To place an obituary, please include the information from the obituary checklist below in an email to obits@pioneerpress.com. There is no option to place them through our website. Feel free to contact our obituary desk at 651-228-5263 with any questions.
General Information:
Your full name,
Address (City, State, Zip Code),
Phone number,
And an alternate phone number (if any)
Obituary Specification:
Name of Deceased,
Obituary Text,
A photo in a JPEG or PDF file is preferable, TIF and other files are accepted, we will contact you if there are any issues with the photo.
Ad Run dates
There is a discount for running more than one day, but this must be scheduled on the first run date to apply.
If a photo is used, it must be used for both days for the discount to apply, contact us for more information.
Policies:
Verification of Death:
In order to publish obituaries a name and phone number of funeral home/cremation society is required. We must contact the funeral home/cremation society handling the arrangements during their business hours to verify the death. If the body of the deceased has been donated to the University of Minnesota Anatomy Bequest Program, or a similar program, their phone number is required for verification.
Please allow enough time to contact them especially during their limited weekend hours.
A death certificate is also acceptable for this purpose but only one of these two options are necessary.
Guestbook and Outside Websites:
We are not allowed to reference other media sources with a guestbook or an obituary placed elsewhere when placing an obituary in print and online. We may place a website for a funeral home or a family email for contact instead; contact us with any questions regarding this matter.
Obituary Process:
Once your submission is completed, we will fax or email a proof for review prior to publication in the newspaper. This proof includes price and days the notice is scheduled to appear.
Please review the proof carefully. We must be notified of errors or changes before the notice appears in the Pioneer Press based on each day’s deadlines.
After publication, we will not be responsible for errors that may occur after final proofing.
Online:
Changes to an online obituary can be handled through the obituary desk. Call us with further questions.
Payment Procedure:
Pre-payment is required for all obituary notices prior to publication by the deadline specified below in our deadline schedule. Please call 651-228-5263 with your payment information after you have received the proof and approved its contents.
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EFT: Check by phone. Please provide your routing number and account number.
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Rates:
The minimum charge is $162 for the first 10 lines.
Every line after the first 10 is $12.20.
If the ad is under 10 lines it will be charged the minimum rate of $162.
On a second run date, the lines are $8.20 per line, starting w/ the first line.
For example: if first run date was 20 lines the cost would be $164.
Each photo published is $125 per day.
For example: 2 photos in the paper on 2 days would be 4 photo charges at $500.
Deadlines:
Please follow deadline times to ensure your obituary is published on the day requested.
Hours
Deadline (no exceptions)
Ad
Photos
MEMORIAM (NON-OBITUARY) REQUEST
Unlike an obituary, Memoriam submissions are remembrances of a loved one who has passed. The rates for a memoriam differ from obituaries.
Please call or email us for more memoriam information
Please call 651-228-5280 for more information.
HOURS: Monday – Friday 8:00AM – 5:00PM (CLOSED WEEKENDS and HOLIDAYS)
Please submit your memoriam ad to memoriams@pioneerpress.com or call 651-228-5280.
A lawsuit filed this week asks for the release of Omar Jamal, a Somali community advocate and Ramsey County sheriff civilian officer who was arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement last month.
Jamal was picked up by ICE agents on Aug. 29 in Minneapolis and remains at the Freeborn County jail in Albert Lea, where many federal detainees are held. In 2005, Jamal was convicted in federal court in Tennessee on immigration fraud and sentenced to a year of probation.
Attorneys for Jamal, of Minneapolis, filed a petition in U.S. District Court of Minnesota asking a judge to immediately review the legality of Jamal’s detention. A temporary restraining order seeks to stop ICE from sending him to another country without full due process.
“To be perfectly clear: the United States government is legally and permanently barred from deporting my client, Omar Jamal, to Somalia,” said Abdiqani Jabane, Jamal’s lead counsel, on Wednesday. “This is not a matter of administrative discretion; it is a final, binding order from a U.S. immigration court.”
An immigration judge in 2005 granted Jamal “withholding of removal” to Somalia after finding his life or freedom would be threatened there, according to Jabane, who added the decision was upheld in 2011.
“This form of protection is mandatory and permanent,” he said. “It means the government cannot send him to Somalia under any circumstances unless a court overturns that order, which has not happened.”
Since Somalia is legally off the table, ICE has spent over a decade trying to send Jamal to Canada, which has refused to give him a travel document, said Nico Ratkowski, Jabane’s co-counsel.
“Basically, the only thing they can do is they could theoretically deport him to a third country, if they’re willing to accept him,” Ratkowski said. “But, in reality, that’s never happening.”
If Canada wants to give Jamal a travel document, Ratkowski said, ICE is “absolutely allowed to deport him there. But if they want to try to deport him to Uganda, an immigration judge should get to review whether or not that’s actually safe.”
Applied in Canada, U.S.
According to a 2003 federal indictment, Jamal applied for refugee status after arriving in Toronto in 1989 at age 16 and was granted immigrant status two years later. He then failed to disclose his Canadian immigrant status when he applied for asylum in Memphis in 1998.
Jamal was indicted and arrested in 2003, when he was the executive director of the now-defunct Somali Justice Advocacy Center in St. Paul and an outspoken critic of government efforts to deport Somali refugees to their war-torn homeland. He was found guilty of six counts of immigration fraud, and at risk of deportation.
Jamal’s arrest in Minneapolis was caught on video by the conservative news website Newsmax, which was on a ride-along with the ICE St. Paul field office. A portion of the Newsmax report was later shared on Homeland Security’s X account.
The Department of Homeland Security soon released a statement that said Jamal’s “rap sheet” also includes assault and a court ordered restraining order from his wife and children.
Jabane disputes that claim, saying Jamal told him the assault allegation and restraining order were dismissed. Court records show his criminal history in Minnesota is made up of traffic violations.
Law enforcement work
Jamal has worked with law enforcement, raised a family and remained in full compliance with the law, Jabane said; his arrest “shocked a community that knows him not as a danger, but as a bridge-builder.”
Jamal, who joined the Ramsey County Sheriff’s Office as a civilian community service officer in 2020, also has the backing of Sheriff Bob Fletcher. At the request of Jabane, Fletcher provided an affidavit in which he said he supports a request for Jamal’s release under supervision.
“In my experience, Mr. Jamal has demonstrated professionalism and a commitment to community well-being,” the affidavit read. “I have never known him to pose a threat to public safety. On the contrary, he has often acted as a stabilizing presence and a mediator in complex situations.”