ICE forces Watershed Forum to go virtual this year

The 2026 Rainy-Lake of the Woods Watershed Forum will be held virtually this year.

Usually, it’s held at the beginning of March in International Falls, Minnesota.

But organizer Teika Newton says the whole situation with the Immigration, Customs and Enforcement officers or ICE in Minnesota. was discouraging people from attending.

“There was a concern for their safety…for the viability of their travel plans…just lots of different concerns were coming up,” explains Newton.

“It became a situation where I had to really consider what our options were.”

Newton adds that many of the concerns came from people who had to travel through the United States to get to the Watershed Forum.

“The thing that kind of tipped the scales is when the incident with Alex Pretti happened and he was killed on the streets of Minneapolis by ICE officials. I think that alarmed a lot of people. Immediately after that I started getting requests from people to withdraw from the in-person event.”

She says the last time they had to hold a virtual Watershed Forum was in 2020 because of COVID.

Newton confirms that next year’s watershed forum will be held in Canada, likely in Fort Frances.