News from rural America.

The crackdown on undocumented immigrants in Minneapolis has created chaos for a nearby agricultural community, federal funding cuts have upended tribal solar projects in Montana and similar cuts to a college program have left some students scrambling.

TRANSCRIPT

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, this is the news from rural America.

The presence of ice has taken a huge toll on a small Minnesota farming town.

Wilmer, population 20,000, is two hours west of Minneapolis and has a significant Somali population.

It's seeing the spillover of the immigration crackdown in which two American protesters were shot dead by federal agents.

Mental health professional, Christina Vanderpoel, is one of several Wilmer residents who recently attended a community meeting at a local restaurant.

This is not bringing wealth or security or a greater America to this town.

It's bringing devastation.

Somalis make up about 7 percent of Wilmer's population, drawn there by ag industry jobs.

President Donald Trump describes them in derogatory terms and has revoked their temporary protected status.

Many at the restaurant say they've seen ICE arrest their neighbors and fear for themselves.

We can't even be out in our own community without thinking I'm going to get brutalized when a lot of us also have young children at home.

Last summer, the White House abruptly ended a $7 billion program building residential solar in low-income communities.

Alana Newman reports that's had a devastating effect on Montana Native American tribes.

The Chippewa Cree on Rocky Boys Reservation were part of a tribal coalition that benefited from the Solar for All program.

The tribe's Joseph Eagleman said it would have slashed high electricity bills for 200 families on his reservation before it was cut.

It was terrible.

There's 14 tribes that were on this coalition.

We were one of them.

We weren't the only ones feeling it.

Eagleman says energy companies have long taken advantage of tribes without sharing the benefits.

That's why Cody Two Bears started renewables nonprofit Indigenized Energy, which works with tribes to help build energy sovereignty.

My ultimate goal is to work myself out of a job.

I want to build so much capacity into these tribes where they don't need indigenized energy.

I'm Ilana Newman.

Major changes to federal support for low income students who need child care has forced student parents to scramble.

And it's often worse in rural areas where child care is limited.

Janan Bittar with higher education group Ed Trust says the Trump administration has put a hold on applications, which is leaving a lot of schools in limbo.

We're not really sure why they halted the application.

And so they're left with deciding, like, how do we move forward with our on-campus program?

More than a quarter of U.S. undergrads also are raising children.

University of Wisconsin-Whitewater's Chelsea Newman says the grant for the school's child care center was up for renewal last year.

Portions of the grant were helping pay the salaries of some of the teachers in that classroom.

So we have to try and figure out how to sustain that.

For the Daily Yonder and Public News Service, I'm Roz Brown.

For more rural stories, visit dailyyonder.com.