By Myrka Zambrano and Mira Altobell-Resendez

Minneapolis, MN – On October 28, members of the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) held a rally outside Minneapolis City Hall, demanding stronger protections for immigrant communities. The demonstration culminated in a sit-in at Mayor Jacob Frey’s office, where 11 MIRAC members and supporters refused to leave until the mayor publicly committed to supporting their Real Sanctuary Now campaign.

The campaign calls for a significant overhaul of Minneapolis’s current “separation ordinance” – a law meant to prohibit collaboration between city employees and federal immigration enforcement agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). The existing ordinance is insufficient and has repeatedly failed to protect immigrants and the Minneapolis community from federal overreach.

Minneapolis, MN – On October 16, the Minnesota Immigrant Rights Action Committee (MIRAC) invited the leading Minneapolis mayoral candidates to a press conference to explain how they will protect the city from violent overreach by ICE and other federal agencies. Candidates Senator Omar Fateh, DeWayne Davis and Jazz Hampton all attended and spoke. Invitations were sent to Mayor Jacob Frey and Brenda Short, who did not attend the event.

This November Minneapolis residents will once again vote for the next mayor of Minneapolis. Incumbent Mayor Jacob Frey has long been a darling of landlords, business owners and the owning class in our city. Frey not only won the last mayoral election but was voted in under a “Strong Mayor” charter amendment, expanding his sweeping powers over the Minneapolis Police Department to all other departments in the city.