Hundreds of businesses across the Twin Cities were closed Friday morning as thousands of Minnesotans were expected to participate in a daylong economic blackout to protest the federal immigration crackdown that has roiled their state.
Billed as “A Day of Truth and Freedom,” the event was organized by local faith, labor and community groups who called on residents to abstain from work, school and shopping. Dozens of demonstrations and prayer vigils were scheduled across the metro, with an afternoon rally at Target Center in Minneapolis serving as the centerpiece to the day’s events.
Organizers say more than 700 businesses pledged to close for the day, including dozens in greater Minnesota.
“We’re seeing a lot more participation than I think we expected,” said Lisa Erbes, co-leader of Indivisible Twin Cities. “It really has been amazing to see how many businesses — small businesses, medium-sized businesses — are joining us. It shows you how people all across the Twin Cities and the state feel about this.”
The shutdown got a little help from the weather, with sub-zero temperatures prompting many Twin Cities school districts across to cancel classes and forcing St. Paul’s Winter Carnival to postpone its outdoor kick-off event.
Clergy arrested at MSP Airport
The temperature hovered around minus 12 as hundreds of demonstrators gathered at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport about 10 a.m. to protest its use as a hub for flights of ICE detainees out of the state, and to highlight the cases of airport employees who have been arrested or deported by the agency.
Among the protesters was Jamie, a White Bear Lake music teacher who declined to give his last name. He said several students in his district have been deported since ICE activity intensified here in December, and many of their classmates are now afraid to go to school.
“It’s heartbreaking,” he said. “It’s really hard to focus on music when kids are being deported. … I have to be out here.”
Following an hourlong rally in front of Terminal 1, dozens of clergy members wearing their vestments draped over heavy parkas knelt on the roadway to be arrested by police.
Protesters shouted their support for the clergy as they were zip-cuffed and loaded onto a pair of waiting school buses.
The Rev. Jered Weber-Johnson of St. John the Evangelist Episcopal Church in St. Paul, who was among those arrested, said Christians and Jews are called by scripture to “welcome the stranger.”
“I think what we’e seeing stands directly against the core tenets of our faith — the dignity of every human being, loving our neighbors,” he said. “Jesus himself was a migrant who fled for his life.”
The Rev. Leslie Moughty of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Brainerd, Minn., said clergy from all over the state and country traveled to the Twin Cities for Friday’s events.
“We’re witnessing evil and witnessing sin,” she said. “The most vulnerable are being victimized. It’s important to keep showing up.”
Day of Truth and Freedom
The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement have deployed more than 3,000 agents to Minnesota, where their tactics have been condemned by local political leaders, including St. Paul Mayor Kaohly Her.
Protests against the crackdown escalated in the wake of the Jan. 7 shooting death of 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Renee Good by ICE agent Jonathan Ross.
Organizers of the Day of Truth and Freedom issued a list of four demands ahead of Friday’s protest: that ICE leave Minnesota, that Ross be “held legally accountable” for Good’s killing, that Congress halt funding for ICE and investigate the agency, and that businesses “cease economic relations with ICE and refuse ICE entry or using their property for staging grounds.”
St. Paul city council member Nelsie Yang, who represents the city’s East Side, endorsed the shutdown Thursday during a news conference of Asian community members and business owners at Ha Tien Supermarket.
Yang said federal agents have targeted Asian, Somali and Latino residents regardless of citizenship status, pointing to the arrest of a Hmong American man last week in which ICE officers marched ChongLy “Saly” Scott Thao out of his St. Paul home wearing boxer shorts and a blanket.
“ICE agents and this authoritarian Trump regime have wreaked havoc in our cities over and over,” Yang said. “They have used dehumanizing tactics, racial profiling, intimidation, and lawlessness in our cities, and we need them out.”
Erbes said organizers hope the shutdown helps keep the national spotlight on Minnesota and ICE activities in the state.
“We want all Americans to understand what’s happening here and join us in solidarity against what we see as illegal behavior by ICE,” Erbes said. “We need people to see first-hand just how bad it is.”
“We’re not naive in thinking that if we hold one giant protest that it will change the minds of anyone in the (Trump) administration,” she added. “It would be nice if it did, but we’re pretty realistic in our expectations.”
