By Montana Hirsch and Mikael Pensec

Minneapolis, MN – On October 24, more than 60 protesters lined Lake Street to demand an end to ICE and police terror. The protest was organized by the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee and co-hosted by the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice to connect the violence inflicted on the community by both the police and ICE.

As threats of a second ICE surge loom, with the beginnings of increased ICE sightings reported from community rapid response groups, the people of Minnesota show that they will fight back harder – they have fought militantly against ICE before and will do so again.

The protest was held on Lake Street in the heart of South Minneapolis’ immigrant community. Up and down lake street supportive honks were heard from passing cars as protesters chanted, “When immigrants are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!”

Jana Williams spoke about a recent win in the fight for justice for her niece Allison Lussier. Allison Lussier was murdered two years ago, and her case was neglected by the Minneapolis Police Department. Only two days before the protest, and after years of her family and community members fighting for justice, a murder charge was finally filed in her case.

Williams stated, “The other day when I sat across from the six women from the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office. They sat across the table from me, telling me that we were finally getting Chuck Foss charged. And I had a sigh of relief; I can maybe exhale. And I said, ‘Do you know what MPD did? They surrounded me and us with armored vehicles.’ They said yes, we did know that. Shame on you! You were willing to harm us, arrest us, tear gas us, put us behind bars, but you were not willing to do this with violent criminals!”

Williams urged the crowd to continue to put pressure on Mayor Frey to hold all the officers involved accountable.

Alissa Washington, representing the Twin Cities Coalition for Justice, told protesters, “My fiancé, Cornelius Jackson, has been incarcerated for 20 years. My family is fighting for answers about Stephen Washington’s death in prison while also living with my uncle’s deportation. These struggles meet in my family and in so many others. That is why our solidarity reaches across prison walls and borders, including to Palestine and people resisting war and occupation. Every family deserves safety, dignity, and a future together.”

Greg King, representing the North STAR Alliance said: “Nobody in our community, regardless of their immigration status, should be hunted down and assaulted or shot in the street for their perceived immigration status. There is no reason on earth that we should not be giving immigration agents guns to enforce civil immigration law. And by the same token, we should not be giving law enforcement officers in our state, who have guns and a history of racial profiling ending in fatal encounters in our streets, permission to start asking people for their papers.”

The protest ended with a speech from Aizar Cabrera of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee.

“We immigrants know about scary times. We are living in exile,” said Cabrera, “but make no mistake, it did not start in January of 2025, and it has not ended yet. We are living in a state of terror. The immigration enforcement machine has been grinding through our communities for decades, across every administration.” The speech ended with a call to Governor Walz to make Minnesota a sanctuary state.

MIRAC will continue to pressure Governor Walz to take executive action and ensure that Minnesota is prepared for another onslaught of federal terror. MIRAC demands that Walz issue a sanctuary state executive order that would ban 287(g) agreements and any type of collaboration between local law enforcement and ICE, keep ICE out of sensitive locations and off state property, outlaw secret police, and more. MIRAC will also continue to support the fight for community control of the police in Minneapolis.

#MinneapolisMN #MN #ImmigrantRights #InJusticeSystem #MIRAC #TCC4J