The divide can be felt all over Worthington, where “Minnesota nice” has devolved into “Yes” and “No” window signs, boycotts on businesses and next-door neighbors who no longer speak. A Catholic priest who praised immigrants was booed from the pews and has received death threats.
The driving force behind the defeats has been a handful of white farmers in this Trump-supporting county, including Brink, the bus driver.
Even as he earns a paycheck ferrying undocumented children to and from school, Brink opposes the immigration system that allowed them to come to Worthington.
“Those kids had no business leaving home in the first place,” Brink said. “That’s why we have all these food pantries, because of all these people we are supporting. I have to feed my own kids.”
Now he pulled up to the same high school where he and his wife had walked arm-in-arm as teenage sweethearts, and watched his passengers step down into a stream of dark-haired children, among them a pregnant 15-year-old from Honduras and a 16-year-old girl from Guatemala who’d arrived months earlier.
For the two unaccompanied minors, their first day of school was an opportunity.
For Brink, it felt like an affront.