By Sophie Breen and Montana Hirsch

Minneapolis, MN – On Monday, October 14 over 50 protesters gathered together on Indigenous People’s Day to tell Republican vice presidential nominee JD Vance that he is not welcome in Minneapolis. Vance attended a private fundraiser in Minneapolis the same day, and held a press conference at the burned down Minneapolis former 3rd Precinct police station.

The protest was organized by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) as part of a national week of action called by the Legalization for All Network to stand with Haitian immigrants in the fight for legalization for all, in the face of the intensely racist anti-immigrant rhetoric spewed by right-wing politicians at every turn.

Vance and the Trump administration continuously dehumanize immigrants to fuel their campaign that champions racist inequality above all else. Vance has been a major player in spreading disgusting lies about Haitian immigrants consuming pets in Springfield, Ohio. Since these lies have been popularized, threats and vandalism targeting Springfield immigrants have forced families to shelter at home, many too afraid to send their children to school.

The protest began with chants of “No hate, no fear, immigrants are welcome here!” as the crowd prepared to listen to speeches and hold banners and signs to the honks of supportive cars driving by.

A speaker from the Haiti Justice Committee of Minnesota called out the anti-immigrant lie Vance has been spewing that Haitian immigrants eat dogs and cats. “It was like watching a horror show because we know that it’s a lie.”

She continued: “The empty rhetoric that Trump and JD Vance are pushing regarding Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio is false propaganda due to a lack of sound plans to address serious and difficult issues such as global warming, homelessness, inflation, health care costs, and so forth. Without migrants the economy would be in a dire situation. The hospitality industry, the construction industry, and the agricultural industry rely heavily on the labor of immigrants.”

Alfreda Daniels, a Liberian immigrant and co-founder of the Black Immigrant Collective also spoke to the despicable use of immigrants as scapegoats to the country’s issues and how immigrants must be welcome regardless of how they came here, stating, “When I hear people like Vance and Trump say that people need to come in the right way, tell me, what is the right way? There is no ‘right way.’”

Protesters also heard from Noah Schumacher with Twin Cities Coalition for Justice (TCC4J) about the connections between struggles against oppression around the world and the fight for community control of the police, as, little did the crowd know, JD Vance was telling racist lies in his meeting with the Minneapolis Police Department outside of the former 3rd Precinct around the same time.

Schumacher stated, “Many of us here in the U.S. are so indoctrinated with the myths of how great the American Revolution is, we are never taught about the revolution that was a real leap forward for humanity: the Haitian Revolution. In Twin Cities Coalition for Justice, we see how the struggles for Haiti, Palestine, and across the globe are connected to our struggles here to get community control of the police.”

The protest concluded with a passionate speech from Mari Mansfield with MIRAC in support of legalization for all: “We have to stand up and fight back. We have to fight for immigrants, for the people who walked across the earth to be here, for the people who carried their children on their backs to be here. And to do that, we need legalization for all!”

The protest was led by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) and featured speakers from the Black Immigrant Collective, Haiti Justice Committee of Minnesota, Black Lives Matter, the Minnesota Abortion Action Committee and the MN Anti-War Committee.

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