MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — Thousands of people have been gathering outside the U.S. Bank Stadium amid subzero temperatures for a march against the federal government’s immigration crackdown.
Organizers were seen handing hand-warmers to demonstrators as they shouted “ICE out,” waved American flags and carried an array of colorful signs calling for ICE to leave their city and for the arrest of the ICE officer who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good on Jan. 7.
In the morning, video posted on social media showed thousands of people gathered outside the Minneapolis airport, forming a picket line so long it spanned the length of the terminal for departing flights. As they all chanted “ICE out” in unison, the action served as a precursor for a statewide “ICE Out” day of protest in the afternoon. Groups, including clergy, immigrant groups and labor unions, had exhorted residents to support the protest and not shop nor attend school or work.
Some businesses across the Twin Cities were closed on Friday and some business owners previously told NBC News they would be attending the rally.
Thousands of protesters gathered in downtown’s The Commons to march toward the Target Center arena on Friday afternoon. Amal Ahmed, 30, was there after leaving work at nearby City Hall. She said she wasn’t expecting the protest to be as large as it was.
“Today is the coldest day of the entire year in Minnesota, and we have the biggest protest to date happening,” she said. “That has to say something. I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Temperatures in Minneapolis were and will remain below zero degrees Fahrenheit on Friday, with a high of minus 9, a low of minus 17 and wind chill values as low as minus 35, according to the National Weather Service.
Mati Hanson, 31, said she was protesting on Friday because she felt that she can as a white person. “A lot of people aren’t leaving their houses…Those are the people I want to support, since they can’t be here,” she said.
Yubi Hassan, 24, who immigrated to the U.S. from Somalia when he was a teenager, was handing out hot tea to protesters in The Commons.
His friend waved a sign from behind him that read “free Somali tea.”
“We realized it’s negative 20 degrees out today, and anybody would appreciate something warm,” said Hassan, who owns a local tea company. He said it was important to be out protesting, despite his fears.
“We have seen this happen before, right? It always starts with one group of people, until it spreads to everybody,” he said. “Today is us, tomorrow it might be somebody else.”
KARE, NBC’s affiliate in Minneapolis, captured video of demonstrators being zip-tied and loaded into yellow school buses by police officers after participating in the airport protests. Organizers told KARE that about 100 people were detained. Airport officials told KARE law enforcement took action after the protest’s “permitted activity went beyond the agreed-upon terms.”
The Trump administration has sent more than 3,000 federal immigration personnel to Minneapolis since December in what the administration has dubbed Operation Metro Surge, resulting in confrontations and clashes with residents opposing the immigration actions.
Over the past six weeks, officers have apprehended more than 3,000 undocumented immigrants, according to the Department of Homeland Security.
In a statement to NBC News Thursday evening, a DHS spokesperson criticized Friday’s protests saying, “The fact that those groups want to shut down Minnesota’s economy, which provides law-abiding American citizens an honest living, to fight for illegal alien murderers, rapists, gang members, pedophiles, drug dealers, and terrorists says everything you need to know.”
Operation Metro Surge came after a YouTube video by right-wing influencer Nick Shirley went viral that alleged massive fraud at child care centers in the state owned by Somali immigrants. The video generated fierce and renewed attention on a yearslong investigation by the Justice Department into an alleged $250 million fraud scheme in Minnesota. The scheme involved some members of Minnesota’s Somali community.
At the protest on Friday, Abdi Hassan, 19, a Somali American who’s been in the U.S. since he was two years old, said that in recent weeks he’s had friends racially profiled by ICE. He takes his ID everywhere he goes, he said, “or I might just be snatched up for no reason…it’s been scary lately. It’s terrifying.”
“We’re not just scams,” he said. “That’s a lot of lies on us.”
The immigration operation has been fiercely criticized by some of the state’s residents and groups and local officials, including Democratic governor, Tim Walz and the Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey. This week, the Justice Department sent subpoenas to Walz, Frey and other state leaders, escalating its investigation into whether they conspired to impede immigration operations.
Tensions flared earlier this month after the fatal shooting of Good, an unarmed U.S. citizen, by ICE officer Jonathan Ross, who federal officials have said was acting in self-defense.
On Thursday, Homeland Security and FBI agents arrested three protesters in connection with a demonstration that interrupted Sunday service at a church in St. Paul. That same day, news broke that four children had been apprehended by immigration authorities in recent weeks, including a 5-year-old boy.
Images of the 5-year-old boy, Liam Conejo Ramos, were plastered to some of protesters signs on Friday downtown. One read, “not bait.” Officials with Ramos’ school district accused federal authorities of using the boy as bait to arrest his parents, which DHS has denied, stating they made “multiple attempts” to get the boy’s mother to take custody of him, but she refused.
“It’s super heartbreaking to know that even a five year old can be placed in detention centers…nobody is safe,” Ahmed said.
Border Patrol and ICE officials said at a press conference on Friday that the father had fled on foot as they were trying to arrest him and had left the boy. Officials have said the father and son have been reunited at the detention facility in Texas.
Matt Lavietes reported from Minneapolis and Nicole Acevedo from New York.
