Minnesota gears up for a mass anti-immigration enforcement protest despite the dangerous cold

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A vast network of labor unions, progressive organizations and clergy has been urging Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and stores Friday to protest against immigration enforcement in the state.

Minneapolis and St. Paul have seen daily protests since Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Jan. 7. Federal law enforcement officers have surged in the Twin Cities for weeks and have repeatedly squared off with community members and activists who track their movements.

“We really, really want ICE to leave Minnesota, and they’re not going to leave Minnesota unless there’s a ton of pressure on them,” said Kate Havelin of Indivisible Twin Cities, one of the more than 100 groups that is mobilizing. “They shouldn’t be roaming any streets in our country just the way they are now.”

On Thursday, a prominent civil rights attorney and at least two other people were arrested for their involvement in an anti-immigration enforcement protest that disrupted a Sunday service at a church in St. Paul. They remained in federal custody Friday morning.

Vice President JD Vance meanwhile visited Minneapolis to meet with ICE officials and address reporters. He encouraged protesters to remain peaceful and urged city and state officials to cooperate with federal forces to ease the fraught situation in Minneapolis.

Organizers hope Friday’s mobilization will be the largest coordinated protest action to date, with a march in downtown Minneapolis planned for Friday afternoon. The National Weather Service warned of dangerously cold weather, and early Friday, the temperature in Minneapolis was minus 21 with a wind chill of minus 40 (minus 29 Celsius with a wind chill of minus 40 Celsius).

Havelin compared the presence of immigration enforcement to the winter weather warnings.

“Minnesotans understand that when we’re in a snow emergency … we all have to respond and it makes us do things differently,” she said. “And what’s happening with ICE in our community, in our state, means that we can’t respond as business as usual.”

More than a hundred small businesses in the Twin Cities, largely coffee shops and restaurants, said they would close in solidarity or donate part of their profits, organizers said.

Somali businesses especially have lost sales during the enforcement surge as workers and customers, fearing detention, stay at home.

Some businesses are choosing to close in solidarity with the protesters rather than the “unscheduled interruption” of having agents apprehend staff, said Luis Argueta of Unidos MN, a civil rights group.

Many schools were planning to close Friday, but cited different reasons. The University of Minnesota and the St. Paul public school district said there would be no in-person classes because of the extreme cold. Minneapolis Public Schools were scheduled to be closed “for a teacher record keeping day.”

Clergy planned to join the march as well as hold prayer services and fasting, according to a delegation of representatives of faith traditions including Buddhist, Jewish, Lutheran and Muslim.

Bishop Dwayne Royster, leader of the progressive organization Faith in Action, arrived in Minnesota on Wednesday from Washington, D.C.

“We want ICE out of Minnesota,” he said. “We want them out of all the cities around the country where they’re exercising extreme overreach.”

Royster said at least 50 of his network’s faith-based organizers were joining the protest. About 10 were traveling from Los Angeles while others from the same group planned a solidarity rally in California, said one of the organizers there.

“It was a very harrowing experience,” said the Rev. Jennifer Gutierrez of the large immigration enforcement operation in Los Angeles last year. “We believe God is on the side of migrants.”

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Associated Press journalists Jack Brook and Sarah Raza in Minneapolis, and Tiffany Stanley in Washington contributed.