Sights and Sounds at the Clergy-Led Airport Protest

• “Delta Delta you can’t hide, we can see your ICE-y side”
• “The people, united, will never be defeated”
• “No secret police”  
• “No decent human has a heart made of ice”

These are some of the messages shared on signs outside the Minneapolis-Saint Paul airport Friday, in below zero weather. The protest was led largely by clergy members, before three busloads of them — about 100 — were arrested peacefully by local police.

Someone held up a sign of Renee Good’s words to Jonathan Ross, “I’m not mad at you.”

Others had “Abducted” signs with pictures and names of people detained unlawfully.

Before being arrested, after two hours in the subzero weather, the clergy sang songs with non-clergy protestors, prayed, and shared stories of those who have been abducted by ICE. When Bloomington police arrived to make the arrests, the people who had been prepared for arrest — supported by other protestors who faced them in support — knelt and waited for their turn to be put on a bus. Local police (no ICE agents were involved) helped them up off of their knees one by one as they indicated they were being arrested. 

The airport protest was an extension of the statewide shutdown ICE Out of Minnesota: A Day of Truth & Freedom, that also led to tens of thousands of protestors peacefully marching in downtown Minneapolis, as well as an economic boycott that led to many businesses, restaurants, and schools being closed. [See related photo gallery to come.]

The clergy and community members at the airport called on airlines companies — particularly Delta and Signature Aviation — to stand with Minnesotans in calling for ICE to immediately end its surge in the state. Attention also was given this week at Target, Home Depot, Enterprise, and Hilton for silently enabling ICE action to impact its customers and employees. Signature provides logistical support for ICE operations, which this week included sending two preschool-aged children to a Texas detention center, among other youth detainees)

Airport protestors called for the officer who killed Renee Good to be held legally accountable, publicly called for Congress to stop funding ICE, and continue to ask local companies to protect its employees and customers from agents.

Some of the clergy who traveled to Minnesota to join in the protest included Rev. Mariann Budde, an Episcopal bishop of Washington, D.C., who gained national attention last year when she addressed President Trump directly during a prayer service for his inauguration, calling on him to have mercy on transgender children and immigrant families. As Budde told UU World, “I am keenly aware that what is happening here is happening across the country. I feel it is important for us to have a national witness.” The story noted that clergy had arrived in Minnesota from places including Florida and upstate New York, and included activists from Jewish and Sikh traditions.

Stories of the Abducted

An estimated 2,000 people have been deported through MSP, and many people who work at MSP have been abducted by ICE while at work or commuting to and from the airport. Clergy members shared stories of those who were abducted by ICE while at work or commuting to and from the airport.

• “I want to talk about Luis, who is a father and a man of great faith, who was about to self-deport March but the government came in, took his money, and deported him anyway. We are here because we believe that we are to do justice, love, kindness, and love humbly with our God. We pray for Luis.”
• “Let’s hear your prayers for Douglas, a hard-working janitor who leads his co-workers in this airport. He was taken from this airport and put on a plane. We are here to support our neighbors standing in the love of Jesus Christ, who loves us all, who welcomes especially the children. Our children are not okay in Minnesota. Our children are afraid, they’re being tear gassed, they’re being harassed, they’re being lied about, they’re being put onto planes and sent to prisons. Minnesota, we care about our children in the same love of Christ who welcomes all the children. We pray that ICE will take off their masks and embrace the joy and love of community that is waiting for them. They do not have to be here terrorizing our children.”
• “We pray for Bruce — a janitor who was taken while leaving work. We remember 1 Corinthians 12: ‘That we are all one body, and that when one part of the body suffers we all suffer.’ We demand that Delta stand with us as a body, care for their workers and protect them, and use their voice together, with us. And all God’s people said ‘Amen!’”
• “Johnny is 18 year old. He attends a public high school in Saint Paul. He also worked at the airport for a little over a year. Thankfully, after being abducted and detained, he was released to his desperate parents, who also work in the airport. Let us pray: ‘Precious and holy God, we lift up this family. We thank you for reuniting them. We ask God that all children and all people who have been abducted will be reunited. In the name of your son Jesus, amen.’”
• “We pray for Diamond, who was a janitor leaving work. Let us pray: ‘God you call us to practice mercy in the face of brutality. In the face of what we are experiencing in our own neighborhoods, God, come near, be near to us. Comfort those who are most afflicted. Empower the rest of us. Amen.”
• “I’m here today to bring prayer to Wilson, who worked at the airport for just over a year. He is a proud father of his daughter. If you’ll join me now in a prayerful moment: Your spirit of love and liberation, please hold Wilson and his family and everyone else who has experienced this occupation and violence in your arms, and let us know that we will all be together and liberated when we all stand together, and liberate one another. Amen.”
• “We lift up Pedro, a janitor who helped his sister, who is unable to work, and was detained. He decided to self-deport because he could not take the conditions at the detention center in Texas. Let us pray: ‘Dear God, be with all those families who are separated. Bring them together, help them please.’”
• “I am praying for Yusuf, a Nigerian migrant and father. Hear these words from the law of Moses in the Book of Leviticus: ‘As for the foreigner who dwells in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The foreigner who resides in your land shall be to you as one of your own citizens. You shall love the foreigner in your land, as you love yourself. I am the Lord your God.’”
• “We pray for Mario, a 20-year-old janitor who has his work permit and has been in this country for over two years. He was taken going to work, at Target in Stillwater. We rely on God’s power of sacrificial love to transform our enemies into friends.”

Messages of Faith and Direct Action

One clergy member said: “On the day that Jesus was coming into Jerusalem, a day we call Palm Sunday, some encouraged him to be quiet, about the things his community was saying about how people should be treated, and who would be included, and what love looks like. He said, ‘If we are silent, and my disciples are silent, even the stones will cry out.’ Friends, the stones are crying out. We’ve been silent for too long, and companies like Delta, like Signature, like Minnesota corporations, are choosing silence because they’re afraid of not profiting. It’s time for this to stop. As a united faith community in Minnesota, we hear the cries of our neighbors, we see our kids afraid to go to school. We will stand with them.”

Another read from the “Letter From a Birmingham Jail,” by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.: “The dark shadow of a deep disappointment settles upon us. We had no alternative except to prepare for direct action, whereby we would present our very bodies as a means of laying our case before the conscience of the local and the national community. … We started having workshops on nonviolence and repeatedly asked ourselves the questions: ‘Are you able to accept the blows without retaliating? Are you able to endure the ordeal of jail?’ … Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue.”

Retired minister Rev. Kate Tucker, formerly of First Universalist Church of Minneapolis

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