Minneapolis, MN – On Tuesday, July 29, at 7 a.m., the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) held a protest outside the employee driveway entrance of the Whipple Federal Building to denounce the kidnapping of immigrants by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) after they leave their scheduled immigration court hearings.

MIRAC joined the Interfaith Coalition on Migration (ICOM) and others at their weekly vigil. ICOM has been holding a vigil there every Tuesday at 7:30 a.m. for years – after a 2017 civil disobedience organized by MIRAC that blocked deportation vans for several hours.

MIRAC members have recently witnessed multiple instances of these kidnappings at court while doing court accompaniment and observation many times in the past month. This was MIRAC’s second recent action responding to these kidnappings. They demand: an end to ICE arrests in the courthouse, no time limits in the waiting room, the option for all immigration court appearances to be held online, and no dismissals of immigration cases over objections.

Around 50 protesters gathered outside the employee entrance, lining the road with signs and banners, and chanting as employees pulled into the parking lot to report to work.

“You don’t treat human beings this way!” Alvin Sheng, a MIRAC member who has recently participated in immigration court accompaniment shouted to the crowd, “This is why MIRAC is here today: no one should live in fear of being grabbed by thugs out of the blue, and even more so, when they go to a hospital, school, house of worship, or courthouse. Rallies like these have an impact. These ICE agents know that we have eyes on them!”

The crowd also heard from members of ICOM who spoke about their experiences supporting immigrant communities inside and outside of immigration court and invited the crowd to join their weekly Tuesday vigils.

Near the end of the rally, an ICE van pulled into the employee lot. As it drove past, protesters met the van and its driver with loud and angry chants of “Fuck ICE, chinga la migra!”

The court appears to be colluding with ICE to quickly deport large numbers of immigrants using the expanded “expedited removal proceedings” that Trump ordered on his first day in office. The court kidnappings are a clear effort to meet the deportation quotas demanded by the Trump administration.

MIRAC will continue to pressure the federal courthouse to adhere to its demands, and to pressure the local government to strengthen the separation ordinance in the city of Minneapolis, which states that the Minneapolis Police Department cannot aid ICE.

When immigrant rights are under attack, what do we do? Stand up, fight back!

#MinneapolisMN #MN #ImmigrantRights #MIRAC #ICE #ICOM #Trump

Elk River, MN – Immigrant rights activists mobilized to the Sherburne County commissioners' meeting at 9:00 in the morning Tuesday, December 3 in Elk River, a town of around 20,000 people an hour northwest of Minneapolis. They held signs throughout the meeting, and several of them spoke passionately during the public comment section of the agenda, appealing to the commissioners to stop participating in and profiting from immigrant detention in the Sherburne County Jail.

The Sherburne County Jail has a contract for 300 beds to detain immigrants for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), making it the largest ICE detention facility in Minnesota. From their 300 beds, the county earns around $10.9 million a year – profiting from separating immigrant families as part of the Trump administration’s massive immigrant deportation apparatus. Not content with that, Sherburne County officials have proposed to expand to 500 immigrant beds in the jail, to make even more money from the separation of immigrant families.

The mobilization to the commissioners’ meeting was initiated by Sanctuary & Resistance to Injustice (SARI), an organization based in Elk River that holds a weekly protest outside the Sherburne County Jail and is committed to ending the detention of immigrants there. SARI members pledged to keep coming back until county officials stop using their jail to detain immigrants. Also present were members of the Interfaith Coalition on Immigration (ICOM), Asamblea de Derechos Civiles, and the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC).

Daniel Romero, a member of SARI, ICOM and MIRAC who spoke at the commissioners’ meeting said, “Sanctuary and Resistance to Injustice (SARI) is a faith-based community organization, and many of us are motivated to take action to advance immigrants' rights based on our faith values. Many Sherburne County Board members are also people of faith. Today, SARI members asked the County Board to choose between worshiping God or mammon. [money]. There can be no immigration enforcement – deportation – without the immigrant detention eagerly provided by the Sherburne County jail. The Sherburne County jail and ICE are one in the same, there is no difference.”

The movement to end ICE detention in Sherburne County is part of a growing statewide movement coalescing around a sanctuary state campaign to stop ICE detention and separation of families statewide.

#ElkRiverMN #PeoplesStruggles #MIRAc #ICOM #SARI