Police arrested about 100 clergy demonstrating against immigration enforcement at Minnesota’s largest airport Friday, January 23.
Minneapolis: Police arrested about 100 clergy demonstrating against immigration enforcement at Minnesota’s largest airport Friday, January 23, and thousands gathered in downtown Minneapolis despite Arctic temperatures to protest the Trump administration’s crackdown.
The protests are part of a broader movement against President Donald Trump‘s increased immigration enforcement across the state, with labour unions, progressive organizations and clergy urging Minnesotans to stay away from work, school and even shops.
Metropolitan Airports Commission spokesman Jeff Lea said the clergy were issued misdemeanour citations of trespassing and failure to comply with a peace officer and were then released.
They were arrested outside the main terminal at the Minneapolis-St Paul International Airport because they went beyond the reach of their permit for demonstrating and disrupted airline operations, he said.
Rev Mariah Furness Tollgaard of Hamline Church in St Paul said police ordered them to leave but she and others decided to stay and be arrested to show support for migrants, including members of her congregation who are afraid to leave their homes. She planned to go back to her church after her brief detention to hold a prayer vigil.
“We cannot abide living under this federal occupation of Minnesota,” Tollgaard said.
The Rev Elizabeth Barish Browne travelled from Cheyenne, Wyoming, to participate in the rally in downtown Minneapolis, where the high temperature was minus 9 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 23 degrees Celsius) despite a bright sun.
“What’s happening here is clearly immoral,” the Unitarian Universalist minister said. “It’s definitely chilly, but the kind of ice that’s dangerous to us is not the weather.”
Protesters have gathered daily in the Twin Cities since Jan 7, when 37-year-old mother of three Renee Good was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.
