MINNEAPOLIS — Some 200 people protested in front of Signature Aviation at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport Dec. 3. The federal government is utilizing Signature to transport immigrants arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents here to detention centers in other parts of the country. The action was sponsored by the Service Employees International Union, UNITE HERE, the Minnesota AFL-CIO and others.
The Donald Trump administration recently targeted Minneapolis-St. Paul for immigration sweeps — especially targeting Somalis — sending some 100 officers and agents into the area.
Greg Nammacher, president of SEIU Local 26 and chair of the rally, told protesters it is crucial for labor to take a stand. “Already, two of our union members have been swept up in these raids,” he said.
“These deportations create terror in our neighborhoods and are ripping families apart,” said Geof Paquette, an organizer with UNITE HERE Local 17. “They do nothing but sow fear and anxiety in our community. We’ve got to demand better.”
After the rally, participants marched to the nearby airport rider-service lot to extend solidarity to Uber and Lyft drivers, many of whom are East African. They are fighting for airport authorities to provide bathrooms they can use and a place to pray.
“In the Labor Movement, an injury to one is an injury to all. By vilifying our Somali American co-workers and neighbors and threatening military-style raids in Minnesota’s communities, President Trump is attacking our state’s entire Labor Movement,” said a statement issued by Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham in response to Trump’s smears against Minnesota’s Somali American community.
“Union members refuse to let anyone, even the President of the United States, divide us based on what we look like, where we were born, or how we pray.”
Trump calls Somalis ‘garbage’
At a cabinet meeting Dec. 2, Trump said Somalia is “barely a country” and accused refugees in Minnesota of having “ripped off that state for billions of dollars, every year, and they contribute nothing.”
“We don’t want them in our country. Their country stinks,” he went on. “Let them go back to their country and fix it.”
He also attacked 5th District Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, who is a refugee from Somalia, saying, “Ilhan Omar is garbage. She’s garbage. Her friends are garbage.”
Opponents of the rights of immigrants point to a recent welfare fraud investigation here that has led to the conviction of some 60 people, including some of whom are Somali. They use this to buttress their slanders against the whole Somali community.
Minnesota is home to the largest emigre Somali population in the world. Most fled from a devastating civil war in the 1990s. The vast majority — 87% — are now American citizens.
Karmel Mall, a shopping center filled with Somali-owned and operated businesses, displayed flyers on its windows and doors Dec. 3 saying ICE agents will not be allowed entrance without a warrant.
“Today and yesterday, the neighborhood was stormed with ICE agents,” developer and mall owner Basim Sabri told the media. “In fact, my security guards have to ask them to move out of the lot.
“They stop people obviously just based on their look,” he said, “not based on a piece of paper provided to the agent to execute by the court.”
Imams, priests, rabbis and other religious leaders came together at the Umatul Islam Center in Minneapolis Dec. 4 in a show of support for the Somali neighbors.
The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas put out a statement saying it “condemns President Trump’s remarks referring to Minnesota’s Somali community as ‘garbage.’”
“Across history and in our own time,” it said, “treating human beings as ‘garbage’ clears the psychological path toward violence.”