MN Gears Up for Protest Despite Cold 01/23 06:18
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- A vast network of labor unions, progressive
organizations and clergy has been urging Minnesotans to stay away from work,
school and stores Friday to protest against immigration enforcement in the
state.
"We really, really want I.C.E. to leave Minnesota, and they're not going to
leave Minnesota unless there's a ton of pressure on them," said Kate Havelin of
Indivisible Twin Cities, one of the more than 100 groups that is mobilizing.
"They shouldn't be roaming any streets in our country just the way they are
now."
The Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul have seen daily protests since
Renee Good was fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
officer during an operation on Jan. 7. Federal law enforcement officers have
surged in the area for weeks and have repeatedly squared off with community
members and activists who track their movements online and in streets.
On Thursday, a prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people
involved in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a Sunday
service at a Minnesota church were arrested.
Vice President JD Vance visited Minneapolis to meet with ICE officials. He
said repeatedly that he believed the fraught situation in Minneapolis would
improve upon better cooperation from state and local officials, and he
encouraged protests to remain peaceful.
Friday's mobilization was planned as the largest coordinated protest action
to date, including a march in downtown Minneapolis despite dangerously cold
temperatures that the National Weather Service forecast in the single to double
digits below zero (-20 to -30 degrees Celsius).
While organizations have asked participants to prepare for the cold, Havelin
compared the presence of immigration enforcement to just such winter weather
warnings.
"Minnesotans understand that when we're in a snow emergency ... we all have
to respond and it makes us do things differently," she said. "And what's
happening with ICE in our community, in our state, means that we can't respond
as business as usual."
More than a hundred small businesses in the Twin Cities, largely coffee
shops and restaurants, said they would close in solidarity or donate part of
their profits, organizers said.
Ethnic businesses especially have lost sales during enforcement surges as
both workers and customers stay away fearing they would be detained.
But some are deciding to close anyway, preferring to take a stance in
solidarity rather than the "unscheduled interruption" of having agents
apprehend staff, said Luis Argueta of Unidos MN, a civil rights group.
Many schools were planning to be closed for a variety of reasons. The
University of Minnesota, which has about 50,000 students enrolled, said there
would be no in-person classes because of the extreme cold warning, and the St.
Paul public school district said there would no classes for the same reason.
Minneapolis Public Schools were also scheduled to be closed Friday "for a
teacher record keeping day."
Clergy planned to join the march as well as hold prayer services and
fasting, according to a delegation of representatives of faith traditions
ranging from Buddhist to Jewish, Lutheran to Muslim.
Bishop Dwayne Royster, leader of the progressive organization Faith in
Action, arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday from Washington, D.C.
"We want ICE out of Minnesota," he said. "We want them out of all the cities
around the country where they're exercising extreme overreach."
Royster said at least 50 of his network's faith-based organizers from around
the U.S. were joining in the protest.
About 10 faith leaders were planning to travel to Minnesota from Los Angeles
while others from the same group planned a solidarity rally in California, said
one of the organizers there.
"It was a very harrowing experience," said the Rev. Jennifer Gutierrez of
the large enforcement operation in Los Angeles last year. "We believe God is on
the side of migrants."
