How to Support Minnesota in this Emergency

A resource sheet from friends in Minnesota

Below is a resource sheet written by trusted colleagues who live in Minneapolis. Here is the google docs version. Please share widely.

Dear Friends:

We are six weeks into the federal occupation of Minnesota. ICE raids here in Minneapolis continue nonstop. St. Paul is also getting hard hit, as are other parts of the state. In addition to the over 3,000 heavily armed agents on the ground, the federal government is also inflicting economic pain by weaponizing childcare and SNAP benefits.

Thousands of people across the state remain mobilized and responding in real time, trying to keep our communities safe, fed and cared for. MONARCA, our Rapid Response network has now trained 26,000 people to observe, document and de-escalate in response to ICE presence. MONARCA’s hotline is now fielding 1 call a minute. Many local businesses have their doors locked and let customers in one by one, parents have organized patrols for drop off, pick up and recess. Minneapolis public schools now have an online option for students afraid to attend, which at some schools is 50%. One teacher reported yesterday that ICE raided the home of a student while they were participating in class online. As Minneapolis and St. Paul batten down, kidnappings at bus stops, gas stations, and street corners are becoming more and more indiscriminate. We know over 100 Karen Refugees (that is people with legal refugee status) have been kidnapped and taken to detention in Texas. At least 3 Lakota people were detained and are now missing, there are additional reports of Indigenous people being kidnapped. Many citizens and green card holders have been detained, some have been brutalized.

While immigrant communities and people of color are most heavily impacted, this is no longer about immigration, it is about putting down the resistance to authoritarian control in one city and state.

A broad eco-system coalition of labor, faith, and grassroots organizations is coming together to build towards a statewide shutdown on January 23rd. No school, no work, no shopping. ICE OUT. While our defensive infrastructure is powerful and inspiring, we also know this won’t end until we push on the pillars whose silence or cooperation is holding up the occupation: hotels housing ICE, rental car companies, retailers such as Target who have not taken steps to protect their employees. The strike is intended to force everyone to take a position calling for ICE to go. We know that some pillars are wobbling - we are hearing of dissension within ICE and Homeland security, 10 people total from the Department of Justice resigned after they were asked to investigate Renee Good and her wife, rather than the ICE shooter. For business leaders, even if they are silent now, they are feeling the economic impact on the city and its workforce. We need them to speak out.

The struggle here in Minneapolis has national repercussions and will shape the outcome of the attempt at authoritarian consolidation. We do not believe they keep sending more agents because they think they are winning. We hope that folks around the country will support us in this moment, not just with money, but with parallel action through Jan 23rd and beyond. The funding asks below are in keeping with both the crisis and the opportunity we have here in Minnesota.

Here are critical ways to support Minnesota:

If you have existing relationships with organizations in Minnesota, now would be a great time to offer unsolicited rapid response funding. Every immigrant organization and grassroots group in the Twin Cities is responding to this moment. Let’s make it as easy for them as possible.

In addition:

1) Support MONARCA

MONARCA is a critical piece of rapid response infrastructure, run by UNIDOS MN. MONARCA has now trained 26,000 Minnesotans to observe, document, and respond to ICE presence in Minnesota. This shared curriculum, across such a large group of people, has been key to making Minnesotans’ response so disciplined and powerful. Trainings across the state continue to reach capacity each day. MONARCA’s website is temporarily down due to a cyber attack, but should be back soon.

How to give:

For donations up to $5,000, please give online: UNIDOS MN
For wire transfer information please email: Operations@unidos-mn.org

2) Support Legal and Security Needs

Movement leaders and organizations in Minnesota are facing intense and escalating security and legal risks. Leaders and organizations are experiencing online harassment, cyber attacks, and in-person intimidation. Solidaire Network’s Movement Protection Fund, which was created precisely for moments like this, is working closely with organizers on the ground in Minnesota and is able to move funds quickly. We are grateful to Solidaire for creating this critical infrastructure and managing this need at a time when organizers in Minnesota are completely occupied.

How to give:

Donate to the Movement Protection Fund. You can designate the Movement Protection Fund on the donation page or when donating by check or wire transfer.

3) Support Rapid Response Organizing (via MVP’s Rapid Response Fund)

At the request of partners in Minnesota, Movement Voter Project has created a special Rapid Response Fund to support organizing in this immediate period. In addition to the broad widespread defense of neighbors and communities, and mutual aid to support communities that have lost income, organizers in Minnesota are building toward a large statewide day of action on January 23rd, with a mass demonstration, school walkouts and direct action. Pressure campaigns are building to target corporations that are benefitting from ICE contracts (hotels, rental cars, etc.) or that continue to allow ICE activity in their businesses (Target, Home Depot, etc.). To get ICE OUT of Minnesota we need to move the institutional “pillars” that are upholding this occupation. All funds will be regranted to Minnesota partners – in a strategic and ecumenical way – with the guidance of Minnesota organizers.

How to give:
Donate via Movement Voter Project (c4) or Movement Voter Fund (c3) — giving information is here. Please make sure to include “Rapid Response” in the memo line and/or in your correspondence to let your MVP liaison know that the funds are incoming for this purpose. If you have questions and don’t know who to talk to, you can also email: advisor@movement.vote.

4) Support Local Minnesota Organizations and Mutual Aid

If you are looking to support additional organizations, or smaller, hyper-local mutual aid networks in neighborhoods across the Twin Cities, this website created by an Minnesotans has extensive information and is updated regularly: StandWithMinnesota.com

Lastly, now is the time to connect with or create a local immigrant defense network in your community. Get trained, connect with your neighbors. We don’t want this to come to your home, that is why we are standing strong in Minnesota now, but if it does, better to be prepared. Even with this overwhelming federal invasion, there is so much joy, so much solidarity, so much courage on display across our communities. There are so, so many more of us than them–we keep us safe.

Abrazos!

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Note: I am adding a few more organizations recommended to me by Barni Qaasim, the Communications Director at Solidaire Network. Barni is Somali and has connections to the Somali community in Minneapolis, a primary target of ICE and the Trump Administration. She recommends:

• Ayada Leads empowers African Diaspora women in the Twin Cities and is responding to the ICE emergency in Minnesota with community-led protection and care. They are offering know-your-rights trainings for immigrants and refugees, training community members to observe and document ICE activity, participating in street mobilizations, documenting grassroots resistance and creating spaces for art and healing.

• The newly founded Somali American Legal Fund, which brings together leaders from across the Somali Community, needs 150K to meet immediate needs, provide legal services within the community, bond money to people detained, and financial relief to small businesses in the community who have had to close, or are seeing a 90% drop-off in business.