Where TAKEN HERE began.
January 10, 2026
As a witness to what
happened on my street,
I had no idea
it would lead here.
A handmade sign
placed in a window
became the seed for
TAKEN HERE—
What began as one small act of witness became something I wanted to make possible for others.
The first TAKEN HERE marker went into that window.
What led here
Before creating TAKEN HERE, I organized a GoFundME that raised $15,114 from 204 donors to help Andrés and his family rebuild their lives. The generosity of those 204 donors reinforced my belief in the power of ordinary people choosing not to look away — and helped inspire TAKEN HERE.
The act of witness becomes an act of care.
Kiwi— the dog I was walking that day.
The TAKEN HERE project began on a winter afternoon in St. Paul, Minnesota.
My name is Andrea.
What happened next is why TAKEN HERE exists.
I turned onto my block with my dog, Kiwi, and walked straight into them. Six federal agents from ICE — Immigration and Customs Enforcement — dressed in tactical gear, rifles slung across their chests.
For a moment, I thought I had turned onto the wrong street. Then Kiwi pulled toward our front steps, and I realized: this wasn’t happening somewhere else.
This was happening here.
Then I saw him.
His name was Andrés.
Andrés was delivering medication to a neighbor when he was pulled over and detained in broad daylight while neighbors watched from sidewalks and windows.
When I asked an agent why he was being detained, I was told it was because he was from Colombia.
I didn’t know it yet, but he had a valid work permit, a driver’s license, and a Social Security number, and no criminal record. He had never missed an ICE check-in — In fact, he had reported just three days earlier.
Andrés had done everything right.
When they drove him away, his car remained in front of my house, the keys still sitting on the front seat.
In that moment, I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know where he lived. I didn’t know if anyone knew what had happened to him.
Time seemed to stop.
In the days and weeks that followed, a different story began to unfold.
People across neighborhoods, cities, and state lines reached toward a family they had never met.
Meals were delivered. Donations were shared. Doors opened. People showed up for one another in ways that were both quiet and extraordinary.
For months afterward, a handmade sign remained in my window — a small reminder that something had happened on my street, and that the people, families, and communities forever changed by immigration enforcement should never disappear from our collective memory.
Over time, that simple act of witness grew into this project.
A marker.
A public act.
A refusal to forget.
The story is also becoming a book, with early chapters now with the Minnesota Historical Society.
—Andrea, Founder, TAKEN HERE
When Silence Didn’t Work- my testimonial
on TikTok now— watch here
The design behind the marker
I developed the concept for the marker and collaborated with a graphic designer to bring it to life. As a 1990 graduate of the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), I drew on a design foundation that continues to shape how I communicate through form, language, and meaning.
The marker was created to hold both beauty and weight—to invite people to pause, remember, and refuse to look away. Its beauty is not meant to soften what happened, but to honor the lives behind it and the act of caring for one another.
Has something like this happened in your community — or do you simply believe it matters that we remember? Either way, there’s a way to bear witness.
Though rooted in one story,
TAKEN HERE is an
act of remembrance that extends beyond
one neighborhood or one state.
Witness Matters
Join the community. Bear witness.