“The America I Know Would Never Put People in Camps!” Says St. Paul Man Minutes from Historic Fort Snelling

SAINT PAUL — Local resident Roger Greer, 35, discussed detainment asylum seekers at the U.S/Mexico border to a group of friends on Saturday at a local coffee shop near Historic Fort Snelling. “The America I know would never put people in camps!” Greer exclaimed, mere miles away from where over 1,600 Dakota non-combatants were kept in a concentration camp during the Dakota War of 1862.

“This is unprecedented! How could we have fallen so far?” lamented Greer, who was a short walk away from where hundreds died due to cold and disease in a single winter. The event being one of hundreds during the horrific centuries long mistreatment of the native population that the US government only half-heartedly apologized for in 2009.

After pausing for introspection, Greer added, “at least it’d never happen here in Minnesota.”