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BRANDT WILLIAMS: Over the past 10 years, the Hmong, Somali, and Latino populations have sharply increased in Minnesota. Minnesota's Latino population alone has tripled, and that's having an impact on towns like Long Prairie. Many Mexican immigrants have moved to Long Prairie to work in a nearby food processing plant and work in other agriculture-based businesses.

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

A year and a half ago, Todd County created the Hispanic Liaison Office to help improve relations between the immigrants and the townspeople. Todd County Hispanic liaison Gloria Eden helps Mexican immigrants negotiate life in a new country. Eden says immigrants tell her there's tension between Latinos and police officers.

[SPEAKING SPANISH]

Jesus Perez has come into the Liaison Office to get a medical bill translated. He says police officers stop Mexicans just to check their immigration status. Gloria Eden interprets.

INTERPRETER: They stop us because we're Mexican. And the Americans, the Americanos, they don't stop us. They don't stop them. They're just-- they're driving all over the place, and they don't seem to stop them.

BRANDT WILLIAMS: Eden says in a three-month span, the long Prairie Police department asked for the assistance of the US Border Patrol in 17 traffic stops involving Latinos. 13 of the stops resulted in deportations.

STEVE NEAT: Are we agents for the border patrol? Absolutely not.

BRANDT WILLIAMS: Long Prairie Police Chief Steve Neet says his officers used a Border Patrol office in Grand Forks, North Dakota to identify people who were not carrying ID. He says sometimes they call in the Border Patrol because some of its agents speak Spanish and can interpret conversations between officers and offenders.

The Long Prairie Police force has six full-time and four part-time officers. Neat says his officers don't target Hispanics. But he says sometimes cultural differences lead to misunderstandings.

STEVE NEET: If your name is Juan Rodriguez Mendoza, that may be your correct name. But on the other hand, how it's interpreted and how it's translated to a piece of paper may be different than what it's supposed to be. They might say Juan Mendoza Rodriguez.

BRANDT WILLIAMS: Neet says his officers have been learning Spanish in order to communicate better with Hispanic residents. The Latino population in Long Prairie has exploded only within the past five years. However, Hmong immigrants have been in Minnesota for many years.

Hmong people make up the majority of the state's Asian-American population, and most of them live in St. Paul. The presence of Asian gangs in the city has led to a closer contact between the police and the Hmong community.

The Hmong-American partnership sponsors programs which reach out to St Paul's Asian gang members. A group of gang members meet on a regular basis at the Hmong American partnership offices in St. Paul. Tonight, six boys, aged 15 through 17, talk with a social worker about family issues. When asked about their experiences with the police, the Hmong boys say police officers, even the Asian officers single them out.

LIL BONE: You know, if there's three or four hours in the car and they going to pull you over, you know.

BRANDT WILLIAMS: This young man calls himself Lil Bone. He's 17 and wisps of a mustache and goatee poke from his face.

LIL BONE: I feel like they're being racist or something, because if it's White people in the car, three or four, five people in the car, they don't do that. If it's Asian, they're going to pull it over.

BRANDT WILLIAMS: In an attempt to foster closer relations with its Asian population, the St Paul Police Department has recruited about 20 Asian-American officers. And all St. Paul Police officers are required to take an hour and a half awareness course on Hmong culture.

Both Minneapolis and St. Paul Police departments have compiled data on the race of persons stopped by police officers. In both cities, Blacks and Latinos are pulled over at rates disproportionately higher than their populations.

Asian-Americans were pulled over in numbers nearly equal to their presence in the two cities. There's no breakdown into Hmong or Somali figures in each city. However, some Somalis say they've been mistreated by law enforcement officers.

A group of Somali men meet and greet each other near the door of Horn Publishing, located just outside downtown Minneapolis. This is the office of Dr. Hassan [? Abakar, ?] president of the six-year-old publishing company.

His company started publishing the Somali paper Warsan and a magazine called Bridging People during the '90s when Somalis began coming to Minnesota in large numbers. [? Abakar ?] says for the most part, police treat Somalis fairly. However, he acknowledges there is tension between Somalis and law enforcement.

[? HASSAN ABAKAR: ?] Newcomers, they have their own cultures, own religions, own way of doing things culturally. And all this might be different from what's going on here. And this kind of situation creates frictions.

BRANDT WILLIAMS: Some Somalis say FBI agents have entered and searched their homes following the terrorist attacks of September 11. Police officials in Minneapolis are making efforts to build ties with the Somalis. The Department hired a citywide liaison two years ago. Minneapolis Police inspector Sharon Lubinski says officers are learning to be more culturally sensitive to members of the immigrant and refugee communities.

SHARON LUBINSKI: It is important that officers understand there might be different things to remember so that a crime victim that you're dealing with feels like they're being respected.

BRANDT WILLIAMS: One of the biggest challenges facing Somalis, Hmong, and Latinos is the language barrier. Judge Tanya Bransford serves on the Minnesota Supreme Court's Multicultural Diversity and Racial Fairness in the courts committee.

The committee oversees the implementation of recommendations made by the state Supreme Court's Racial Bias Task Force. In 1993, the court reported that racial bias permeates all of Minnesota's criminal justice system.

She says the demand for interpreters has put a financial strain on the system, but she says it's worth it. Bransford says Minnesota courts have made some progress, especially in the area of interpreters.

TANYA BRANSFORD: However, there's still the disparate number of people of color that are imprisoned, so that we haven't made any progress there where I think the stats are one of the worst states in the nation with regards to the disparity, compared to the number of people of color in the community compared to those that are actually in prison.

BRANDT WILLIAMS: Since January, the courts have been recording racial data on all criminal, juvenile, and traffic cases, which require an appearance before a judge. Bransford says she hopes the data collection will help the courts find the source of the disparities, a disparity which sends 21 people of color to prison for every one white person.

Meanwhile, she says the committee will continue to press for more changes, such as the hiring of more bilingual personnel. I'm Brandt Williams, Minnesota Public Radio.