By Heather Schlitz, Jonathan Allen and Tim Evans
MINNEAPOLIS, Jan 23 (Reuters) – Local police arrested dozens of clergy members who sang hymns and prayed as they knelt on a road at Minneapolis-Saint Paul International Airport as part of a day of protests and walkouts on Friday against U.S. President Donald Trump’s deployment of thousands of immigration enforcement officers in the Twin Cities.
The protest was part of an “ICE OUT!” day of action, with organizers and participants saying scores of businesses across Minnesota closed for the day and workers headed to street protests and marches in what they described as a general strike.
The protest came after senior Trump administration officials called for cooperation with local Democratic leaders to calm tension after weeks of sometimes violent confrontations between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and protesters opposed to Trump’s crackdown on immigrants.
Ahead of an afternoon rally downtown in frigid weather, hundreds of people headed to the state’s main airport. Organizers said their demands included legal accountability for the ICE agent who fatally shot Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, in her car this month as she monitored ICE activities.
PROTEST ORGANIZERS SAY 100 CLERGY ARRESTED
They ignored commands to clear the road by officers from local police departments, who arrested and zip-tied dozens of the protesters, who did not resist, before putting them onto buses. Reuters observed dozens of arrests, and organizers said about 100 clergy members were arrested.
Faith in Minnesota, a nonprofit advocacy group that helped organize the protest, said the clergy were also calling attention to airport and airline workers who they said had been detained by ICE at work. The group asked that airline companies “stand with Minnesotans in calling for ICE to immediately end its surge in the state.”
Across the state, bars, restaurants and shops were shuttering for the day, according to organizers and participants. Many Minneapolis workers were heading downtown for a march and rally, intended by organizers to be the largest display of opposition yet to the federal government’s surge, which Mayor Jacob Frey and other Democrats have likened to an invasion.
Miguel Hernandez, a community organizer who closed his business, Lito’s Bakery in Minneapolis for the day, put on four layers, wool socks and a parka before heading out to protest.
“If this were any other time, no one would’ve gone out,” he said, bracing for the weather. “For us, it’s a message of solidarity with our community, that we see the pain and misery that’s going on in the streets, and it’s a message to our politicians that they have to do more than grandstand on the news.”
TRUMP TIES CRACKDOWN PARTLY TO FRAUD ALLEGATIONS
Trump, a Republican, launched the Minnesota crackdown in part in response to fraud allegations against some members of the state’s large community of people of Somali origin. He has called Somali immigrants “garbage” and said they are to be removed from the country as part of his effort to expel more immigrants, including some admitted into the country to seek asylum and other lawful residents, than any of his predecessors.
Minnesota residents have responded with anger, making noise in the streets day and night with whistles and musical instruments. Some agents and protesters have yelled obscenities at each other, and agents have deployed tear gas and flash-bang grenades to scatter crowds. The Trump administration says some protesters have harassed agents and obstructed their work.
Senior Trump administration officials have gone to Minneapolis to defend ICE, with Vice President JD Vance telling reporters during his Thursday visit the administration is “doing everything we can to lower the temperature.”
Patty O’Keefe, a 36-year-old nonprofit worker, said she would be among those willing to join Friday’s march and “expose ourselves to the elements to demonstrate the level of anger and frustration that we have.”
“We continue to be under siege from the federal government, and it feels like we need to do more because our normal forms of protest and resistance have shown to not be enough yet to really send a strong enough message to Trump,” she said.
The numerous Fortune 500 companies that call Minnesota home – mostly based in the Minneapolis area – have refrained from public statements about the immigration raids. Minneapolis-based Target, which has come under fire in the last year for retreating from its public commitment to diversity policies, has faced more criticism for not speaking out about activity at its stores. State lawmakers have pressed the company for details of its guidance to employees if and when ICE officers show up at stores.
The company declined a request for comment. Reuters also contacted Minnesota-based UnitedHealth, Medtronic, Abbott Laboratories, Best Buy, Hormel, General Mills, 3M and Fastenal. None immediately responded to requests for comment.
(Reporting by Heather Schlitz in Minneapolis and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting Tim Evans in Minneapolis, Anshuman Tripathy, Marian E Sunny, Angela M Christy and Sanskriti Shekhar; Writing by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Donna Bryson and Rod Nickel)
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