to change this trajectory by creating a space and environment where we are able to write and reimagine our own future.”
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Federico Arellano Jr. said his children were crying as they were arrested and placed on a flight to McAllen and then escorted to Reynosa, Mexico.
HOUSTON — A Houston man is fighting back after they said Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency agents unexpectedly deported his wife and four children last week.
It happened on Wednesday, Dec. 11, according to attorneys. Federico Arellano Jr. was there when ICE took his wife and children.
Christina Salazar, 23, as well as her four children — including twins born in September — were arrested, put on a plane to McAllen and then escorted to Reynosa, Mexico.
“They were treated as if they were high-risk criminals,” a family attorney said in a news release.
According to Arellano Jr., his wife and two older children missed a hearing with a Houston immigration judge on Oct. 9, about a month after she had an emergency cesarean section to deliver her twins. She was told by doctors to recover at home.
The family said they called the immigration court to let them know what was going on and claimed to have been told over the phone that the hearing would be rescheduled. They said they got a call back to show up at a location in the Greenspoint area to talk about their case, but when they showed up, the mother and kids were arrested.
“The issue of Cristina missing her court hearing was a technical violation that could have been resolved,” a family attorney said.
Arellano Jr., a United States citizen, was there and tried to explain what happened, attorneys said. He said he was threatened by ICE agents if he interfered. He said his children were crying as they and Salazar were taken into custody.
“They were shocked and surprised that they were separated,” immigration lawyer Isaias Torres said.
Torres and Silvia Mintz are representing the family. They said that Salazar was born in Mexico and married Arellano Jr. in 2019.
“The reason she was arrested, they were told, is that she failed to go to an immigration hearing,” Torres said.
The family’s attorneys said it was cold the night Salazar and the children were taken to Mexico and they were not allowed to get coats. They also said the woman and her children had no money and no contacts in Reynosa.
Arellano Jr. said he wants his family back so they can go through the immigration process legally.
His attorneys said some circumstances were out of their control that led to them being deported. One of those factors was that the family didn’t have legal representation at the time of the impromptu meeting at which they were arrested.
“This case shouldn’t have gone to this extreme. There were options, legal options, that were available and he was not given those opportunities,” Torres said. “They thought that they were complying and doing as they were told. And it turns out that they were not.”
The family and their attorneys plan to file a complaint with the Office of Inspector General as well as petitions with immigration. But, since they’re out of the country, it could take several months.
ICE confirmed that Salazar did not report to a scheduled immigration hearing and was ordered to be removed by an immigration judge with the Justice Department’s Executive Office for Immigration Review.
KHOU 11 reached out to the Justice Department’s EOIR which makes decisions based on individual cases and determines if a noncitizen is subject to removal or eligible for relief from removal. We have not received a response.
Tyler Morris of Trimont, Minnesota said he purchased the insoles on Amazon last year to use while hunting and fishing.
TRIMONT, Minn. — “Don’t do it.”
That’s the message Mikaela Morris of Trimont, Minn. has for anyone interested in purchasing rechargeable heated apparel products to keep warm this winter. In a Facebook post, she shared photos of her husband Tyler’s charred foot and melted-off skin after his rechargeable insoles, which were not turned on at the time, exploded inside his boots.
Tyler said he purchased the insoles on Amazon last year to use while hunting and fishing. The insoles, sold by the company iHEAT based in China, are no longer available on Amazon. KARE contacted Amazon and iHEAT for comment but has not heard back.
Tyler said when he took the insoles out again this fall for deer hunting season, they weren’t working very well but he kept them in his boots for added comfort.
“I guess I should have taken them out because I was not using them; they were not on,” Tyler said. “They were just in my boots, and all of a sudden the one exploded.”
On Thursday, Dec. 12, Tyler said he was preparing to put a fish house on the lake when he felt a sharp pain in his right foot.
“It just felt like a knife stabbed me in my heel,” he recalled. “Then it started getting super, super hot, and I started freaking out, and there was white smoke just billowing out of my boot.”
Tyler said he managed to kick his boot off within five seconds, but half of his sock was already burning.
“The insole came out in pieces,” he said, adding that he’s thankful he was wearing wool socks and shoes without laces, which likely saved him an even worse injury than the second and third-degree burns he sustained on his right foot.
“This happens apparently all the time,” Tyler said. “In fact, when we got to Hennepin County, the doctor there told us that I was the third person she had seen for this this week.”
Tyler lost feeling in some parts of his foot and was told by doctors he might need skin grafts. He and Mikaela are warning others to do extensive research before buying any rechargeable apparel products, especially those manufactured overseas and not locally, or to avoid buying similar products altogether.
“I would say on any of it,” Mikaela said. “Heated insoles, socks, vests, coats, gloves because not only could it have been his foot, it could have been his hand, it could have been his, if he had socks on, it could have been his whole leg.”
Larry Raasch volunteered at the department for 25 years.
WEST ST PAUL, Minn. — The West St. Paul Police Department has lost one of its most decorated servants.
Larry Raasch volunteered as a reserve officer for 25 years, logging more than 4,000 hours.
“He really cared about this department and this community,” said West St. Paul Police Chief Brian Sturgeon.
Raasch volunteered at least eight hours a week at the West St. Paul Police station. Before he started helping out there, he was a reserve for the St. Paul Police Department. In total, he’s spent more than 50 years volunteering at police departments.
“He loved this community that’s what it was, he loved the community, he loved the department, he loved the city, he loved his neighbors, he loved the business owners in town, and he just wanted to give back. That’s why he was doing what’s he doing,” Sturgeon said.
Raasch’s daughter Lisa McDermott said her father lived to serve the community. He would drive people around town if they needed a ride and would help anyone who needed it. His life has been dedicated to service. She said her father is a Vietnam Veteran. He was stationed in Munich, Germany as a medic.
Captain of the reserves Mike Whebbe said he was dedicated to serving his community. He’s worked alongside Raasch for decades.
Raasch was one of the police department’s 15 reserves. Sturgeon said they assist sworn officers and departments, attend community events, help with prisoner transport, and traffic control. Sturgeon said the reserves help the department immensely and have save them a lot of money.
“Over the course of the 25 years, it’s close to $1 million,” he said.
Sturgeon said two years, he received the President’s Volunteer Service Lifetime Achievement award.
“He dedicated over 4,000 hours. I’m sure it was a lot more than that,” Sturgeon said.
He said Raasch was one of the oldest reserves, his “meticulous” nature earned him a spot helping out in the property room as a volunteer evidence tech.
“His age didn’t keep him down though. He was always available to us whenever we needed it. We were very appreciative of his dedication to this community,” he said. “He just wanted to be a part of this organization. He wanted to be a part of this city and being a reserve was one way he could be a part of this organization and this community.”
Sturgeon said he’ll miss hearing Raasch say “hi, good morning, good afternoon, how are you doing,” when he would walk into the department. He said no one will ever be able to fill his shoes.
“Larry was a character, he was a one-of-a-kind,” Sturgeon said. “We’ve all learned a lot from him, especially the reserves. I mean like I said he coached and mentored the younger reserves.”
He said it’s going to be hard without him. Sturgeon said Raasch was the embodiment of an outstanding community member, who made West St. Paul a safer and brighter place.
“He’s one of a kind that’s for sure and he’s going to be greatly missed,” Sturgeon said.
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